Field Street Forum

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One of Georgia’s main themes during the preseason and now into 2025 will be to play with “FPE.” Fifty-four percent of Georgia’s roster is made of players in their first or second seasons in Athens, and they have displayed youthful exuberance throughout spring and fall camp.

Georgia is 101-27-3 in season openers including 9-0 in the Kirby Smart era. The Bulldogs have won 11 straight openers. The last defeat came in 2013 at #8 Clemson (38-35 over #5 Georgia).

This will be the second meeting between the two schools. Marshall is under the direction of first-year coach Tony Gibson. He replaced Charles Huff who left for Southern Miss shortly after winning the Sun Belt Conference last year. MU entered bowl season with a 10-3 mark and on a seven-game winning streak, but a significant number of players jumped into the portal following Huff’s departure, and Marshall pulled out of the Independence Bowl. Gibson’s first recruiting class features 61 new players. In 2025, Marshall will wear green helmets, a first since 2009.

In 2004, Georgia played host to Marshall, and the visitors took an early 3-0 lead on a 33-yard field goal by Ian O’Connor. It was set up by a 57-yard completion from Stan Hill to Emmanuel Spann on the first play from scrimmage. The Bulldog defense would blank the Thundering Herd the rest of the way for a 13-3 win as Marshall managed just 160 yards of offense. David Greene finished 17-for-30 for 209 yards while Thomas Brown gained 81 yards on 18 carries. Michael Cooper scored the lone touchdown while Andy Bailey hit a pair of field goals from 29 and 33 yards.

From 1996-2000, Georgia was led by Jim Donnan who was hired from Marshall. Donnan, a 2009 College Football Hall of Fame inductee, posted a 40-19 record during his Georgia tenure.

Despite posting an 11-3 mark with an SEC title and advancing to another College Football Playoff, Georgia’s offensive and defensive statistics were deemed average by the pundits compared to other top teams last year. However, one should consider the Bulldogs played the nation’s toughest schedule per ESPN’s FPI with regular season road games at No. 1 Texas, No. 4 Alabama, No. 16 Ole Miss, and in the postseason, they faced No. 2 Texas in Atlanta and No. 5 Notre Dame in the CFP at the Sugar Bowl. Ultimately, here’s where the Bulldogs finished in the national rankings. Scoring Offense: Averaged 31.5 ppg (38th); Scoring Defense: Allowed 20.6 ppg (23rd)

In the Smart era, the Georgia defense has ended the year ranked in the top five nationally in Scoring Defense five times including leading the nation twice (2019 at 12.6 ppg & 2021 at 10.2 ppg). Also, Georgia was ranked in the final top 10 in Scoring Offense from 2021-23. The Bulldogs were the only FBS team to finish the 2023 season nationally ranked in the top five in both Scoring Offense (40.1 ppg/5th) and Scoring Defense (15.6 ppg/5th).

Kirby Smart enters his 10th season at the helm of his alma mater with a 105-19 mark. He is one of only two active coaches (Dabo Swinney, Clemson) with multiple national championships. Georgia is the only team in the CFP-era to win back-to-back national titles, doing it in 2021-2022.

In 2024, the Bulldogs made their fourth straight appearance in the SEC Championship Game (SECCG) and seventh overall trip under Smart. After a 22-19 overtime win over then No. 2 Texas, the Bulldogs claimed their 15th SEC title in school history and the No. 2 seed in the CFP.

Georgia owns the nation’s longest active bowl streak at 28 seasons. Since 2019, the Bulldogs are 7-1 in their past eight bowl/CFP matchups after a CFP quarterfinal loss to #5 Notre Dame in the 2025 Sugar Bowl.

Georgia is 39-3 against non-conference teams in the Smart era including 22-1 at home. The only losses have been in the 2025 CFP quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl (#5 Notre Dame 23-10), the 2019 Sugar Bowl (Texas 28-21) and in 2016 in Athens (Ga. Tech 28-27).

Redshirt junior Gunner Stockton, a 6-1, 215-pound native of Tiger, Ga., enters the 2025 season as the veteran quarterback with rookies behind him in redshirt freshmen Ryan Puglisi and Colter Ginn plus true freshmen Ryan Montgomery and Hezekiah Millender all preparing for their opportunity.

Stockton delivered when called upon to start the second half of the 2024 SECCG against Texas who had the No. 1 rated pass defense (No. 3 total defense). He led the Bulldogs on scoring drives of 75, 61 and 72 yards in three of the first four possessions and then the game-winning TD in OT. He finished 12-for-16 for 71 yards and one INT plus had a career-high eight rushes for 19 yards.

Before the SECCG win over then No. 2 Texas, Stockton was 13-for-16 for 135 yards with two rushing yards on nine attempts last season. He saw action in four games in 2023 and was 12-for-19 for 148 yards and two TDs.

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ATHENS – Head coach Kirby Smart, running back Cash Jones and defensive lineman Jordan Hall preview the upcoming season opener against Marshall. They offered the following comments.

Head Coach Kirby Smart

Opening Statement…
“Yeah, we’re opening up with Marshall. Our guys started our prep last week. Coaches kind of started on Thursday, Players kind of started on Friday. SO we’ve got two practices in towards that goal of playing these guys. I’m excited for a home opener. We get sometimes the neutral site, sometimes on the road. But this home opener, I know I’m excited. I’m excited about this weather for our fans. Looks like it’s going to  be a great weather day in terms of not catching some of the August, September heat we get sometimes. A lot of respect for this head coach and his program. When I look at the similarities between, he’s been a defensive coordinator for a long time, a very successful one, Coach Tony Gibson. He’s also coming kind of home to West Virginia. And he’s got a staff that’s very passionate about Marshall. You know when someone is passionate about the place they coach, they’re going to do a tremendous job, and his staff reflects that. Marshall’s got a tremendous history of a lot of good football players, a lot of good teams. To look and see what they did last year in a really, extremely tough Sunbelt Conference, it kind of speaks for itself. So our guys are excited to go play. We always say the game’s about us, and it’ll always be about how we play. And we gotta go play our best, so that’s the next step for us.”

On preparing for Marshall’s overhauled roster…
“You start with yourself, right. You prepare yourself by how you run to the ball, how you strike people, how you move people, how you run the ball, throw the ball, don’t turn it over.  A lot of sloppiness in first games, penalties, so it starts with that. You’re asking about the opponent, the opponent is us, and it’s going to be us every week this year. It is important that we know what they do, and sometimes that’s less information than others. They’ve got an interesting roster makeup of guys from all over, some of which they couldn’t control because they had a lot of guys leave after the head coach left. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a roster that when we write on the depth chart transfer, it’s three deep transfer, four deep transfer, all these spots, a lot of transfers. But that’s more and more evident all over. Probably the first games all over the country this weekend will be a lot of guys figuring out who’s in that spot, who’s in that spot. Nobody has a clue who’s in those spots. The less teams are in the spotlight, the less you’ll know. But again, it’ll be probably more of an adjustment from the kickoff to the first quarter than most games, but it’ll also be about us.”

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