SEC Media Days are up and running in Tampa, and the first coach to the podium didn’t waste any time throwing praise Georgia’s way.
Oklahoma’s Brent Venables kicked off the event fielding questions about the Sooners’ 2026 season, and one of the biggest ones centered on their brutal conference slate. Georgia is on that schedule — Oklahoma makes the trip to Athens this fall — and when the subject came up, Venables didn’t hedge. He called the Bulldogs the gold standard in the sport, pointing to just how hard they are to beat between the hedges.
“You’re not going to sneak up on anybody in Ann Arbor or going to Athens, Georgia,” Venables said. “I think they [Georgia] have lost maybe once in five or six years at home. Georgia has been the gold standard in my opinion for college football for quite some time now.”
Coming from a coach staring down a road trip to Sanford Stadium, that’s about as pointed a compliment as you’ll get in July.
Georgia and Oklahoma are two of the sport’s blue-blood brands, both carrying long, proud histories. For all that, they’ve crossed paths just once. That lone meeting came in the Rose Bowl during the 2017 season, when the Bulldogs erased a two-score second-half deficit and pulled out an overtime classic.
That win sent Georgia to its first national title game in decades and still ranks among the signature games of the College Football Playoff era. If this fall’s matchup delivers anything close, it’ll be worth circling on the calendar.
Kirby Smart is up next for Georgia — he’s scheduled to address the media on Tuesday, July 21.
