The Pre-Preview: Tennessee vs. Georgia 2025
Tennessee opens SEC play against the Dawgs on Sept. 13
A Year Ago
Georgia went 11-3 in 2024, winning the SEC Championship and earning a bye in the first 12-team college football playoff, eventually losing to national runner-up Notre Dame. Many Dawg fans considered it a down year. It’s incredible to think that a conference championship season would be a disappointment, but that’s what happens when you are just a couple of years removed from back-to-back national titles.
I’m sure in the cool dawn of a new campaign, most UGA fans will deny being let down by last year’s result. And when they hang the banner in Sanford Stadium this fall there will be much rejoicing. Still, beneath that joyful veneer, there is festering doubt. After all, three whole losses are one more than Georgia suffered in the previous three seasons combined. It was the first time UGA lost three games in a single season since 2018. And while the Dawgs finished ranked 6th in the nation, it was the third lowest ranking Georgia has finished with in the Kirby Smart era.
So was the horror of three defeats in 2024 a harbinger of worse things to come? Or just a blip on the Georgia dynasty’s radar?
Personnel
One thing you might immediately notice is how few starters UGA has retuning. It’s slightly misleading, what I’m calling a “returning starter” is a player who started the majority of the games at his position for Georgia last year. There are plenty of guys in this lineup that had some starts for the Dawgs a year ago. There are also players like Noah Thomas and Zachariah Branch who were established starters at their former schools. Should they count as returning starters? Their production counts as “returning production,” so, maybe? Dang ol’ portal makes things tough.
The other thing you might immediately notice is the number of those upside-down stars behind the player’s number used to denote a top-200 recruit. Georgia is lousy with them. In the Syracuse pre-preview, there was one such player on the chart. For UGA, there’s far more players that are top-200 than not, and not just in the starting lineup, but up and down the bench. Heck even their punter, kicker, and incoming-transfer kick returner were all All-Americans last year.
Despite the abundance of talent on the roster, Georgia fans seem to be worried about the QB position in particular. Carson Beck took his talents to South Beach, so it’s Gunnar Stockton’s show behind center in Athens. But despite leading the second-half comeback against Texas in the SECCG, Georgia fans were shook by Stockton’s loss to Notre Dame in the CFP. That’s been further fueled by pundits weighing in on Stockton in the offseason. 247’s Bud Elliot has said that Stockton’s ceiling is too low, and Paul Finebaum has called Stockton “serviceable” but “not elite.” On the other hand, there is hope from some corners that Stockton might have a little Stetson Bennett in him. You’re reading that right—Georgia fans are hopeful that their top-200 nationally-ranked QB, who was top-10 at his position coming out of high school and considered by some to be the top dual-threat QB in his class and recruited by half the SEC might be as good as the walk-on QB that was unrated out of high school and recruited by schools like Mercer and Columbia. My guess is they’ll probably be OK.
Final note about Georgia’s personnel: they have upgraded the explosive potential in the WR room in a major way. Noah Thomas was A&M’s leading receiver last year and will likely start for UGA in 2025. Zachariah Branch was an All-American kick returner for USC in 2024 and can play attached to the line as a pseudo TE or out wide on an island and create mismatches in either place. Point being, even if Stockton turns out to be a less skilled QB than Georgia has had lately, he has more weapons available to him than UGA has had in recent years.
Outlook
The JAR rating likes Georgia a lot. UGA’s JAR is 21.1, 4th-highest nationally. JAR also recognizes what the Dawgs are up against in 2025 schedule-wise. There are no certain losses on Georgia’s schedule, but half the games are tagged as “toss-ups”:
You can imagine my giddiness when I ran the simulations and Tennessee beat Georgia 53% of the time. I, however, am less optimistic than the Cornputer—but more on that in a moment. After coming to Neyland, Georgia gets a week off before hosting Alabama, then goes to Auburn two weeks later. That should be a Georgia win, but remember, the Dawgs had to scrap for a 7-point win on the Plains in 2023. On the back half, Georgia hosts the Ole Miss team that beat them last year, play Florida and Texas, then end with a Georgia Tech squad that took UGA to 8 OTs last season.
Now it’s reasonable to assume that UGA will win most of those toss-ups. With the roster Georgia has, they might win them all. But if they lose two, will they make it back to Atlanta? If they lose half, will they make the CFP? Three-loss Alabama didn’t make it last year. JAR gives the Dawgs a equal chance to go 6-2 or 5-3 in the SEC.
Kelly Ford has Georgia most likely to win 6:
Ford also has Georgia as his 2nd-highest rated team (behind Texas), likely to win 10 games overall, while SP+ also likes Georgia ($) to win 10 games and rates the Dawgs at fourth nationally:
So What?
As Vol fans, what are to do with this information as we look toward a huge SEC opener on September 13? For all that Josh Heupel has accomplished in his first four years on The Hill, a win against Georgia has been elusive.
Although the final score doesn’t always show it, UT has been oddly competitive against the Dawgs, but never able to put a full game together. In ‘21, Tennessee’s 17 points was the most any team scored against UGA in the regular season. In ‘22, #1 Tennessee missed on a few deep throws that could’ve kept a two-score game closer. Although the ‘23 game was a verifiable blowout, Tennessee did score on the first play of the game and could’ve hung in had the offense not stalled on the next couple of drives. Last year UT lead at halftime, but UGA OC Mike Bobo remembered how to use his TEs in the 2nd half and Georgia pulled away.
There’s a talent gap between Tennessee and Georgia that one could easily point to as the reason UT can’t close the deal against the Dawgs. But a similar talent gap exists between Tennessee and Alabama, and Josh Heupel has never lost to the Tide in Neyland. In fact, Heupel has a pretty dang good record in games where the opponent has a higher talent level. So what is it that keeps the UGA monkey on Tennessee’s back?
Styles make fights, so maybe it’s simply the way Georgia plays. You can point to the UGA TEs as an inflection point in most of those games. Plus the Dawgs tend to be able to win matchups on defense that even the similarly-talented Alabama teams don’t win.
There’s a lot of unknowns leading up this showdown. But the one known is that Tennessee hasn’t beaten Georgia since 2016. Until they show they can it’s hard to say they will. On top of that, the schedule didn’t do Tennessee any favors. Last year would’ve been the perfect time to get Georgia in Knoxville. The Dawgs weren’t playing as well on the road, and while they still won the SEC title, Georgia really didn’t play like themselves for much of the season. Had UT caught the Dawgs on the back end of the SEC gauntlet last year in Neyland, maybe they could’ve closed the deal. But instead, Georgia comes to town at the start of SEC play when everyone is fresh. Will Jermod McCoy be available for Tennessee to help shut down that revamped Georgia receiving corps? Maybe Georgia trying to break in a new QB will be the great equalizer—but Tennessee will be in that position too. Depending on how Tennessee’s offense looks in those first couple of games, there’s a good chance this gets seen as a game Tennessee should win. But is it a game the Vols can win?