We have seen the Georgia Bulldogs absolutely maul two overmatched opponents to begin 2026, but those blowout victories might not tell us much about UGA this season.
Georgia’s 63-3 win over Tennessee State Week 1 and 70-20 win over Western Kentucky Week 2 are the Bulldogs’ first time scoring over 60 points in consecutive games since 1915. Kirby Smart has not been able to take away much from it though. He was asked about how he evaluates these games when deciding who to play against SEC opponents, and emphasized preseason scrimmages as perhaps more useful than these games against smaller schools.
“We played two Saturday scrimmages against Georgia right here in Sanford Stadium and that determines a lot of that,” he said after the win over Western Kentucky. “How do you play when you play against the best? What gives us the best chance to win?”
Kirby Smart admits to not learning much about Georgia tw weeks into the season
Georgia has had 11 offensive drives with Gunner Stockton at quarterback this year. All 11 have ended in touchdowns. Its first-team defense has allowed one touchdown all season on a short 15-yard field following a turnover.
Georgia has enjoyed the ability to substitute its young players into games late and get them experience, even if Smart was hypercritical of the effort those backups gave against Western Kentucky.
Star running back Nate Frazier has hardly had to play. Stockton has barely been utilized as a rushing threat. The receiver and tight end rooms have seen so much rotation in games that it’s hard to tell who is emerging as the top guys in either room.
We might not see it much this week, either. The Arkansas Razorbacks are Georgia’s SEC opener, but they’re not exactly the toughest draw.
Arkansas isn't the threat that Georgia needs to prove how good they are
Arkansas got mollywhopped against Utah last week. The Razorbacks rushed for just 61 yards as a team on 28 attempts, completed just 22 of 48 passes and were outgained 441-305. Utes players said after the game they could tell if Arkansas was going to run or pass based on pre-play signals.
The Bulldogs may not get a chance to learn much about themselves in this one, unless something goes horribly wrong.
“The evaluation is of our team,” Smart said this week. “That's what I spend my time worrying about, is our team. You spend too much time worrying about their team, and you won't have a good team. So I'm a lot more worried about what we do than what they do.”
Last year’s first SEC game was a road test at Tennessee where Georgia was lucky to escape with a 44-41 win. The year before that, it was a 13-12 win over a bad Kentucky team that served as a punch in the mouth.
Glaring flaws were exposed in both games. In 2025 against Tennessee, it was the secondary and pass rush (gave up 371 passing yards). In 2024 at Kentucky, it was Georgia’s struggles in the trenches (averaged 3.4 yards per carry).
Arkansas may not be able to significantly challenge Georgia in any facet of the game, although the stunning near-loss to Kentucky in 2024 is proof enough that anything can happen.
If anything, it will be good for this team to play in its first road environment.
“It's a tough environment regardless of where you play in the SEC,” Smart said. “There are no bad environments in the SEC. There are only raucous environments in the SEC and they're really tough to play on.”
Oklahoma in Week 4 is the test Georgia needs
Next week’s home game against Oklahoma could be quite the jolt for this Georgia offense, which may not have gone through a full game’s worth of snaps yet.
The Sooners just had a bad loss to Michigan, but still boast one of the SEC’s toughest defenses, if not one of the nation’s best.
Maybe the Bulldogs just are that good, and these blowouts over their first two opponents are perfect reflections of that. But there's still a "wait and see" element here. It's a long season.
The nine-game conference schedule has made it so teams are always going to schedule weak nonconference opponents early in the year going forward, to somewhat compensate. But it’s still worth wondering if Georgia wants to know more about itself at this point in the year, and wishes it was more battle-tested.
We will learn a lot about the Bulldogs next weekend in Sanford. More than these three weeks combined, even.
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