College football officially begins this month. Now that it's August, there are just weeks to go until Week Zero arrives on Aug. 29, and since the season is quickly approaching, we're rolling out our preseason top 25. After revealing our teams in the back half of our top 25, we continue our previews of the top 12 teams in the country with the clear favorite in the Big 12. Previously: Teams Nos. 13-25, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 11 Alabama, No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 8 Texas Tech,No. 7 Miami No. 6 Georgia 2025 record: 12-2 Odds to win national championship: +900 Odds to make College Football Playoff: -235 2025 in 100 words or less The Bulldogs could have easily been 2-2 through the first third of the season. Before losing 24-21 at home to Alabama, Georgia needed overtime to get a 44-41 win at Tennessee. The Bulldogs trailed for much of the fourth quarter before tying the game with 2:32 to go. After that Alabama game, Georgia got hot. The Bulldogs reeled off nine wins in a row. A couple were close, like a four-point win over Florida and a 16-9 slog against Georgia Tech. Others, like a 35-10 win over Texas and a 28-7 manhandling of Alabama in the SEC championship game, were not. That SEC title earned Georgia a first-round bye and a spot in the Sugar Bowl. But the Bulldogs failed to win a playoff game for the second straight season as Ole Miss avenged a 43-35 regular season loss with a 39-34 quarterfinal win. Georgia and Gunner Stockton are 0-2 in playoff games over the past two seasons. (Photo by Steve Limentani/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images) Steve Limentani/ISI Photos via Getty Images
The QB
Gunner Stockton
After taking over for Carson Beck in the 2024 SEC title game and then starting the Sugar Bowl that season, Stockton entered the 2025 season as Georgia's undisputed starter. He finished the season completing just fewer than 70% of his passes for 2,894 yards and 24 TDs with just five interceptions. Those five picks came across five different games. He also added 462 rushing yards and led the Bulldogs with 10 rushing touchdowns. Despite six games with fewer than 200 yards passing, it was a season that was good enough for Stockton to finish seventh in the Heisman voting. This year, Stockton enters his second season as a starter with the ninth-best Heisman odds. "He embodies what leadership is, and he doesn't do it through his mouth," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said at SEC media days. "We can't get the guy to talk half the time. When he gets around the players, they know. They see the toughness he plays with. He embodies our program. Just love everything he stands for." Stockton will be throwing to a host of new receivers in 2026, but it's hard to see his stats taking a step back. London Humphreys (18 catches) and TE Lawson Luckie (15) are the only two returning Bulldog receivers who had 10 or more catches in 2025. There's still plenty of talent though, and Stockton should quickly find different receivers to trust. KJ Bolden is Georgia's leading returning tackler. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images
Non-quarterback to watch
DB KJ Bolden
Bolden is back for his junior season as Georgia's top returning tackler. After he had 59 stops as a freshman, Bolden had 76 tackles in 2025 along with two interceptions and five passes defensed. He's been an integral part of Georgia's secondary since his first game with the Bulldogs, and is the latest great Georgia defensive back. Just ask Smart. "I am excited to see one of the best playmakers we've had over the last two years, KJ Bolden on defense, and he's done a really good job. "I think back to a play he made on the Texas overtime game [in the 2024 SEC championship game] that people don't talk about where they ran a cross screen to the back and he came out of the top. One of the most instinctive plays I've seen a player make, and he made that as a true freshman." Eric Edholm's NFL Draft prospect to watch
CB Ellis Robinson IV
The Bulldogs are looking to have a first-round selection for the 10th straight year in 2027, and if it happens, it might be a member of the secondary that keeps the streak alive. There's a lot of love for Bolden in draft spheres, but Robinson might have a tad more upside — and he plays a higher-priority position. Early in his redshirt freshman season, Robinson had a few hiccups in big games against Tennessee and Alabama, and Ole Miss stung him a few times in their two meetings. But he showed a lot of promise as a man-cover corner, being asked to shut down some of the best receivers in the SEC last season. College fantasy football player to watch
RB Nate Frazier
With great depth but also some uncertainty at wide receiver, we figured the safest play in this spot was Frazier, who has been Georgia's leading rusher in each of his two seasons at the school. Frazier rushed for 671 yards and eight touchdowns as a freshman before running for 947 yards and six scores in 2025. Can he be the team's leading rusher for a third straight season? No Georgia running back has led the Bulldogs in three straight seasons since the legendary Garrison Hearst in the 1990s. It might take 15 games or so for Frazier to break the 1,000-yard mark, however. We wouldn't recommend reaching for a Georgia running back in your fantasy draft. Smart's teams have relied heavily on deep running back rooms in recent years and this season will be no different. You have to go back to D'Andre Swift in 2019 to find the last Georgia player to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season.
Biggest game
Nov. 7 at Ole Miss
We included the Oct. 10 matchup at Alabama as the Tide's biggest game of the season, so we figured we'd go another direction here. After Ole Miss' win in the Sugar Bowl, Georgia has a chance to get even with the Rebels over the past three seasons. Ole Miss won at home in 2024 before the teams split their two games in 2025. It also could be an elimination game for the SEC title depending on how things go over the first two months of the season. After playing Ole Miss, Georgia has Missouri, South Carolina and Georgia Tech to end the season. That's not a cakewalk, but the Bulldogs should also be clear favorites in each of those remaining three games. Why Georgia is No. 6 Georgia is still one of the elite programs in college football. But it's also fair to say the Bulldogs are a notch below what they were just a few years ago. Case in point: Georgia has averaged fewer than five yards a carry in each of the past two seasons. A ruthless run game that could get yards at will has tapered off since 2023. And after the offense averaged 7.3 yards a play in 2023, it gained six yards a play in 2024 and 5.6 in 2025. The defense has also given up over 17 points a game in each of the past two seasons and the pass rush generated just 20 sacks in 2025. Yes, a Georgia defense sacked the quarterback just 20 times over 14 games. That number can only go up in 2026. Georgia's defense has a real chance to be closer to the unit it was in 2021 and 2022 than it's been in 2024 and 2025 simply thanks to the experience that players like Bolden, DE Gabe Harris and LBs Raylen Wilson and Quintavius Johnson have gotten over the past two seasons. A home game against Oklahoma on Sept. 26 will be a great test. Is this Georgia team as good as the ones in 2021, 2022 and 2023? That's unlikely, but not impossible. And even if that top-end outcome isn't reached, this is still a team that should be making its eighth consecutive appearance in the SEC title game.