ESPN analyst identifies ‘archvillain’ for Georgia football in 2025
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Georgia returned to the College Football Playoff in 2024 but fell in the Sugar Bowl quarterfinal to Notre Dame. Bulldogs fans saw their first look at Gunner Stockton, who stepped in after an injury to Carson Beck.
Beck’s now at Miami and Stockton’s the starter in Athens as the Dawgs look to return to the top of the heap in 2025. But who could stand as the team’s archvillain in 2025?
According to ESPN — who reviewed each team in its post-spring top 25 while looking at “coaches, players and teams that have the chance to make the whole season go south” — it could be Alabama, the team that beat Georgia on Sept. 28.
Here’s what Chris Low had to say:
Nick Saban was 5-1 against Kirby Smart, but even with Saban in his first year of retirement last season, Alabama still beat Georgia in a wild 41-34 game in Tuscaloosa the final weekend of September. Georgia has lost nine of the past 10 games in the series and hasn’t beaten Alabama in the regular season since 2007, Saban’s first season in Tuscaloosa, when the Mark Richt-coached Bulldogs won 26-23 in overtime. Georgia has vaulted to elite status under Smart, but a second straight loss to DeBoer — especially with this year’s game being played in Athens — wouldn’t sit well with anybody in Athens.
The fact that Georgia made the Playoff and Alabama didn’t served as some form of consolation toward the end of the season. That said, beating the Tide, a program they’ve had trouble with for about the last 2 decades, could set the course for Stockton and the Dawgs the rest of the way.
Georgia will get its chance at revenge on Sept. 27 against Alabama in Athens.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
