ATHENS - There are 205 days until a national champion will be determined in Las Vegas.
That’s a long time from now, but it will be here before you think. In that stretch of time Kirby Smart’s UGA Football program will play Tech, Auburn and the Gators. They’ll travel to Tuscaloosa (again). They’ll play the Rebels for the fifth time in four seasons. They’ll host Oklahoma and Missouri; the rest of Georgia’s Big Eight schedule will have to wait for another year.
The Dawgs are one of a hex of teams that are favored to win the national title (Notre Dame, Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State and Texas are the others), so one must consider the location and time that the national title will be determined this year.
Being a contender to win it all isn’t anything new for Georgia under Kirby Smart. One insider I talked with earlier this year told me how close Georgia felt like it is/was to winning it all again. But being close isn’t at all the same thing as lifting the trophy.
Mark Richt can tell you war stories. The cruelty of this sport is that Richt retired without ever winning it all, but Les Miles, Gene Chizik, Ed Orgeron (and maybe or maybe not Dabo?) have won a national title(s).
I don’t believe in luck. It isn’t a real thing. But sports can be cruel.
But sports can be beautiful, too. College football brings that beauty into focus so often. Georgia gets to witness it first hand so many times. UGA’s three traditional rivalries are an explosion in color. The post-Thanksgiving scene that meshes red, black, white and gold and Clean Old Fashioned Hate is a sight to see. Georgia’s yearly fight with Auburn makes you start looking for sweaters.
The scene in Jacksonville - the beauty of the sun setting on the Saint Johns River - will have to wait a couple of years while the old Gator Bowl gets itself right. It will be odd to not have that game in Jacksonville (with all its warts), but at least Atlanta knows how to throw a party.
By that game Georgia will know what its made of. Fights with Oklahoma and Alabama will provide a litmus test to be sure. A quarter of the Dawgs’ opponents this fall played in the College Football Playoff last year. The strange close of the SEC schedule, with a visit from Missouri and a trip to Cootlumbia, could be more challenging than you might think. Then again, Missouri couldn’t handle Virginia a year ago in December. And Carolina will have to turn things around in a significant way (4-8) to have a real shot at toppling the Dawgs.
2026 will come down to if Georgia is the very best version of itself when it needs to be that. That wasn’t the case in New Orleans in January. The defense couldn’t shut the door when it needed to; UGA’s offense kicked a field goal rather than scoring a touchdown when it had the chance. One third down conversion from the Rebels and a missive kick later, and that was it for that. Instead of playing Carson Beck and Miami, Georgia was sent home to wonder if another national title just escaped its grasp (and to dismiss Georgia’s chances to win it all ignores the reality that Miami-Ole Miss came down to the final play of the game; as did Indiana-Miami).
Even with the flaws of the 2025 team, the Bulldogs were in position to play for it all… again. And if the past is an indication of the future (and we might not be able to say that about college football right now), then it is about time for the Dawgs to play for it all again.
Georgia is returning a capable, experienced quarterback; the defense is quite good; the offensive line and run game could be expected to be elite at times; and they have one of the best kickers in the country. There are liabilities at explosive playmaker and pass rusher, and those are actually very important spots to not be great at; but no college team heading into 2026 is without issues.
Now, you don’t just shit playmakers - someone has to do it… or they won’t, and it will be harder to win than you would like.
Football doesn’t necessarily come down to playmakers - usually it comes down to the line of scrimmage. Georgia should really, really be good there. But will that be enough?
You would like to have it all - each spot covered with future NFL players like the 2021 team... which dealt with losing its best WR coming into the year, and lost its starting QB four games into the season.
Everyone has issues.
Gunner Stockton is a better quarterback than folks realize. But he’s not obviously special. That said, when you are the quarterback at Georgia you don’t get praised until you leave, or until you win it all (nor should anyone expect that). I’m old enough to remember the doubts about Aaron Murray. I certainly remember the discussion, and it was a real one, about Stetson Bennett being replaced by JT Daniels before the Orange Bowl matchup with Michigan.
Look, it is a difficult thing to be the starting signal caller at an SEC school, it is less difficult these days with the money flowing into the back of the F-150, but it is still difficult.
Stockton has all of the requisite things you need to win it all. Period. As one person in the program put it to me this spring: “We never lost a game because of Gunner, but we sure won a couple.”
Its easy to write about the quarterback. He has stats; he has the ball in his hands; he is really always in front of a mic after the game... everyone has something to say about the quarterback. But it is possible this team is about the trenches. It is possible this team is about the sum of the parts, and one just one person.
In fact, that’s more probable than possible in this case. As critical as Stockton is, and he is critical, if the run defense struggles in Oxford, Georgia is probably going to lose to Ole Miss. That, to me, might be the trickiest game of the season simply because of the one-two punch Ole Miss has at quarterback and running back.
But only a terminal loss will end this Georgia team; not a regular-season loss somewhere along the way in the regular season. So we will soon begin the long journey that is the 2026 college football season. It ends exactly 205 days from today.
