Kirby Smart has reiterated time and time again that he’ll have a young Georgia football team in 2025.

The Bulldogs have 13 draft picks to replace from last season. Georgia also had 16 scholarship players depart via the transfer portal.

It is not an old football team, with only 24 players having three or more years of experience on the roster.

“We got a new team, new energy, young,” Smart said last week in an interview with Paul Finebaum. “We lost a lot of offensive and defensive linemen, like eight or nine, really good offensive, defensive linemen. When you lose those, you either replace them with guys that are vets or you replace them with youth and fire, passion and energy. And that’s what we’re counting on is having guys that have fire, passion and energy and play really hard.”

With Georgia’s team being so young, it makes the month of September all the more crucial for the 2025 season. Given how the rest of the schedule sets up, the Bulldogs are going to need to ace that opening slate.

The SEC announced game times last week for a number of games. Of the three games Georgia will play in the month of September, we know two of them will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET. The Austin Peay contest will air on ESPN+ and the road trip to Tennessee will be broadcast on ABC.

The third game in the month — Georgia’s first game of 2025 is set for an Aug. 30 date against Marshall — will be played on Sept. 27. It comes agians the Alabama Crimson Tide. Despite having played seven times since Smart became Georgia’s head coach, this will be the first time the two sides meet in Athens.

Last season, Alabama dealt Georgia a September defeat, as the Bulldogs lost 41-34 in a truly wild game. The Bulldogs were able to recover and win the SEC but the weight of that first loss was felt throughout the season.

The offense struggled for much of October and while Georgia didn’t lose again until a November road trip to Ole Miss, it was far from smooth sailing as an older Georgia team traveresed its SEC schedule.

The Bulldogs don’t face the same road gauntlet this season, as they welcome Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss to Athens. Georgia does have road trips to Mississippi State, Auburn and the aforementioned Tennessee game.

The first SEC road game and home game will be critical for this Georgia football team if it is to not only make it back to the College Football Playoff, but help foster a young team through the season.

Georgia has to win its first two games against Marshall and Austin Peay. That is a given if the Bulldogs are going to accomplish what they hope to in 2025. Even with a first-time starting quarterback — most likely Gunner Stockton — Georgia should have more than enough talent to win those games with ease.

That won’t be the case when Georgia goes up to Knoxville, Tenn. on Sept. 13. Like Georgia, Tennessee made the College Football Playoff last season.

The Volunteers will also have a new starting quarterback. Nico Iamaleava is now at UCLA, leaving Tennessee’s offense looking for a new option under center.

When Georgia and Tennessee have met of late, the Bulldogs have dominated Josh Heupel’s offense. Heupel’s teams have yet to score more than 17 points against Georgia. The last time Tennessee beat Georgia came all the way back in 2016, Smart’s first season in Athens.

Where one pauses though is that this will be the first road start for whoever ends up starting for the Bulldogs. Stockton is the only quarterback on the roster with starting experience, as he did so against Notre Dame in last season’s Sugar Bowl.

The coaching staff and team deeply believe in Stockton and what he brings to the table. This will be a real opportunity for Stockton to at least quiet many of hist public doubters.

Should Georgia get through the game against Tennessee — it will likely be favored to do so — it will have a week off before welcoming Alabama into Athens.

A game time for that battle has not been announced yet but you can bet given the rest of the SEC slate that it could very well be a night game. The only other game of similar stakes that weekend will be between Oregon and Penn State, but that will be broadcast on NBC.

The time of that game is likely immaterial to Stockton, Smart and the Geogia program. What matters far more will be getting win in that game.

The Bulldogs haven’t beaten Alabama in Athens since 2003. Not all of those defeats can be put on Smart, but the Georgia head coach is 1-6 against Alabama. Against the rest of the sport, he is 104-13. It’s a game this program can ill-afford to lose, especially as it will be Kalen DeBoer’s second year in charge of the program.

Win those two mammoth SEC contests and one can feel a good bit better about how Georgia could navigate the final two months of the schedule. Split those games and you reduce the margin of error.

Lose both of them, something that is not out of the realm of possibility and it could be a long season for Georgia. Especially a young team that will still be coming together, regardless of how the first two SEC games go.

It’s interesting that fire, passion and energy have become the calling cards for the 2025 Georgia team. That phrase, when mixed with the opening slate of games, will very much define Georgia.

Win the big games against Tennessee and Alabama, and the fire within this team should burn bright, allowing its confidence to soar. But if things don’t go well, it will be worth watching to see how much energy this team has to navigate the rest of the schedule.

The 2025 Georgia football team is going to have to grow up quickly. Not so much because of its youth, but because of the SEC schedule it opens up with.

“Our team is going to be a really good team,” Smart said. “I’m excited about it.”