ATHENS — Georgia knows what it is like to have its season effectively ended by Alabama. It happened in 2017, 2018 and 2023.
But as crushing as the mounting defeats to the Crimson Tide have been, Georgia hasn’t always let a loss to Alabama define its season. In 2021, it bounced back to beat Alabama in the national championship game.
Last season, Georgia suffered a September loss to the Tide and still went on to win the SEC and make the College Football Playoff.
That is the task ahead for the 2025 Georgia football team.
“The season’s not over,” wide receiver Colbie Young said Saturday. “Last year around this time, we lost to them, and then we came back and won the SEC championship. We have to have the hunger mentality, and we’ve got to come back better.”
Georgia went 10-2 in the 2024 regular season and still found a way to accomplish most of its goals.
After the loss to Alabama, Georgia rebounded with four consecutive victories, including a road win over Texas.
The Bulldogs return to the field this week against a Kentucky that has lost both of its SEC games thus far.
It’s a game Georgia should win. Unless the loss to Alabama lingers.
“Just have the same mindset that we have since last year,” defensive lineman Jordan Hall said. “We can’t worry about Alabama for the rest of the season. We had an opportunity to do that on Saturday, and we fell short.
“We’ve gotta knuckle up and get ready to play against Kentucky because it’s on to the next. The only way to put Alabama to bed is to get prepared for Kentucky, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
The road ahead for Georgia is still plenty difficult, as it was in 2024. The early defeat to Alabama loomed large given Georgia still had to go to Texas and Ole Miss, while hosting Tennessee.
The Bulldogs would go on to beat College Football Playoff participants Texas and Tennessee, but lost on the road to Ole Miss.
The Rebels may end up being the trickiest game left on the schedule this season. They are the SEC’s highest-ranked team in the AP poll this week, as Lane Kiffin’s team is 5-0 and ranked No. 4.
Also on Georgia’s schedule in November are games against No. 8 Texas and No. 17 Georgia Tech.
Georgia plays Kentucky this week and then travels to Auburn next week. While those two teams are a combined 0-4 in SEC play, neither game is a gimme. Kentucky pushed Georgia to the brink last season in Lexington, Kentucky, while Auburn gets an off-week to prepare for a visit from Georgia.
“We just know that the season’s not over,” Young said. “There’s a lot of great teams in the SEC. We just lost one, and we’ve just got to come back next week. We can’t let it pile on. We’ve got to move on to the next week.”
Kirby Smart knows it is not an apples-to-apples comparison when he looks at his Georgia teams. Last season’s group was much more of a veteran team. It had more members of the national championship teams, along with 13 players who were taken in the 2025 NFL draft.
This year’s squad is much younger than the one that won the SEC title a season ago. It doesn’t have the same wealth of experience to lean on.
But being such a young team does give plenty of opportunities to get better.
“I think what’s applicable is that college football teams are going to have parity,” Smart said. “Teams are going to play. So what’s going to separate teams is how they either fracture or don’t fracture or how their infrastructure is built to sustain losses, and we’re built for this. Like, we have infrastructure. We have plans. We know the pathway. So, you know, I’m excited to see where this team goes.”
Georgia gets its first chance to improve against Kentucky. The Bulldogs are a heavy favorite — Vegas currently lists them at 20.5 — and have a team that is eager to show it isn’t who it was last week, and can do what Georgia’s team did last season.
“So everything that happened in the past has been in the past for a reason,” Hall said. “You know, we had an opportunity to do it on Saturday. We didn’t get that done. So now it’s on to the next, you know what I’m saying? It’s gonna be like that every single week.”
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