Josh Heupel couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to end the Georgia losing streak… right?
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Forever is a long time in college football. To speak in absolutes with a rivalry feels a bit dramatic in a sport that has a funny way of surprising us the second we assume something to be true.
But man, Saturday feels as close to a “now or never” type opportunity for Josh Heupel and Tennessee to end the 8-year Georgia losing streak.
For those who haven’t been keeping track, no, Heupel isn’t responsible for all of it. Butch Jones did his part, as did Jeremy Pruitt and whatever checkered babushka he was wearing in that 2020 COVID game when it looked like his “now or never” opportunity was unfolding. After a promising start that day, it turned out to be a “never” for Pruitt when he was replaced by Heupel at season’s end.
Half of this 8-game losing streak to Georgia is Heupel’s doing. That included when he had the No. 1 team in the first Playoff Poll in 2022, but his top-ranked offense went into Athens and failed to score a touchdown in the first 55 minutes. Some might’ve said then that it was Heupel’s “never,” but that would’ve felt premature to declare in Year 2, especially after UGA went on to repeat as national champs.
We don’t know what awaits this Georgia team. All we know is that it’s been a bit of a mixed bag through 2 cupcake matchups.
That was for a UGA squad that had the most preseason questions of any Kirby Smart team since 2020, and perhaps even longer.
Are the defensive reinforcements capable of wrecking a game? Are the new-look pass-catchers going to be a significant upgrade? Will the offensive line not be the liability that it atypically was last year? Will Gunner Stockton look like Stetson Bennett V?
(Yes, I said Stetson Bennett V because the way that Stockton has been talked about by Georgia players and coaches, you’d think he was the next Bennett descendent.)
Georgia doesn’t have to figure out all of that, but a lot of those questions will be answered at Tennessee
That’s why UGA is only a 3.5-point favorite in Knoxville (via BetMGM), where Heupel is 21-1 the last 3 seasons. Of course, the lone loss was to Georgia. It didn’t matter that Tennessee started that 2023 game with a 75-yard touchdown run, and that decibel levels at Neyland were off the charts. UGA scored 38 of the next 41 points en route to the blowout November victory.
In that game — and really in every game during UGA’s winning streak — Smart has been a step ahead of the Tennessee offense. Under Heupel, the Vols averaged 14.3 points per game against Georgia, and in quarters 2-4, Tennessee has been outscored 106-20. There’s no sort of tone that the Vols can set in the early going that should make one believe that “now” is imminent.
Having said that, rattling Stockton early in his first career road start would still be ideal for the Vols (more on that in a minute). If you’re looking for a reason why this can be different for Tennessee, all 4 of the previous Heupel losses against Georgia were in November. Saturday’s tilt will mark the earliest that these teams have played since 1995, when Smart was a freshman defensive back for UGA.
Why could that matter? A couple reasons. For starters, this is Joey Aguilar’s third game in a Tennessee uniform. Sure, he’s a veteran college quarterback who has plenty of tape for Smart and his staff to dissect, and he’s coming off a 2024 season in which he led the nation in interceptions at Appalachian State. But how he sees the field in the unique, up-tempo Heupel offense could make that a different type of assignment for Georgia.
So far, Aguilar has been everything that Heupel could’ve hoped for after the post-spring Nico Iamaleava departure.
Through 2 games, the UCLA transfer is 5-for-8 with 3 touchdowns on passes 20 yards downfield, and he’s tied for the FBS lead with 3 touchdown passes under pressure (min. 10 such dropbacks).
The latter was an area in which Iamaleava struggled. On 56 pass attempts under pressure in 2024, Iamaleava threw just 1 touchdown pass and he had a 52% adjusted completion percentage with 0 of PFF’s “Big Time Throws.” That was evident in the Georgia game last year. But Saturday isn’t about winning the Iamaleava breakup; it’s about Tennessee finally finding someone who can navigate Smart’s defense.
Tennessee might want to establish the run with its 3-headed rushing attack, and ideally, Tim Banks would lead a dominant defensive effort, but let’s call it like it is. Without some big-time plays from Aguilar, he won’t become the first Tennessee quarterback to beat Georgia since the Barack Obama administration. Quinten Dormady, Jarrett Guarantano, Brian Maurer, Hendon Hooker, Joe Milton and the aforementioned Iamaleava all failed in that regard. So, too, did those respected rushing attacks (at least the Heupel era ones were respected), only 1 of which surpassed 130 yards in that matchup.
But Saturday’s tilt feels like it’ll come down to the unknowns at quarterback
Stockton could be the biggest unknown of all. All we know is that through 2 games in 2025, only 1 Power Conference quarterback (Robby Ashford) has attempted a higher percentage of throws behind the line of scrimmage than Stockton at 31%. That’s been a source of frustration among Georgia fans, who watched a ton of that last year with Mike Bobo calling plays for Carson Beck. Stockton has only completed 1 of 5 pass attempts that were 20 yards downfield.
Has Georgia been conservative in hopes of keeping some mystery heading into Tennessee? It’s possible. But in Stockton’s limited reps last year, he led FBS with 32.8% of his pass attempts going behind the line of scrimmage. Beck was No. 8 at 26.5%.
In other words, that’s what the Bobo offense has been. Will he be more willing to attack downfield against a Tennessee secondary that’ll be without both Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson? We don’t know. We do know that Georgia’s 3 starting receivers (Noah Thomas, Dillon Bell and Zachariah Branch) had just 9 combined catches on those 20-yard throws last year. Granted, those were all with 3 different quarterbacks.
For all we know, Georgia won’t need to take downfield shots because Stockton’s legs will be the difference. It was surprising to see him have 10 rushing attempts in the opener against Marshall, which marked the first time in the Smart era that a UGA quarterback hit that mark. We’re still figuring out who Stockton is. Maybe that’s the case for Georgia. Finding those answers in a hostile atmosphere should be a challenge. At least it’s supposed to be.
Alternatively, Tennessee could do what it’s been doing throughout the 2020s. That is, watch Georgia become the best version of itself in a game that ends up being more lopsided than imagined.
All of that feels like it’s on the table on Saturday afternoon.
“Now or never” feels a bit too black and white for Heupel’s 5th matchup against Georgia, but one can’t help but wonder about that notion. It”ll be on the minds of everyone in orange leading up to kickoff.
Now feels like as good a time as any to stop the Georgia bleeding.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
