Kirby Smart has already done more at Georgia than most people thought possible when he was hired 10 years ago, and the engine behind that run has been recruiting. Year after year, he’s stacked elite classes in Athens.
Still, even with all that success, there are a few names that linger as painful near-misses. These are the ones that make Georgia fans stop and wonder how much bigger the Kirby Smart era might have been if the bounce of a recruiting battle had gone the other way.
Trevor Lawrence is the obvious headliner. One of the best quarterbacks college football has seen over the last decade, he took Clemson to a National Championship as a true freshman in 2018 and then kept rolling for two more seasons after that.
Georgia believed at one point that he was leaning its way, and the Bulldogs came close enough to make the whole thing feel real. If Lawrence had landed in Athens, Georgia might have had a real shot at winning at least one title, maybe even two, before the 2021 breakthrough.
The ripple effect would have been massive.
The same kind of ache follows Cam Akers. The No. 3 overall player in the 2017 class was the crown jewel of Smart’s first full recruiting cycle, and Georgia pushed hard to pull him away from Florida State.
It didn’t happen, and Akers went on to post 27 rushing touchdowns and nearly 3,000 yards on the ground across three college seasons. Georgia’s run game was strong in those early Smart years, but Akers could have taken it to another level.
He might have changed the shape of the offense, and maybe even the outcome of that first playoff run.
Then there’s Damon Wilson, whose departure stings for a different reason because it was so recent. He spent two seasons at Georgia at EDGE and looked poised to step into a starting role in 2025 before transferring to Missouri.
Wilson delivered nine sacks for Missouri this past season, exactly the kind of pressure Georgia struggled to create this year. That lack of pass rush eventually came back to bite them when Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss lit them up in the College Football Playoff.
It’s impossible to know whether Wilson alone would have changed everything, but he would have solved a major problem.
Jordan Seaton is another one that still has Georgia fans shaking their heads. One of the top offensive tackles in the 2024 class, he was thought to be headed to Athens before the Deion Sanders hype pulled him to Colorado instead.
That didn’t work out as a long-term stop, and Seaton has since moved on to LSU for this fall. Georgia has built its identity on elite offensive line play, and Seaton would have fit that mold perfectly.
The fact that he’s already moved on only makes the miss feel bigger.
Jared Curtis is the newest name on the list, and maybe the hardest one to judge because he hasn’t played a snap yet. The No. 1 quarterback in the 2026 class was committed to Georgia for a long stretch before flipping to Vanderbilt and signing with the Commodores late last year.
He wouldn’t have been in the mix to play this season, but he would have been right in the middle of the battle next year once Gunner Stockton leaves. Georgia would have had a strong chance to win that job.
For now, it’s too early to say what Curtis will become, but he’s already the kind of quarterback Georgia could end up regretting losing for a long time.
In Other News...
Why Georgia May Need Chauncey Bowens More Than Fans Realize
Chauncey Bowens did not arrive in Athens with the kind of instant spotlight that usually follows Georgia running backs, but by the end of the 2025 season he had become a much more important piece of the offense than he was as a freshman. After a quiet first year, the sophomore carved out real playing time and turned it into production, finishing with 103 carries for 526 yards and six touchdowns while also showing he can be part of the passing game.
Heading into 2026, the Bulldogs are expected to lean on him even more in a rotation that still includes Nate Frazier, and that is why Bowens matters beyond the usual depth-chart conversation. Georgia does not need him to be a headline-grabber every week, but it may need him to be ready for a bigger load if the season pushes the backfield in that direction, and his 2025 stretch suggests he is already close to that kind of responsibility. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Fans Will Want To Find This High School Bat In Draft List
The 2026 MLB Draft in Philadelphia stretched across two days and turned into a long showcase for high school baseball, with more than 100 prep players hearing their names called from rounds 3 through 20. For Georgia fans, it was the kind of draft board that rewards close watching, because several players with ties to the state surfaced in the later rounds alongside the usual mix of national prospects and under-the-radar names.
Among the Georgia connections, the list included Keon Johnson of First Presbyterian, Wessley Roberson and Jacob Sammis of Glynn Academy, Martin Shelar of Marist School, Cameron Jackson of Georgia Premier HS, Isaiah Galason of Houston County HS and Marcus Ward of King's Ridge Christian School. The Braves also made a selection of their own in the third round, adding another layer of interest for Bulldogs fans tracking how the draft class and the states prep pipeline continue to overlap. [Read more 🡒]