On Saturday, the Georgia football program continued its winning ways by defeating the Florida Gators in narrow fashion in their annual game played in Jacksonville, Florida. As has been a familiar theme for the Bulldogs this year, Georgia had to work its way back from a deficit in order to pull this one out of the fire, but they ended up doing just enough down the stretch to push their record to 7-1 on the 2025 college football season.
This game marked the first contest for the Gators since firing head coach Billy Napier, and after the game, Smart made sure to shout out his former adversary for the mark he made on the Florida program.
“Lot of credit to Florida. Their kids fight. You know, Billy Napier has got a really good roster here and did a great job assembling this thing. They’ve got a physical football team. They’re just in a really tough league,” said Smart, per Thomas Goldkamp of On3 Sports.
Georgia benefited from a late replay review, with footage confirming that the Gators did indeed drop a deep bomb that would have put them deep in Bulldogs territory with a chance to win the game.
“Well it was a huge stop,” Smart said. “I don’t think we played real well defensively throughout the game. But you know what? We won the game. They keep coming. Offense played when they had to.”
Another close win for Georgia
Georgia football has only blown out one of its SEC opponents this year, beating the Kentucky Wildcats in comfortable fashion earlier in the season.
Other than that, the Bulldogs have either had to find ways to squeak by, or suffered a loss, as was the case in late September against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Still, the Bulldogs sit at 7-1 now as the season reaches its home stretch and are in great position to once again be in the College Football playoff next month.
Up next for Georgia is a road game against Mississippi State on Saturday afternoon.
