All Georgia football fans want for Christmas is a Sugar Bowl victory.<\/p>\n
OK, maybe the Bulldogs want more, but it\u2019s important to stay in the present.<\/p>\n
No doubt, these Bulldogs have brought great cheer (and cheers) throughout the season, growing into title contenders right before our eyes with dramatic, and of late, dominant, victories.<\/p>\n
The oddsmakers have Ohio State as the favorite to win the CFP championship game (+180), with Big Ten Indiana (+300) second, followed by Georgia (+500) and Oregon (+700).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But a national championship can be the focus of the new year, perhaps serve as Kirby Smart\u2019s first 2026 resolution?<\/p>\n
Smart has already won two CFP championships, and he\u2019s developed a team in 2025 that is arguably playing as well as any of the teams on the field on offense or defense.<\/p>\n
Smart is the first reason to believe Georgia will beat Ole Miss when the team\u2019s meet at 8 p.m. on Jan. 1 in New Orleans in the CFP Sugar Bowl quarterfinal.<\/p>\n
1. Play it again Kirby<\/p>\n
Smart is 4-0 in games where he\u2019s playing a team for the second time, and improving that statistic to 5-0 is the first step toward what would be his third national title.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs came from behind to beat Ole Miss earlier this season, outscoring the Rebels 17-0 in the fourth-quarter of a 43-35 win on Oct. 18.<\/p>\n
Smart recently said he doesn\u2019t expect Ole Miss to change much from what it has done to run up a 12-1 record, that includes a 41-10 win over Tulane in a first-round CFP game played on Dec. 20 in Oxford.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s bad news for the Rebels.<\/p>\n
Transition program<\/p>\n
Ole Miss has a nice story, having won its first-round CFP game in impressive fashion without Lane Kiffin, who took the LSU head coaching job.<\/p>\n
The school shot off fireworks, flew drones and had a wonderful afternoon of celebration amid Vaught Hemmingway Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Rebels\u2019 offensive staff, including play-calling OC Charlie Weis Jr., is on loan from the jobs they took with Kiffin.<\/p>\n
For all the talk about those offensive coaches being focused, it\u2019s worth noting the transfer portal opens on Jan. 2 and those coaches have been splitting their time between jobs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also likely a handful of Ole Miss players could be in talks to transfer to LSU, which certainly isn\u2019t optimal when it comes to keeping a team dialed in.<\/p>\n
A Rebels\u2019 team with compromised focus versus a Georgia team that\u2019s dialed in \u2014 you be the judge.<\/p>\n
Lasting impression<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard not to remember how Georgia ultimately dominated Ole Miss in the fourth quarter of the teams\u2019 earlier meeting.<\/p>\n
A refresher on how the Bulldogs sent the Rebels off to their team bus after the 43-35 win:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Georgia out-gained Ole Miss 143 yards to 13 in the fourth quarter<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Bulldogs had 10 first downs to the Rebels\u2019 one in the final 15 minutes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Trinidad Chambliss was 1-of-10 passing in the fourth quarter for 1 yard<\/p>\n
\u2022 Gunner Stockton was 6-of-6 passing for 71 yards with 2 touchdown passes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Georgia held the football for 13 minutes and four seconds, while Ole Miss had it for 1:53<\/p>\n
\u2022 UGA ran the ball 19 times for 72 yards, the Rebels had one rush for 12 yards.<\/p>\n
What has changed since then, other than Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for LSU? <\/p>\n
Likely, not nearly enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Georgia football fans want for Christmas is a Sugar Bowl victory. OK, maybe the Bulldogs want more,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5183,399,681,398,396,397,163768,99,9224],"class_list":["post-370631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-alabama","tag-football","tag-georgia","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sec-championship","tag-sports","tag-uga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}