Georgia will introduce new women’s basketball coach Ayla Guzzardo on Tuesday morning, a moment that signifies the Bulldogs are looking to take the next step.
Georgia made the NCAA Tournament in coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson’s final season, but the Bulldogs are no longer looking to just make the Tournament — they want to get back to winning games.
Georgia was one of the top women’s basketball programs under Andy Landers with five Final Four appearances.
It remains to be seen if the Bulldogs will achieve a similar level of success under Guzzardo, but the coaching change shows Georgia is no longer content.
And that’s a fun place to be for its fans.
Check out the rest of our coverage below.
Trivia time
When was Vince Dooley’s only losing season at Georgia?
Answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.
Where things stand with the Georgia QB room following first scrimmage
Georgia enjoys a luxury at the quarterback position most teams in the country crave.
Gunner Stockton returns as the team’s starter. He’s an accomplished quarterback, yet he knows he’s got to play better than he did to end last season.
There’s a belief that when the games roll around in the fall, Stockton will be a more consistent quarterback.
“I would just say just take every day and treat it like a game,” Stockton said. “I mean, that’s the only way to get better and make the most of every opportunity.”
In the spring, there’s not much more for him to show. He entered spring practice recovering from a knee injury. The injury isn’t long-term and hasn’t prevented him from practicing, which can’t be said for other expected contributors.
“He’s limited a little bit the first couple days, but he’s out there competing, doing a good job, focusing on the things he needs to improve on and compete with those other guys,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said of Stockton. “So I’ve been really pleased with Gunner.”
Georgia ‘stronger in more areas than people acknowledge’
Georgia has had a lot of success under Smart. But in recent years, the Bulldogs haven’t had the ending they would like.
The Bulldogs didn’t make the four-team College Football Playoff field in 2023. Georgia responded by winning the SEC in each of the last two seasons, only to go one-and-done in the 12-team field both times.
The Bulldogs return a number of contributors from last season’s team, beyond just starting quarterback Gunner Stockton. That experience is a big reason a few CBS Sports analysts expect Georgia to at least make it to the final four of this year’s College Football Playoff.
“Georgia has been quietly rising over the last two years, and though the pass rush isn’t what it was four years ago, Kirby Smart’s program is stronger in more areas than people acknowledge,” Brandon Marcello said.
“It takes a second as a quarterback. There’s a million things you have to know before the play even happens, let alone the actual play. And these guys just have gotten so much more comfortable out on the field, organizing a huddle, whether it’s making sure guys are just simply in the right spot in a huddle, to pre-snap coverage and everything. And these guys are great now.”
Chauncey Bowens shares how he got to wear the jersey of a Georgia legend
For all the great Georgia running backs over the years, the last to be a Heisman Trophy finalist was Garrison Hearst back in 1992.
He ran for 1,547 yards that season, the most ever for a Georgia running back not named Herschel Walker. He actually topped Walker for the school’s most rushing touchdowns in a season with 19. He finished third in Heisman Trophy voting, behind Miami’s Gino Torretta and San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk.
Hearst left Georgia as the school’s second-most productive rusher in school history. Even 30 years after he last played for Georgia, he still ranks fifth all-time in rushing yards.
Point being, Hearst is a school legend. Current Georgia running back Chauncey Bowens knows that and still felt compelled to ask if it would be acceptable to wear Hearst’s No. 5 jersey for this coming season.
Georgia hasn’t had a running back wear the No. 5 jersey since Smart took over as the program’s head coach back in 2016.
Bowens had a personal connection to the number, as he lived with Garrison’s son, Gannon, when the two played together during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
