Just over three months ago, as I watched Trinidad Chambliss do his best Nightcrawler impression in the Superdome, I unleashed a torrent of profanity that would’ve turned Andrew Dice Clay the color of a firetruck and swore to Quetzalcoatl that 2026 is the year I finally kick my college football habit. Of course, now that we’re coming up on G Day, I’m scouring every source I can find for news about spring practice.
This weekend, we’ll get our first look at the 2026 iteration of the Georgia Bulldogs.
Kirby Smart and company will likely play things pretty close to the vest, of course, but we’ll start to get a sense of what the team will look like. At a minimum, we should be able to tell who’s likely to end up starting come Labor Day weekend based on who gets assigned to the Red squad versus the Black.
During my time in the Classic City, I used the G Day game to run a scrimmage tailgate to work out the kinks in my process ahead of the fall. With that in mind, this is something of a scrimmage post, knocking the rust off the ol’ blog to gear up for the next season. Here are the five (plus one, kind of) players I’m most interested in seeing this weekend. For the purposes of this exercise, I’m only considering players who will be new to UGA this fall.
1. Kaiden Prothro, Tight End
You guys remember Brock Bowers? On the off chance you don’t, meet Kaiden Prothro. He’s the highest-rated member of Georgia’s 2026 recruiting class. Like Bowers, he’s technically classified as a tight end, but he’s got a receiver’s skill set. At 6’6” and 230 pounds, he’s a big target for the quarterback, and he excels at making contested catches and breaking tackles with the ball in his hands. And despite his size, he’s deceptively fast once he gets going, which means we could see the welcome return of the Bowers-esque “dumpoff pass that turns into a 75-yard touchdown.” As a testament to his receiving prowess, Prothro finished his high school football career with 66 receiving touchdowns, a record for the state of Georgia.
Prothro is going to be a matchup nightmare for opposing defenses. If it’s close to him, he’ll probably catch it. And if he catches it, the defense will need more than one guy to get him on the ground. I cannot wait to see him in the Red and Black.
2. Isiah Canion, Wide Receiver
For my money, the biggest loss from last year’s team is Zach Branch, who’s off to the NFL draft. He had a strong rapport with Gunner Stockton, racking up more than twice as many receiving yards as anyone else on the roster. He combined track star speed with an actual ability to catch the damn ball, something the 2024 receiving corps often struggled with. Thankfully, Stockton offers continuity at the most important position, but someone is going to have to step up at receiver if the passing game is going to avoid taking a step back.
Perhaps that someone will be transfer wide receiver Isiah Canion, newly arrived from just down the road in Atlanta. In his sophomore season for the Engineers, he led the team with four receiving touchdowns. That may not seem like much until you remember Tech’s offense was mostly based around trying to void Haynes King’s warranty in increasingly baroque ways. At 6’4” and 215 pounds, he’s got the size and toolkit of a possession receiver, which makes him well-suited to attacking the middle of the field in the type of passing game Georgia likes to deploy. He doesn’t have Branch’s top-end speed, but he makes up for it in toughness. If Talyn Taylor can take a step forward this year as a deep threat, the two of them will be a formidable one-two punch for any defense. Add in Prothro, and the offense could be extremely explosive.
3. Khamari Brooks, OLB/EDGE
The most frustrating aspect of last year’s otherwise stout Dawgs squad was an inability to generate consistent pressure on the quarterback, most disastrously in the Sugar Bowl when Chambliss managed to escape no matter how many guys were in the backfield. The stats bear this out. In 2024, Georgia sacked the opposing quarterback 37 times. In 2025, that number dropped to 20. The good news is that Chris Cole and Raylen Wilson are both back, but losing CJ Allen and Christen Miller from the defensive front isn’t going to make things any easier.
The plan seemed to be to shore up the pass rush with Auburn transfer Amaris Williams. Unfortunately, he suffered a season-ending injury in spring practice. In his absence, freshman Khamari Brooks has an opportunity to make an immediate impact. As a testament to his athleticism, he played both wideout and linebacker at North Oconee High School, earning a four-star rating as a recruit. On the defensive side of the ball, he excelled as a pass rush specialist, tallying eight tackles, including 1.5 sacks in the 2024 state championship game. He’s listed at 6’3” and 245 pounds, so he’s going to be a problem to block, and his technique is already quite sharp for an incoming freshman. As he adds weight and sharpens his abilities, he’s only going to get more dangerous.
Last year, Ellis Robinson IV started the season with some growing pains, getting burned badly in coverage on a big stage. But the coaching staff stuck with him, and by season’s end, he was among the most valuable players on the defense. It’s entirely possible we see something similar with Brooks this year, and I’m very excited about getting a first look at him soon.
4. Khalil Barnes, Safety
With Daylen Everette off to the NFL and Joenel Aguero relocating to Oxford, the back end of the defense will need some help. Say hello to Khalil Barnes, who fled the sinking ship S.S. Clemson to join a functional team to boost his draft stock ahead of his senior year. He established himself as a ball hawky safety in his first two years there, notching seven interceptions across two seasons. He took a bit of a step back last year, but 2025 Clemson was so juiceless it’s hard to say whether that was on him or the team’s badly broken development program.
We’ll find out when Barnes comes to Athens. He’s an aggressive playmaker over the middle who will make a receiver pay for hesitating on a ball. That aggressiveness means he gets burned sometimes (though what safety doesn’t?), but his speed means he can run down receivers and running backs who get behind him. That speed and his physicality also mean that you can bring him on a disguised blitz, which should provide some more options for generating QB pressure too.
5. Wade Register, Punter
Maybe this is shades of Vince Dooley worrying about the long snapper (or snappah, if you prefer), but we’ve been spoiled with Brett Thorson handling punting duties. He was extremely reliable, which is vital for one of the most high-leverage moments in a game. Punting is like my lack of a real retirement plan: I don’t wanna think about it. Fortunately, incoming freshman Wade Register was the top-ranked punter in the state of Georgia by most rating services, and it’ll be good to get a look at his abilities in a semi-live-fire situation.
Of course, now that I type it out, I realize “I’m excited about seeing the punting” is the kind of thing only an absolute degenerate would say. But it’s true!
6. Bonus! Tie: Zach Lewis, Zykie Helton, Tyreek Jemison, Graham Houston, Ekene Ogboko
Another Achilles’ heel for the 2025 Dawgs was the inconsistent offensive line play. Whether due to injuries or personnel problems, Stacy Searels just couldn’t seem to figure out a regular combination up front. Two of the group’s better players, Monroe Freeling and Micah Morris, are gone too. Hopefully, these five new linemen can get some playing time and start getting up to speed.
What piques your interest this Saturday?
