Mar 16, 2026
NCAAAthens
The Bulldogs are the preseason SEC favorite. The offense has a quarterback question the evaluation community hasn't fully answered. The competition this spring is about as real as spring practice gets.
The University of Georgia opens spring practice Monday with the kind of roster returning most programs spend years trying to build, and with the one evaluation question the program has been carrying since November still in need of an answer. Kirby Smart's Bulldogs return eight starters from a defense that ranked in the top twenty nationally last season. The offensive line, which generated favorable conversation throughout 2025 for its reliability in power running situations, returns its three interior starters. The program is the preseason consensus favorite in the SEC and has finished in the top five of the national rankings in each of the last four seasons.
Continue reading →Mar 11, 2026
NCAAAthens
Carson Beck returns at quarterback. The defense lost four starters to the draft. The portal additions are experienced. Whether they're Georgia-caliber is spring's central question.
Georgia opened spring practice this week under Kirby Smart, entering his eleventh season with a program that has established itself as the SEC's standard of success and is now navigating the particular challenge of sustaining dominance after losing significant NFL talent to the draft. The Bulldogs sent nine players to the NFL Draft following the 2025 season, including four defensive starters who were central to the unit that made Georgia the conference's best defense for the second consecutive year. Replacing that production — not the same players, but the same output — is the task that Smart and defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann are working through this spring.
Continue reading →Mar 1, 2026
NCAAAthens
Smart chose continuity over portal volume this offseason. The result is a roster with unusual cohesion. Whether Beck is fully healthy is the spring's central question.
Georgia opened spring practice Monday with the largest returning starter group Kirby Smart has coached since arriving in Athens. The Bulldogs have 16 players back who started at least eight games in 2025, which is an unusual volume of continuity at a program that routinely sends players to the NFL Draft after their junior seasons. That continuity is deliberate. Smart made a decision in the offseason to prioritize retention through the portal and NIL rather than use the spring to integrate a heavy transfer class. The result is a roster that looks like a roster — not a collection of pieces still figuring out how to coexist — and a spring practice schedule that can focus on refinement rather than installation.
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