ATHENS — Gunner Stockton scored the first touchdown of the afternoon for the Bulldogs in their win over Tennessee.
The final four all came via transfers. Zachariah Branch was at USC last season. In 2025, he’s scoring for Georgia on a 36-yard catch and run.
London Humphreys hauled in a 28-yard touchdown pass from Stockton in the fourth quarter. He started his career at Vanderbilt and is in his second season in Athens.
In between those scores, Illinois transfer Josh McCray found the end zone for the first time in his Georgia career. McCray had been lightly used in Georgia’s first two games of the season after arriving this summer.
“McCray was great today,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said of McCray on Saturday. “He was really instrumental. I told him a number of times, I said, guys, let’s get this big guy going. And, of course, Nate had the big run, and then he came in and finished it off. He’s a great complement to what we have.”
The transfer portal has been a boon for the Georgia offense in 2025, as the Bulldogs are fresh off a 44-point performance on the road. Georgia would not be 3-0 to start the 2025 season had the Bulldogs not nailed their transfer additions on that side of the ball.
Branch is Georgia’s leading receiver to this point and perhaps best all-around offensive weapon. He’s got 181 yards and 2 touchdowns to this point, in addition to what he brings on special teams.
Just behind Branch is Colbie Young, who came in from Miami prior to the 2024 season. He’s got a team-high 13 receptions and began Georgia’s game against Tennessee with a 45-yard reception. Young and Humphreys are both in their second seasons at Georgia. Branch has another season of eligibility as well, though if he keeps it up, he might not need to stick around for another year.
Wide receiver Noah Thomas also came in this offseason via the transfer portal. Unlike Branch, Thomas only has one season of eligibility and the Texas A&M transfer has not gotten off to the fastest start in Athens.
He has just 3 receptions for 24 yards in Georgia’s first three games. But that doesn’t fully capture Thomas’ impact on the team. He did draw multiple penalties in the win over Tennessee, giving Georgia first downs that don’t show up in the traditional box score.
“He’s done great,” Smart said of Thomas. “It’s really been unfortunate because there’s been some times that his shot or his number was called, and we didn’t necessarily protect it well or something happened or something came in the way. But he has not been phased by it — at least he’s not shown it to us. He works hard, he buys into the team morale and concept.”
That Smart was pressed about Thomas’ lack of targets speaks to the urgency with those that come from transfer portal. If you don’t hit the ground running, a worry develops that you’re getting left behind.
While the offensive side has gotten positive contributions thus far, the same can’t be said for the five players Georgia brought in on the defensive side of the ball.
Defensive line transfer Josh Horton played only three snaps on Saturday. Outside linebacker Elo Modozie was on the field for 13 plays.
The three transfer defensive backs Georgia added in the first transfer portal window — Adrian Maddox, Zion Branch and Jaden Harris — combined to play zero snaps on Saturday. That’s even with Georgia rotating between Kyron Jones and JaCorey Thomas as it sought answers opposite KJ Bolden.
Perhaps some of those snap counts can be attributed to playing Tennessee. The Volunteers run a unique offense and Smart could’ve elected to trust those who have played against the spread-out, up-tempo offense. Georgia won’t face something like it the rest of the season.
Of the five additions, Modozie was the most-hyped. But he didn’t arrive until the summer and was far from a finished product coming from Army.
It was always going to take him time to establish a role and identity in this Georgia defense.
“That group has worked really hard,” Smart said of the Georgia outside linebacker room. “They’ve closed and played our edges better. Gabe (Harris) and Q (Quintavius Johnson) particularly have played the edge game much better than we have in the past, and I’m excited to see what opportunities they get in the future.”
Tennessee had just 12 third downs against Georgia, limiting the amount of times Georgia could’ve employed a pass rusher like Modozie.
That Georgia added three defensive backs and an edge rusher via the transfer portal was a tell that those were positions of concern. The Tennessee game perhaps demonstrated why Georgia felt the need to add those four players via the transfer portal.
But just because Georgia didn’t get much from its defensive haul to this point means that the whole group can be written off. Georgia intends to use the off week to get everyone more reps. That should benefit those who might still be getting accustomed to how Georgia does things.
“For an off week, we had a good practice yesterday, got a lot of reps for our twos and threes. And today we’ll get a lot of reps for everybody,” Smart said on Tuesday. “That’s a work day, and work the rest of the week towards starting on our next opponent later in the week.”
The NCAA announced on Wednesday that there will be just one transfer portal moving forward, opening on Jan. 2 and closing on Jan. 11.
That stretch of calendar will be extremely important and telling for how teams build moving forward.
The 2025 Georgia team is a perfect example of that. And while the Bulldogs have so far found success in supplementing the offensive side of the ball, the defensive side shows that not all cures can be found via the transfer portal.
