How crazy is it that Georgia baseball flies out TOMORROW for Omaha?
I’ll be making the trip as well and can’t wait to see Dawg fans out there.
Heading into the College World Series, I wanted to highlight something wild. The SEC is sending a record five teams from a single conference: Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas.
SEC teams (and fans) will certainly be making themselves at home out in Omaha.
But, as excited as I know we’re all getting for the CWS, we’ve got a roller coaster of football news today as well, so let’s dive in:
UGA AD forbids school from scheduling Texas Tech
Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks is taking a stand after a judge’s decision to grant Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby an injunction to play this season despite being ruled ineligible by the NCAA for gambling.
“I’m not taking this lying down,” Brooks told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “It’s time to lead, and it’s time to do what’s right.”
UGA issued an internal memo to coaches instructing them not to schedule any future contests against Texas Tech without approval and to notify UGA leadership if there are any contests already scheduled or being discussed.
Brooks suggested in a Yahoo Sports article published earlier Monday that all programs should consider taking drastic action and not play Texas Tech in any sports if Sorsby — who has acknowledged gambling on his own team while at Indiana — is on the field.
Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor told Yahoo there has been “serious conversation” in the Big 12 about not playing the Red Raiders in football after a judge in Lubbock provided an injunction that would clear the Texas Tech quarterback to play.
In response to the move by Georgia — Nebraska issued a similar order when it comes to scheduling Texas Tech — Texas Tech’s Chairman of the Board of Regents Cody Campbell highlighted the number of Georgia football player arrests within the past year.
“@grok, how many @GeorgiaFootball players have been arrested in the last year,” Campbell asked.
Georgia has had eight players arrested in the past year. Brooks would also share a tweet after Campbell’s tweet.
“True integrity means holding your program accountable when things go wrong, not buying custom legislation or running to a local courtroom to bypass the rules,” Brooks tweeted.
It was quite a journey for Auburn. When Gilbert was looking at his decision back in late January, he had four teams in mind.
Auburn was not one of those. But the Tigers keep climbing in his mind as Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia Tech all fell off. The Bulldogs were the only constant.
Gilbert, seen by many as the highest-rated in-state recruit most likely to eventually commit to UGA, now becomes the second-highest-rated commitment in the 2027 Auburn class. He’s a top 60 national prospect for both 247Sports and Rivals.
There are a few things to note here. The first is that Georgia saw Gilbert as a cornerback. Auburn projects him to play safety.
This recruitment is definitely not over, either. The expectation here is that the Bulldogs will continue to put in the effort to flip the 6-foot-1, 170-pound rising senior. Gilbert is definitely talented enough for the Dawgs to play the long game here.
While most will center on financial incentives here, there’s one additional aspect of Gilbert’s decision that did favor the Tigers.
That was their campus location. The Auburn campus is only about 50 minutes away from his home in Sharpsburg. That’s one thing that really matters to Gilbert across his recruiting process.
Karlos May did more than just say that Georgia football was his new No. 1 school after his recent official visit.
May, from Ramsay High School in Birmingham, is the nation’s No. 22 DL and the No. 182 overall prospect for 2027 on the 247Sports Composite. The Rivals Industry Ranking has him as the No. 17 DL and No. 165 overall. He said he had a moment in Athens this weekend.
That was when the chill bumps came. Or when the hair on the back of his sizable neck started to stand straight up.
It was brought on after a meeting with Georgia defensive line coach Tray Scott.
“After that meeting,” he said. “I just kind of sat down for a minute and said‚ ‘I knew Georgia was the place.’ It was the place. You can see why they win games. Just because coach Scott has developed a lot of people.”
That was the best part of his visit.
“I almost wanted to commit on the spot, actually,” May said. “But I changed my mind. I said I was going to do what I said I would. Go through all my visits. Things like that. But I definitely felt that way.”
4-star Class of 2027 DL plays for Ramsay High School in Birmingham. He's one of the top targets for Georgia this cycle. He poses here on his UGA official visit photo shoot. (Courtesy photo)
4-star Class of 2027 DL plays for Ramsay High School in Birmingham. He's one of the top targets for Georgia this cycle. He poses here on his UGA official visit photo shoot. (Courtesy photo)
This position group must take a leap
By all accounts, last season was a good one for the Georgia Bulldogs. They won 12 games, took down longtime foe Alabama to win the SEC and made it back to the College Football Playoff for a fourth time in five seasons.
But good isn’t good enough at Georgia – Georgia coach Kirby Smart knows this, having set expectations so high.
“Apparently all we can do is win the SEC championship right now, so that’s not good enough, but you know those are good teams,” Smart said in a May appearance on the Paul Finebaum show. “We got beat by the team that we beat. It’s hard to beat a good team twice. They beat us, and Notre Dame was a really good team. I got a lot of respect for them, so we did not play well, and that falls on me.
