Well…that sure sucked a lot. Count me among the Dawg fans convinced we were peaking at the right time and ready to make a deep run in the CFP. Going into the game, my high level assumption was we beat Ole Miss earlier in the year and our defense has improved considerably since that game…ipso facto, Dawgs win. Glad I don’t wager on Dawgs football. Let’s get this depressing exercise over with. On to the grades…

Quarterback: B

• I thought about going lower on this grade, but settled here. I don’t know if the 4 batted balls (what I counted anyway) are all on Gunner, but it seems there is a high correlation of batted balls and Gunner throwing them. There were a couple of important downs where Gunner could/should have kept it on the read option where there was a lot of room for him to run, but he gave to a RB who got smothered. In our last three games, Gunner has been very quick to tuck and run after a quick read. I don’t know if all receivers are covered in those situations, but as fast as the decision is being made, I’m guessing he’s taking off when the first option isn’t open. If he’s picking up 5-7 yards on those plays, no problem on my end…but that was not the case in this game. Why didn’t I go lower on this grade? Because Gunner made a couple of big plays that eventually resulted in scoring drives, and he took some MASSIVE hits in the process. It’s almost becoming cliché, but Gunner Stockton might be the toughest football player in America. Paul Blake took less punishment against the Texas Colts than Gunner took in the Sugar Bowl. For whatever shortcomings Gunner may have, we never have to worry about his desire and will to win. I need to keep reminding myself that this was his first year as a starter…he’s not supposed to be a perfect, finished product at this point. Playing behind an inconsistent OL (I think that’s fair to say), he still finished 7^th in the Heisman race, showed up huge in some clutch moments all season, and brought home 12 wins and an SEC Championship. If we see some improvement from Gunner in the downfield passing game next year, the offense should go to another level.            

Running Back: B

• Nate Frazier came to play and was abusing the Ole Miss defense in the running game as well as passing game, especially in the first half. He finished the season as the clear #1 RB, just short of 1000 yards rushing and a very solid 5.5 YPC. Cash Jones showed up big on his 4 touches in the game…happy he was able to finish his UGA career with a nice performance. Chauncey Bowens didn’t have a lot of room to run on his carries, so not a lot of production. His late season injury seemed to change the direction of his season. Here’s to hoping he can get back to 100% and return to his 2025 mid-season form. Josh McCray wasn’t able to make an impression on the game with a couple of carries for -3 yards on the evening. Just one man’s opinion, I don’t think our coaches knew how they wanted to use McCray. I was puzzled when McCray would get in before Bowens on a couple of occasions. He looked to be pigeon holed into the “short yardage” guy earlier in the season, but he broke a couple of important runs (Auburn game comes to mind) and showed a little versatility. I don’t want to call it a wasted season for McCray, but I doubt he transferred in to amass 135 rushing yards in total. I’ll give him this, he finished off Tennessee and converted a huge 4^th down against Ole Miss in the regular season to keep hope alive in that game. No Dwight Phillips sightings, which just makes me sad.      

Offensive Line – C-

• The OL did not pick a great game to play some of their worst ball. Ole Miss sacked Gunner twice and totaled 9 TFL’s on the evening. Let’s not forget, the Ole Miss defense was not exactly the strength of their team this season. We reverted back to our slow starting ways before the OL looked dominant on our first TD drive…Frazier had holes to run through and I thought we’d be in for a fun evening at that point. Our follow up TD drive didn’t really feel very OL dominant…just a couple of great individual efforts from Branch, Jones, Frazier. After 14-12 with about 4 minutes remaining in the first half, the running game was effectively shut down and we couldn’t move the ball at all until midway through the 4^th quarter after going down 34-24. Maybe Ole Miss deserves some credit for an improving DL and/or out scheming our OL…it’s certainly possible. Playing without Drew Bobo wasn’t good for the cause (and he probably doesn’t snap the ball on that 4^th and 2) and maybe the 26 day layoff hurt some continuity. There are more than enough maybe’s and if’s to go around, but outside of a couple of drives, the OL got outplayed by their counterparts and was the biggest reason we continued to put ourselves in 3^rd and long situations to kill drive opportunities.     

