ATHENS — Lawson Luckie sat and watched from the sidelines as over a dozen former Georgia players worked out for NFL scouts at the program’s pro day.

It’s not far-fetched to have wondered if Luckie himself would’ve been out there. He was draft-eligible following the 2025 season and has an NFL skillset that some teams would’ve loved.

The same can also be said for inside linebacker Raylen Wilson. CJ Allen was his longtime running mate in college and he is now on the verge of being a first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Yet both came back to Georgia for another season, electing to complete a journey neither believed was finished.

“I’ll just say I came to college with goals in mind and I just haven’t achieved all of them,” Wilson said. “That’s really the main thing that brought me back.”

The primary goal for Wilson is winning a national championship. He arrived in Athens just as the 2022 team wrapped up an unbeaten season. He wants that same glory that players like Nolan Smith and Chris Smith attained that season.

Losing Allen is significant for the Georgia defense, but Wilson got a taste of life without him last fall when he suffered a knee injury in Georgia’s win over Texas. Allen didn’t play the following week against Charlotte before returning in a limited role against Georgia Tech.

More fell onto Wilson’s plate, especially in terms of communication. The 2026 season presents a more full-time role for Wilson to own.

“He did a lot of great things along with CJ,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. And I think he’s gonna shoulder more of that load along with Justin and Chris. And that’s where the leadership in your defense comes from, that middle group that communicates to the D line and communicates to the back end. So I have no concerns about Raylen’s leadership ability.”

Wilson had 74 tackles last season, to go along with 6.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks. An additional goal for Wilson is to become a more disruptive player, as he hopes to up his tackles for loss and sacks as a senior. Georgia needs him to, as it ranked outside the top-100 in both categories in 2026.

Luckie wants to win a national title too, and he’ll be stepping out from under Oscar Delp’s shadow in 2026. He moved on to the NFL after graduating from Georgia.

Luckie has more personal reasons for returning to Georgia, beyond a championship and more opportunities.

“I had to weigh out a lot of things, but just talking to my family, talking to coaches and the people around me, it just ended up making the most sense,” Luckie said. “Playing with Carter (Luckie) for an extra year, like, that was a bonus, but it ended up just coming down to what made the most sense.”

Lawson Luckie’s younger brother, Carter, signed with Georgia as a defensive lineman in the 2026 recruiting cycle. He hasn’t yet been able to practice yet because of a knee injury he suffered in high school, but the new Bulldog is still learning a lot from his older brother.

“The biggest advice I told him is off the field, like, spend time with the kids in your class. Like, spend time in the dorm, hang out with those kids,” Luckie said. “Like, stay on campus as long as you can. Build those relationships and go out of your way. Don’t just be in a rush to go back to your dorm every night and go to sleep. Yes, there’s merit in that, but you need to meet your friends that you’re gonna go throughout college with and build those bonds.”

Luckie proceeded to list five teammates he had built strong bonds with when he arrived at college. Most of Luckie’s 2023 classmates are no longer with the program, including three of the five he named. Of the 26 signees in that recruiting class, only six remain at Georgia. While Allen and Monroe Freeling left for the NFL draft, most departed via the transfer portal.

That Luckie and Wilson have stayed at Georgia for this long only gives them an added weight with the team. Yes, they’re bigger and stronger than most of their teammates simply because of their age. Luckie in particular, returned for his senior season so he could show teams that he could excel at a heavier weight.

But all the time within the program gave them the tools needed to handle the ups and downs of the college football season.

“I feel like it’s been very important, just coming in it was important to me. making sure I chose the right place, so I didn’t have to choose to enter the portal and go somewhere else,” Wilson said. “So I feel like they’ve done a good job developing players, coming and staying through all four years, so I chose to do that.”

Georgia was not super active in the transfer portal, bringing back in only nine newcomers. It’s goal when it comes to roster building is best defined through retention. It wants to limit the number of long-term players it loses every season.

“We really worked hard on retention with our team to retain the guys we have,” Smart said. “We think that’s what provides a winning culture, what provides a locker-room culture, is retaining guys and guys having relationships.”

Georgia had only four players leave early for the 2026 NFL Draft. It’s thankful it was able to retain Luckie and Wilson, given how important they have become to the program’s culture.

So much of college football in this day and age is focused on what is new and shiny. Georgia hopes that it bucks against that by being able to lean on its veterans in Wilson and Luckie in hopes of breaking back through to win a national championship.

“Most teams that are a bunch of independent contractors don’t play as well together,” Smart said. “And we sold ourselves on keeping the guys we got and building on that culture. And we’ll see how much better we can make them.”