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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/usffan on 2025-08-19 13:42:17+00:00.
The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here.
Georgia (high = 1 (1 vote), low = 9) sits at #4 in the countdown, the first team to receive a #1 ranking (CFN) and the second highest SEC team in these rankings. Kirby Smart enters his 10th season (Jesus am I getting old) coaching the Bulldogs, and if anybody’s going to make a run at Nick Saban’s incredible run of success at Alabama, it’s going to be Kirby Smart. He’s had Georgia in the SEC championship game every single non-COVID season since his first one in Athens, winning two national championships, playing in a third national championship game and winning 4 SEC titles in his first 9 seasons. By those lofty standards, 2024’s SEC title and #2 national seed was almost a disappointment, since the Bulldogs lost 3 games, something they hadn’t done in the three previous seasons combined! While we’ll never know if things might have turned out different had QB Carson Beck not suffered a season-ending injury in the SEC championship game (simmer down, Florida State fans), the Bulldogs season ultimately ended in New Orleans to eventual national champion runners-up Notre Dame.
Roster outlook
To say the Bulldogs lost a lot after 2024 would be an understatement. Georgia enters 2025 ranked 105th in returning production, ahead of only two teams (Oregon and Ole Miss) among the top 50 teams in this countdown. They lost 13 players to the NFL draft, including 3 first rounders and 6 players among the first 100 drafted. That doesn’t include their 2 year starting QB Carson Beck, who many thought would have declared for the draft but after that elbow injury he decided to instead hit the portal and will be once again facing Notre Dame, this time in a Miami uniform. On offense, it did include the loss of the entire interior OL, plus RB Trevor Etienne and WRs Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett. That’s not to say they have nothing back. Backup QB Gunner Stockton, who finished up the SEC Championship game and played in the Sugar Bowl, is expected to be the starting QB, and RB Nate Frazier returns as well. WR Dillon Bell, who amassed 466 receiving yards is also there. On defense, the loss of 7 starters to the draft, including 3 more DL, is a lot to ask, even knowing that Georgia has routinely been doing this now for several years (just ask the NFL champion Eagles). Kirby has been eating as a recruiter, and last year was no different, bringing in the #2 class in all of college football. He went much lighter on the portal, with the 24th best class in the country (good enough for a ridiculous 12th in the SEC). That does include two new 4 star WRs, Noah Thomas (Texas A&M) and Zachariah Branch (USC).
Schedule and outlook
Georgia will ease those new players into form with a couple of tune-up games (Marshall and Austin Peay) before they jump right into the teeth of their SEC schedule, traveling to Knoxville to face Tennessee. Given the Vols will likely take a bit of a step back after last season’s CFB run and the whole Nico fiasco, that will likely be a good ramp up in intensity, because following a bye, they host Alabama. As tempting as it is to joke that the next game against Kentucky is another bye, the Wildcats have a knack for making Georgia work for their wins though, to be fair, that’s usually in Lexington). They follow that up with at Auburn, home against Ole Miss and then the last Cocktail Party in Jacksonville until 2028. They wrap up with their last SEC road game at Mississippi State, hosting Texas in a potential SEC championship preview, Charlotte for their SEC late season cupcake special and then Clean Old-Fashioned Hate the Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic. If Smart runs through that schedule with 2 or fewer losses, the Bulldogs are as likely as anybody to be playing for the championship in 2025.