Receivers (WR’s + TE’s) – B

• Another classic example of having a small sample to work with for this game. Only 3 WR’s caught passes and 2 TE’s caught passes…so not a lot to work with. Branch did what we’ve come to expect and was solely responsible for keeping our second TD drive alive by slipping a sure tackle around the LOS and turning it into a big gain on 3^rd and long. He also caught the 4^th quarter TD to get us back in the game. On behalf of the rest of Dawg Nation, list whatever demands you may require and please come back in 2026. Colbie Young picked right up where he left off making an insane grab after a long injury layoff. Delp opened the game with a nice catch and run, which turned out to be the last reception of his UGA career…hope he gets a good opportunity to play on Sundays because he’s been a DGD. Lawson converted the fake punt catch and did a great job securing the ball before getting tackled immediately after he turned his head upfield…it’s the little things. Landon Roldan delivered the ball on the money to Lawson, so want to give him credit for perfect execution. Dillon Bell was quiet all game, same with Noah Thomas, London Humphreys and Elyiss Williams. No drops that I can remember and receivers did a good job with the opportunities provided.     

Defensive Line – B

• This group was coming off their best performance of the year against Alabama. Unfortunately, they were not able to sustain that same level against Ole Miss. Christen Miller was able to deliver a TFL and Griffin was credited with the forced fumble that was returned for a touchdown (I really thought that would kill the Ole Miss spirit). Lacy was a little more productive than I would have preferred and he was able to hit the edge on a couple of runs for big gains that moved the sticks (Officials missed the hold on his TD run). I hate that Gabe Harris wasn’t able to go after his super disruptive performance against the Tide…feel like he could have made an impact, but JJA looks like a player on the rise that will be counted on in 2026. The stop on the Ole Miss 4^th down attempt was huge, but the offense didn’t do enough with it. As stated in previous columns this season, our defense generally goes as far as this unit will allow. I don’t think the DL played as poorly as their 37 offensive points would suggest, but missed some opportunities to kill Ole Miss drives…and a lot of credit to Chambliss for making some positively ridiculous plays in those situations. I think this is a unit to buy some stock in for 2026…lots of talent to work with even with Miller departing for the NFL draft.

Linebackers – B         

• Are you sensing a theme here with the grades? This wasn’t their best performance of the year, but similar to the defensive line, not as bad as 37 offensive points allowed would indicate. The usual 3 suspects (Allen, Cole, Wilson) all chipped in and made plays. Justin Williams has all the potential in the world once he sees the field more, but only 12 snaps in the Sugar Bowl to record a single tackle. Quintavious Johnson recorded 2 batted passes, continuing his great play in the second half of the season. How about Elo Modozie getting 19 snaps and chipping in with a few tackles…surely didn’t meet the production levels many expected of him this season, but he does have another year assuming he sticks around. For the second time against Ole Miss, Georgia did not record any sacks on Chambliss. Many Georgia blitzes were picked up well by the Ole Miss OL, and the ones they could not pick up, Chambliss was able to escape and/or pull off a couple of miracle plays reminiscent of Patrick Mahomes…thought Sean McDonough was going to require a change of pants on a couple of those plays…this was the same level glazing Gary Danielson gave Tim Tebow back in the day.  

Defensive Backs – B-

• Some might want to go harder on these guys and I wouldn’t argue the point. I guess my thought is a lot of the explosives were a result of Chambliss doing a great job of scrambling and extending a play, or throwing a perfect ball when coverage was good. The most damaging play of the night was obviously Demello getting beat for the 40 yarder that set up the game winning field goal. It’s easy for me to armchair that play, but we had an opportunity to get off the field, maybe get a big punt return, hit a play or two and go for a game winning field goal ourselves. I would not have guessed they would be so ballsy to throw downfield in that situation, and Chambliss put it right on the money. Hate it for Demello, but brighter days ahead for him. Ellis gave up a big explosive, but remember it being a bit of a scramble drill…other than that, think he looks like an All American player in 2026. Everette had an up and down day…gave up some big plays in coverage, missed an opportunity to get Chambliss for a huge sack, but also had a couple of PBU’s, 9 tackles and returned the forced fumble for a touchdown…he does have a knack for making impact plays in big games. KJ Bolden took home honors for most tackles with 10 and added a PBU to his stat sheet…could have sworn he separated his shoulder on that hit, but he returned to the game shortly afterward. Jacorey Thomas received the targeting ejection and I guess by letter of the law that was warranted, but I don’t know what a Safety is supposed to do when he’s leading with his shoulder and the player’s head drops to the legal strike zone area so quickly. Sure it looks bad when you play it in slow motion, but that’s happening in less than a second for Thomas and his job is to bring the receiver down. Zion Branch delivered a huge hit to break up a pass, unfortunately Chambliss hit Stribling on the very next play. I’ll stick with the theme, not as bad as the score suggests…giving a lot of credit to Chambliss for making spectacular plays.

