{"id":205291,"date":"2025-07-14T01:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/205291\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T01:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:24:11","slug":"paul-finebaum-continues-to-give-georgia-bulldogs-and-kirby-smart-more-ammo-ahead-of-2025-college-football-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/205291\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum continues to give Georgia Bulldogs and Kirby Smart more ammo ahead of 2025 college football season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Finebaum continues to give Georgia Bulldogs and Kirby Smart more ammo ahead of 2025 college football season<\/a> originally appeared on A to Z Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ESPN and SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum can’t seem to help himself from doubting Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs ahead of this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

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During an appearance on ESPN\u2019s First Take, Finebaum was asked about Georgia\u2018s chances to make the 2025 College Football Playoffs and gave his brutally honest opinion.<\/p>\n

Finebaum cited Georgia losing several key players to the NFL and their tough schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe they\u2019ll be fighting to be in the Playoffs. And we all respect Kirby Smart, I think he\u2019s the best coach in college football. But that doesn\u2019t mean anything if you lose players like they have lost over the last couple of years,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cThree years ago, that draft in Vegas everyone remembers, it was one Georgia player after another. I\u2019ve never seen anything quite like that. But they haven\u2019t been quite able to fill those needs. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know the point was made earlier about Stetson Bennett winning two national championships. But he had one of the all-time defenses, and I don\u2019t think Georgia has that (this season). That Alabama game is problematic in September, and so are a number of other games that Georgia is going to have to deal with, including a visit from Arch Manning late in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe Finebaum overlooked the fact that Georgia has made the College Football Playoff three times in the last four years, no matter how tough their schedule has been.<\/p>\n

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As for losing players to the NFL, Coach Smart quickly filled those gaps through the NCAA transfer portal, bringing in Illinois running back Josh McCray and USC wide receiver Zachariah Branch. On top of that, he boosted the defense with top-tier talent during the 2025 recruiting class by landing five-star prospects Isaiah Gibson and Elijah Griffin. And of offense, the Dawgs were able to snag a handful of four-star pass catchers, Talyn Taylor, CJ Wiley, Elyiss Williams, and more.<\/p>\n

Sure, quarterback Gunner Stockon might be inexperienced, but if anyone can develop a young QB into a winner, it\u2019s Smart and his coaching staff.<\/p>\n

So go ahead, Finebaum, keep those doubts coming.<\/p>\n

Related: Georgia Bulldogs beat out SEC rival to land 4-star Buford safety<\/a><\/p>\n

View the original article<\/a> to see embedded media.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by A to Z Sports<\/a> on Jul 13, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum continues to give Georgia Bulldogs and Kirby Smart more ammo ahead of 2025 college football season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[615,43575,43574,7597,12,7,450,626,49,48,6,8007,471,3316],"class_list":{"0":"post-205291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-arch-manning","9":"tag-brutally-honest","10":"tag-coach-smart","11":"tag-college-football-playoffs","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-georgia-bulldogs","15":"tag-kirby-smart","16":"tag-ncaa","17":"tag-ncaa-football","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-paul-finebaum","20":"tag-stetson-bennett","21":"tag-upcoming-season"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114848980534506501","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}