If Georgia is going to top its 2025 season, the Bulldogs need to elevate from being a good team to being a great one.
With that in mind, this week at DawgNation will be Leap Week, where we take a look at various areas on the roster and look at how much of a leap is needed for the Bulldogs to reach their goals.
Of the positions on Georgia’s roster, there’s no group that needs to make bigger strides from last season than at the outside linebacker position.
The biggest statistical weakness for Georgia last season came in its inability to get to opposing quarterbacks. The Bulldogs had just 20.0 sacks on the season, the fewest ever in Smart’s 10 seasons in Athens.
Georgia’s outside linebackers last season combined for just 3.0 of those sacks. The Bulldogs have more often than not had an inside linebacker lead the team in sacks, but Georgia’s outside linebackers have been productive players in the past.
Georgia knew it was going to be in a state of transition last season at the position. Chaz Chambliss, who led Georgia with 6.5 sacks in 2024, was on the Minnesota Vikings. Damon Wilson transferring to Missouri just before the winter transfer portal closed put Georgia in a further behind.
The addition of Army transfer Elo Modozie didn’t work out for the Bulldogs, as he finished with no sacks.
Georgia did see some strides late in the year at the position, with Quintavius Johnson and Gabe Harris emerging late in the season. Johnson was in his second year in the program, while Harris bounced between the defensive line and outside linebacker spots.
Harris missed spring practice recovering from a toe injury. He’s expected to be back to full strength when the Bulldogs begin fall practice.
“He’s just got great toughness. He’s got great pass-rush ability and, shoot, he was back out there at the end of spring going through things without pads on trying to compete against our guys,” Smart said.
The absence of Harris this spring did create an opening for some of the younger players on the roster. Freshman Khamari Brooks impressed during the spring game, as he notched 2.0 sacks in what doubled as Georgia’s final spring practice
Alabama wide receiver Lotzeir Brooks (17) loses his helmet as Georgia linebacker Chase Linton (85) makes the tackle during the third quarter of the SEC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (Hyosub Shin / AJC)
Georgia linebacker Gabe Harris Jr. (0) helps block the punt by Alabama punter Blake Doud (38) during the first quarter of the SEC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (Hyosub Shin / AJC)
Georgia baseball gets night game for CWS matchup with Texas
OK, back to baseball:
Georgia knows its start time and opponent for its first game in the College World Series.
The Bulldogs (51-12) are in Bracket 2 and will face Texas (45-13) at 8 p.m. ET Saturday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
As the No. 3 national seed, the Bulldogs are the highest seed remaining in the tournament as they head to Omaha, Nebraska. Texas was seeded sixth.
Regardless, Georgia fans brought the energy at Foley Field and Kudzu Hill, and the Bulldogs came out on top in two thrillers. It might not be a home setting anymore, but now Georgia gets a night game against Texas at Charles Schwab Field.
The Bulldogs have not played the Longhorns yet this season. The teams last faced off in April 2025, when Georgia was swept in Austin. Texas won the SEC regular-season championship in 2025.
If Georgia was to beat Texas, it would face the Alabama-Oklahoma winner Monday. If Georgia were to lose, it would play the loser of that game in an elimination game Monday.
For those who have never experienced Georgia’s raucous student section above right field, I asked him to detail his experience:
“My time at Kudzu Hill is something I will never forget.
I went up for Game 1, which happened to be at 11 a.m., but I still believed that it would be packed for the game. Right when I got there, everyone was so friendly and graciously let me watch the game from wherever. Not only that, but if you were ever wondering about it being too early for the cold drinks to be pouring, hamburgers, hot dogs and other foods to be cooking on the grill, then you would be mistaken.
Eventually I ended up on the back patio of the greenhouse where I talked to UGA students, residents of the greenhouse and parents who were back in town helping move their children out. It was so cool to talk and hear people’s stories about how much this environment means to them and the impact this baseball program is playing in rallying the community around a common goal - bringing a championship home to Athens.
As the game progressed, cheers were yelled in unison, food and drinks were passed around, and people were just having a good time. Fans were sliding down a water slide, sitting on a U-Haul trailer and eventually ripping off shirts to whirl around. For most of the students, it was a last ride, as the majority up there were seniors or had just graduated and were back in town.
The best moment came right after Michael O’Shaughnessy’s go-ahead eighth-inning home run that sent the place into bedlam. Beer showers, screaming, people hugging random strangers - it was an insanity. Luckily, Georgia held on to win, so it made the day a lot more enjoyable for those in attendance.
But if you ever want to see why college baseball is the best, carve a day out to Kudzu Hill next spring and see for yourself how awesome the ‘Kudzu Crazies’ are."
UGA fans cheer at Kudzu Hill after a home run by Georgia Bulldogs infielder Michael OShaughnessy (4) during the eighth inning of their NCAA Regional final game at Foley Field on Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Athens..(Miguel Martinez/AJC)
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