Special Teams – B+

• Thorpedo had 4 punts for 154 yards and no returns…going to miss the Aussie. The fake punt was beautifully designed and executed. Woodring didn’t have any kicks returned, went 2/3 on FG attempts…yes, it would have been awfully nice to hit that 55 yarder, but not the easiest kick in the world. Branch returned a couple of punts for some positive yardage to help field position. I could be talked into an A- if needed, but the missed 55 yarder had a direct effect on the outcome going to the bad guys. Woodring has the leg to make that kick, just hit it a little fat.

Offensive Coaching – C

• I could go on a long-winded rant when it comes to the offensive coaching in this game. Bobo and his charges delivered 27 offensive points…not too bad for a playoff game.  But, I’d argue the devil is in the details. We started slow on offense, we had three different series that resulted in three and out, had to rely on a successful fake punt to generate a FG, needed a highly unlikely tackle break from Branch to keep a TD drive going, etc. We had a great opportunity to deflate Ole Miss with some points on the board to end the 1st half and didn’t do jack shit with it. We got the ball to start the 2^nd half and didn’t do jack shit with it. Other than a couple of drives, it looked like we had a very difficult time moving the ball for large stretches of this game. Two more thoughts on this…is it me, or does it feel like so many of our passing plays are super slow developing? Do we not have anything in that 5-7 yard range (not talking about WR screens) to put us in makable 3^rd down situations? Asking for a friend. And lastly, I have a theory on Bobo. Like any OC, Bobo puts together some sort of game plan for every game and I’m sure his DC counterpart on the other side is making assumptions on what Bobo will be doing. If the opposing DC makes incorrect assumptions, Bobo looks pretty good. When the opposing DC makes correct assumptions and is defending our game plan well, it doesn’t look like Bobo has a “Plan B”…we just continue to work “Plan A” and hope we can out talent the other side. Again, I’m not a Bobo hater nor apologist, but our YPP went from 5^th in the country in 2023 (Monken was 4^th in 2022) to 50^th and 71^st the past two years. Our plays of 20+ yards went from 6^th in the country in 2023 (Monken was 1st in 2022) to 29^th and 52^nd the past two years. Just some things to consider.

Defensive Coaching – B

• Could we have played better? Of course. I’d say the defense played well in the first half by holding Ole Miss to long FG’s and the one touchdown. We had Ole Miss all but stopped on three occasions on their go ahead touchdown drive, but Chambliss went video game on us. We gave them a super short field on their final touchdown when we botched whatever we were doing on 4^th and 2. From what I could see, the defense was playing aggressive, they were playing with effort and they were making some plays. I think we lost because the coaches put the defense in a couple of bad positions and Ole Miss simply made some great plays in big moments. I wasn’t near as frustrated with our defense in this game compared to the first Ole Miss contest when they had all day to throw and we were playing super soft coverage…that was infuriating. I’ll repeat an earlier point…the 26 day layoff probably did this unit no favors in terms of maintaining a lot of their momentum to finish the regular season.   

Sean McDonough – F+

• Could you have at least tried to act like you weren’t cheering for Ole Miss. I get that Chambliss was making some incredible plays, but was the screaming and celebrating in the booth that necessary? Officials in Cameron Indoor Stadium have shown less bias than Sean McDonough calling this year’s Sugar Bowl.           

Not the ending any of us wanted, but my thoughts on the season in totality. I think Gunner outplayed expectations of most media pundits (looking at you Finebaum). No clue where our season would have gone without the addition of Branch. Great to see the defense show big gains from the start of the season to finish. The OL was a box of chocolates all season. Overall, just really inconsistent from week to week…not a lot of complete games where both offense and defense played great at the same time. If you look at the makeup of our roster and how young we were as a team with contributing players, would you say we overachieved, underachieved or met expectations? I’m somewhere in between met expectations and overachieved. As a team, we escaped some close calls on more than a few occasions…needed a missed FG to escape Tennessee, came up with a miracle play on the goal line at Auburn to turn the momentum of that game, the Josh McCray second effort run (when he looked to be stopped cold) to keep us in the Ole Miss regular season game, and got a 4^th down stop against the Gators when we were down in the 4^th quarter. It’s almost improbable we didn’t slip up in at least one of those four games. It’s hard to cheat death that many times in a season and not get killed…death finally came to collect in the Sugar Bowl.   

Fun season and looking forward to a big 2026! Go Dawgs!