Georgia is the media’s pick to win the SEC again in 2026, and the Bulldogs are also the league’s projected champion for the second straight year.
Kirby Smart’s team, coming off last season’s SEC title, finished on top of the preseason media vote with 2,519 points. Texas followed close behind at 2,449, with Ole Miss, Texas A&M, LSU and Alabama rounding out the next spots in the poll.
The same vote also sent Georgia to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, with Texas tabbed as the opponent. Georgia earned 88 votes to win the league, while Texas received 57. Ole Miss picked up six, Texas A&M five, Alabama three, Oklahoma two, LSU two and Kentucky one.
That prediction comes after Georgia beat Alabama 28-7 a season ago to claim back-to-back SEC championships. The Bulldogs have now been selected by the media to win the conference only four times in history: 2004, 2023, 2024 and 2026. Georgia has won the SEC six times since media voting began in 1992.
The 2026 vote also keeps Georgia in a small club. Alabama has been picked to win the SEC 11 times since 2010 and has won seven of those.
Texas and Georgia are the only schools to be picked more than once by the media to win the league since 2010. And before 2025, only the traditional six SEC powers - Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia and LSU - had ever been chosen.
Georgia enters Smart’s 11th season in Athens with a schedule that includes seven home games and one notable neutral-site wrinkle. The Bulldogs will face Florida in Atlanta for the first time ever on Halloween at 3:30 PM. Clean Old Fashioned Hate will be played Between the Hedges this year on Saturday, November 28 th after Georgia and Georgia Tech met on Black Friday a year ago.
The Bulldogs also get Oklahoma at home in Athens on September 26th. The schools’ most famous meeting came in the 2018 Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena.
Georgia opens SEC play in Fayettville against Arkansas, the same place the Bulldogs last visited in 2020 during the COVID season. That game was the one where Stetson Bennett first broke through on the way to Georgia’s back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022.
Georgia is trying to get back to the College Football Playoff after falling to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in January. That loss ended a 12-2 season in 2025. As of late July 2026, the Bulldogs are again among the national title favorites at +900, alongside Indiana, while Ohio State leads the board at +550, followed by Notre Dame at +650, Oregon at +800 and Texas at +850.
The preseason media poll also laid out the rest of the SEC order: Ole Miss third, Texas A&M fourth, LSU fifth, Alabama sixth, Oklahoma seventh, Tennessee eighth, Florida ninth, Missouri 10th, South Carolina 11th, Auburn 12th, Vanderbilt 13th, Kentucky 14th, State 15th and Arkansas 16th.
Georgia also placed several players on the preseason All-SEC teams. On offense, Earnest Greene III and Drew Bobo made the first team, while Nate Frazier, Lawson Luckie, Dontrell Glover and Gunner Stockton landed on the second or third teams. Texas quarterback Arch Manning was named second-team quarterback, while Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss earned first-team honors.
On defense, Georgia was represented by KJ Bolden and Ellis Robinson IV on the first team, Elijah Griffin and Raylen Wilson on the second team, and Gabe Harris and Khalil Barnes on the third team. In all, Texas, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU and Oklahoma were heavily featured across the defensive selections as well.
Among the specialists, Oklahoma’s Tate Sandell was a first-team pick at kicker and kickoff specialist, while LSU’s Grant Chadwick earned first-team punter honors. Texas’ Ryan Niblett was named first-team return specialist.
In Other News...
Kirby Smart Just Got The Recruiting Validation Georgia Fans Needed
Georgias 2027 recruiting class may not look like a vintage Kirby Smart haul just yet, but there are signs the Bulldogs are still landing the kind of players that can change the conversation. The group sits No. 12 overall, and nearly half of the current commits are three-star prospects, which has left plenty of room for movement as the cycle develops. One of the more encouraging developments came from wide receiver Taurean Rawlins, who recently climbed to four-star status on the 247Sports composite rankings.
Even with that boost, the real pressure point remains in the secondary, where Georgia has only one defensive back committed and still appears to need several more additions. That makes the next stretch of recruiting especially important for Smart and his staff, not just in adding talent but in holding onto the commits they already have. Georgia has already watched a couple of promising pledges slip away, so the focus now is on keeping the class intact while trying to fill the biggest remaining gaps. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Just Got A Boost Georgia Fans Wont Want To See
Texas got a notable piece of offseason news on the offensive line, and it could matter in the SEC race Georgia is trying to control. A key blocker is now positioned to give the Longhorns another year of experience up front, which is the kind of development that can quietly reshape how well a team protects its quarterback and handles the weekly grind of conference play.
For Georgia, the timing is worth watching because the Bulldogs are still viewed as the favorite in the SEC, but Texas already looked like one of the leagues biggest threats. Any added stability on the line only helps the Longhorns as they build toward 2026, and it gives their path a little more credibility in a conference where one extra veteran can make a real difference. [Read more 🡒]
Kirby Smart Just Sent A Clear Message About Georgia And Texas
Kirby Smart has spent years building Georgia the old-fashioned way, and the contrast with Texas has only gotten sharper in the NIL era. While the Longhorns have leaned heavily on the transfer portal, Smart has kept emphasizing high school recruiting and roster continuity, a formula that has helped Georgia win two national championships and three SEC titles since the landscape changed.
The difference is more than philosophical, because it shapes how each program handles the churn of a modern roster. Smart has made it clear he prefers to keep and develop players rather than treat them as expendable pieces for the next portal addition, and the results have shown up on the field too, with Georgia unbeaten in three meetings against Texas since the Longhorns entered the SEC. [Read more 🡒]