It was another busy weekend around UGA that provided lots of good news to report.
First of all, Georgia’s traditional scavenger hunt appears to have been a success. You may have seen the photos of the various recruits posing with Kirby Smart after they tracked him down on campus. Stay tuned to DawgNation in the days to come for more updates on which prospects might’ve been swayed by their visits.
Elsewhere, it’s time we started talking a lot more about the Diamond Dawgs. UGA took two of three games at Auburn this weekend, and in the process, sent a message that it could truly be one of the favorites to make it to Omaha and the College World Series as postseason play is set to begin.
Georgia will play this week as the top seed in the SEC baseball tournament.
Speaking of the postseason, UGA’s softball team won its NCAA regional and advanced to the Super Regional for the fourth straight season by beating Clemson 5-0.
Unfortunately the news wasn’t as good for Georgia’s women’s tennis team — which got to the national semifinals while playing in front of big crowds at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, but ultimately saw its season end this weekend at the hands of Texas A&M.
However, congratulations are still in order for a terrific run through the season and for the excitement they generated on campus.
Check out the rest of our coverage below.
Trivia time
What was Georgia baseball’s final regular season record?
Answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.
Georgia football set for seven official visits on scavenger hunt weekend
The biggest official visit weekend of the 2027 recruiting cycle so far is already underway for Georgia football.
DawgNation has learned that 4-star WR Amare Patterson, fresh off a pair of second-place finishes at the South Carolina state track meet, was already en route to Athens on Friday morning.
While the Dawgs hosted two official visitors at G-Day last month, the program gets serious with its 2027 high-value targets this weekend. That will happen at the same time as the annual Smart scavenger hunt with some unofficial visitors in town.
Finding Smart on campus and taking a selfie with the head coach for social media are at the center of the scavenger-hunt weekend. That’s the main event, but the annual affair combines a lot of fun, mixing a campus tour with everything from pet snakes to library archive visits to fountain diving to walkie-talkie work to some gamesmanship involving one another’s golf carts over the years.
The scavenger hunt teams are usually divided by position groups.
The only difference with this year’s event is that the number of official visitors has grown over the last few years. DawgNation is tracking seven prospects that are expected to take their official visit to UGA this weekend.
Women’s tennis vs. N.C. State (NCAA Championships): 4-1 victory
Softball vs. Charleston (Athens Regional): 5-2 victory
Baseball at Auburn: 9-7 victory
Saturday, May 16
Softball vs. UNC Greensboro (Athens Regional): 8-0 victory
Baseball at Auburn: 14-4 loss
Women’s tennis vs. Texas A&M (NCAA Championships): 4-3 loss
Sunday, May 17
Softball vs. Clemson (Athens Regional): 5-0 victory
Shadow of Jared Curtis flip grows larger
Two-time Georgia football commit Jared Curtis was back in the news this week. Not for something the former 5-star quarterback did on the football field, but rather for something off it.
The Bulldogs made a serious effort to keep Curtis in the class, only for him to ultimately flip to Vanderbilt just before the early signing period. Georgia went all in on Curtis, yet the possibility of early playing time was something that Georgia could not match.
But Curtis looms over Georgia in another way at this moment. Not as a future opponent, but as part of an ongoing mission to find a quarterback in the 2027 recruiting cycle. With every miss on a top quarterback, it serves as a reminder of the price Georgia paid by not landing the former 5-star quarterback.
Georgia's Tre Phelps watches as he flies out to center field during the second inning against Georgia Tech on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at Truist Park in Atlanta. (Jason Getz/AJC)
Quote of the day
Georgia baseball coach Wes Johnson on the team’s mindset entering the Auburn series:
“The message today is really simple: Auburn is coming, and they want to put something on their wall that says they took down the SEC champions. Are you going to go in there and compete? I don’t think focus this week will be an issue. There is enough out there for me to talk to our players about from a standpoint of, ‘You need to finish strong,’ for a lot of reasons.”
Jalon Walker does Georgia fans proud in Falcons schedule video
The Atlanta Falcons have leaned more into their ties with the Georgia Bulldogs of late. The NFL team drafted Zachariah Branch in the third round of the 2026 NFL draft and the year before took Jalon Walker in the first round.
With Walker being one of the faces of the franchise — he had 5½ sacks as a rookie — Walker was a prominent part of the team’s schedule release video on Thursday evening. Atlanta’s social team did a nod to some of the more iconic “This is SportsCenter” ads, re-creating some iconic commercials when the ESPN program was in its heyday.
The whole video is worth checking out. But one of the skits has Walker leaning into his Georgia Bulldog background, where they have Walker bark at a few fellow employees.
