Although the Georgia Bulldogs have become dynastic in recent years, we all know what their bread and butter is as a college football behemoth: playing great defense and running the football with conviction. Not to say that they have deviated away from it in recent years, but when you have a talent like Carson Beck under center, you will want to see what his arm can do more often than not for you.
So in the wake of Beck transferring to Miami and a new starting quarterback emerging (probably Gunner Stockton, but Ryan Puglisi will keep it interesting), Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has decided this will be a run-heavy team. Despite losing Trevor Etienne to the 2025 NFL Draft after only one season in Athens, he has landed a great replacement in Josh McCray in the transfer portal.
Thomas Goldkamp wrote about this for On3 over the weekend. Georgia has already landed a trio of talented players in the spring transfer portal window. That would include former Miami Hurricanes defensive lineman Josh Horton, former Army Black Knights linebacker Elo Modozie and the former Illinois running back McCray. Without question, McCray should be the most impactful.
McCray will be joining a running back corps centered around sensational sophomore Nate Frazier.
Josh McCray will help Nate Frazier, Georgia rushing attack eat all day
Even though Etienne's Georgia career came and went over the course of a year, he will always be remembered for helping a completely depleted Dawgs team get past Texas for the second time en route to winning the SEC Championship Game. That being said, Frazier was the one running back on the team last year that caught my attention like Knowshon Moreno, Todd Gurley and Nick Chubb once did.
What people have to remember is Georgia prefers to go with the running back-by-committee approach under Smart, which is ... smart! From Chubb and Sony Michel to start, we have seen countless Georgia running backs have success in this system. D'Andre Swift, James Cook, Zamir White, Kenny McIntosh and Kendall Milton, just to name a few. Will McCray be ready for this step up?
Not only is McCray replacing Etienne, but he is effectively replacing the often-injured Branson Robinson, who has not-so-coincidentally entered the transfer portal this spring as well. The fact McCray was the driving force in the Illini's upset victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks in last year's Citrus Bowl leads me to believe that he will be ready for the more high-profile role at Georgia.
McCray's arrival helps Georgia creep closer to being a College Football Playoff lock. Not to say that his departure from Illinois hurts the Illini's chances considerably of getting in, but the gap between Georgia and Illinois has grown as a result of this transfer portal move. Georgia might not have enough firepower to win it all, but I would put them into a cluster of eight teams that could.
As a result, Illinois has gone from a serious playoff contender to probably more of a dark horse now.