Evaluating Georgia's secondary

The Georgia secondary is off to a solid start in the 2025 season.

The Bulldogs stifled Marshall’s passing game for most of last Saturday’s season opener. The Thundering Herd did hit a couple of big plays late, but those came against young Bulldog backups lower on the depth chart.

Georgia played without starting corner Daylen Everette, who missed the game with an ankle injury. While Daniel Harris and Ellis Robinson helped limit Marshall through the air, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is still looking for “process over results.”

“That’s probably the message that goes to every position group. Not them, not directed at them, but did they do the process right?” Smart said. “Were their eyes in the right spot? Did they play with the correct leverage? Did they play the right technique? There were a lot of those things we didn’t do right. The results were fine, right? But they didn’t do the process right, and we’re really trying to hone in on not results. It doesn’t matter how it came out. It matters, did you go about it the right way?”

What about at safety?

At safety, the competition carried through fall camp and into the season opener.

Kyron Jones started opposite KJ Bolden at safety. Adrian Maddox, JaCorey Thomas, and Zion Branch also saw action throughout the game.

In Smart’s eyes, that group’s toughest test has still been on the practice field.

“I thought those five guys that played back there did a nice job, continued to improve,” Smart said. “They didn’t get tested probably as much as they get tested in practice. Like I told you guys, there’s a bunch of opportunities to get better, and one of them is today. And those guys will go out and compete and continue to develop and get better by the drills we put them in and the competition they have. But Saturday they did what they were supposed to do, didn’t get a lot of opportunity.” 

Georgia will face FCS opponent Austin Peay this weekend before the competition ramps up next week at Tennessee. New Volunteer starting quarterback Joey Aguilar passed for 247 yards and three touchdowns in a season-opening win against Syracuse.