This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has a bye-week tally of how all the members of the 2026 recruiting class are doing so far in Athens.
Freshmen are viewed differently now that the NCAA has allotted all players five years to play five seasons. The typical redshirt years for most freshmen are no longer there. There’s no four-game-or-less threshold to save another season of eligibility.
Redshirt freshmen are now second-year players. Fifth-year players are now just fifth-year seniors or super seniors.
“In this day and age, you can’t survive without freshmen being able to play,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said earlier this month. “It’s one of two things. If you’re not playing freshmen, you’ve got a really good old team, which is rare. Or you don’t have very good freshmen.”
“I don’t really want to have the second. So, as those guys are available and are the best to play, obviously they will play. We’ve had a very good track record for the last couple of years, the most played snaps of freshmen. We’ve been in the top five in the country. That’s because we play a lot of players, we sign good freshmen and we’re not afraid to play them.”
Georgia does not have a really good old team. The Dawgs have signed good freshmen and have been eager to play them. There’s no better time to review their contributions than at the close of the bye week.
The Bulldogs (6-1) are now five games deep into their nine-game SEC schedule. Here’s a listing of all the first-year Bulldogs and how much player time they’ve earned so far this fall.
7 games
- DE Khamari Brooks
- WR Craig Dandridge (2 starts)
- OL Zykie Helton (7 starts)
- OT Ekene Ogboko
- DT Valdin Sone
- DB Blake Stewart
6 games
- DE PJ Dean
5 games
- DE PJ Dean
- LB Elijah Littlejohn
- DL AJ Lonon
- TE/WR Kaiden Prothro
4 games
- RB Nick Peal
3 or fewer games
- QB Bryson Beaver (0 games)
- DL Preston Carey (2 games)
- LS Colton Dermer (0 games)
- WR Dallas Dickerson (2 games)
- CB Justice Fitzpatrick (0 games)
- TE Brayden Fogle (2 games)
- DB Zech Fort (2 games)
- DB Tyriq Green (2 games)
- CB Caden Harris (3 games)
- OL Graham Houston (2 games)
- OL Tyreek Jemison (2 games)
- TE Lincoln Keyes (2 games)
- RB Jae Lamar (2 games)
- IOL Zach Lewis (0 games)
- DL Carter Luckie (2 games)
- WR Ryan Mosley (3 games)
- LB Terence Penick (2 games)
- P Wade Register (0 games)
- WR Tre Shields (2 games)
- CB Jordan Smith (2 games)
- PK Harran Zureikat (2 games)
That’s the 10,000-foot sales view on player participation among the 2026 signees. We’ll dive deeper below into Georgia’s freshman class and what’s caught our eye about several first-year Dawgs.
The weekly DawgNation.com “Before the Hedges” program is an Apple podcast.
2026 Midterms: Georgia’s true freshmen midseason superlatives
Several first-year Bulldogs have made a big impact on the team’s depth chart this season, if not in the box score summaries each week.
Georgia signed 32 high school players in the last cycle. That group was collectively ranked as the No. 7 class nationally on the 247Sports Team Composite ratings.
That was Kirby Smart’s lowest-rated class for that service during his 11-year tenure in Athens, but the 2026 signees still include some clear instant impact gems.
It starts with that big No. 55 in the middle.
MVF: IOL Zykie Helton
Zykie Helton was just a 3-star. He was the 24th-highest-rated signee out of that 32-player class. He’s easily been the Most Valuable Freshman so far this season.
The former Carrollton star has had the biggest impact. Helton has started every game for the Bulldogs this fall and looked very impressive while doing it. The 6-foot-3, 300-pounder is listed on the Georgia roster at center, but he’s started seven out of seven games at right guard.
When all the midseason Freshman All-American teams came out, Helton was front and center on all of them. His freshman year parallels what future NFL Top 5 pick Andrew Thomas did in 2017.
Thomas was a wire-to-wire starter for 15 games for a team that won the SEC and reached the national championship game against Alabama. I didn’t think we’d ever see anything like that for the Dawgs at this level, but the NIL era has changed that.
If a contending team doesn’t play its talented freshmen, they will leave.
Georgia plugged in two true freshmen on its OL last year: Juan Gaston and Dontrell Glover. Glover started in 12 of 14 games in 2026. Gaston started in four of his 13 games.
According to Pro Football Focus, Helton’s 374 offensive snaps lead the team. Helton is a classic example of the oft-repeated “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough” line around Smart’s program.
Regular in the rotation: EDGE Khamari Brooks
The former North Oconee star was ready to hit the ground running this fall despite a hip injury that cost him most of his senior year in high school.
He’s played in every game for the Dawgs and has two games in which he logged three tackles, including last week against Auburn. His 10 total tackles tie him for 14th on the team. He also recovered a fumble against Western Kentucky.
Brooks has more defensive snaps than any true freshman (123) this fall. He’s also gotten some special teams work. Brooks has been on the field early in games this season.
The season surprise: RB Nick Peal
This might be the best freshman story outside of Helton. Georgia offered Peal as an uncommitted senior in May.
At the end of his senior season, his scholarship options were Delta State and Gardner-Webb. Kennesaw State also came in late.
The film said he was better than that. The Roswell senior ran for 1,395 yards and 19 scores on 7.3 yards per carry against some of the state’s best defenses, including two future state champions.
That’s the same player who got early carries against Alabama in Tuscaloosa earlier this season.
He did so because he was physically ready. Peal clocked a 4.48 in the 40 with a 41-inch vertical leap as a senior, but no major suitors came calling. He also bench-pressed 405 pounds, squatted 600, and power-cleaned 385 while still in high school.
That’s very impressive, but there was still no room for him at the scholarship inn. Every other big or mid-tier program had signed their running backs back in December.
Georgia kept an eye on him and eventually offered. Peal has seen action in four games this fall. He seems to have climbed higher on the depth chart than fellow freshman RB Jae Lamar.
Lamar was the nation’s No. 17 RB prospect for their class. Peal was rated as the No. 103 RB prospect nationally.
He has 14 carries for 61 yards so far. That’s 4.4 yards per carry.
Best individual game: DB Tyriq “Ty Boogie” Green
Green would likely have played in every game so far this fall if not for the lower-body injury he suffered late in his breakout game against Western Kentucky.
The freshman safety had two touchdowns in that contest. The highlight was a 91-yard kickoff-return touchdown that showed why he was named the AJC’s All-Classification Georgia Player of the Year at Buford, a mythical national HS title team.
He also recovered a Blake Stewart fumble at the end of an interception return in the end zone for his other score earlier in the contest.
The former 4-star has been out of action since the second week of the season. In recent weeks, he’s been seen on the sidelines at home games in a walking boot and crutches.
Future first-round pick vibes: OT Ekene Ogboko
6 feet. 6 inches. 320 pounds. With an arm length that could stretch from Columbus to Augusta.
That’s the prototype. Ogboko, projected as Georgia’s starting left tackle next season, served as the third OT behind starters Earnest Greene III and Juan Gaston this fall.
He’s played in every game because he either hits the field on special teams or sees late-game snaps during a few of the team’s runaway wins.
Ogboko has only worked at right tackle so far in 2026, but he’s gotten 125 offensive snaps this fall. There’s also a handful of special teams reps, too.
Future first-round pick vibes, Part II: DL Valdin Sone
Sone is another Dawg where the obvious talent has flashed at times in 2026. 247Sports rated him 5-star because of the speed and power in his game. The roster says he’s now 305 pounds, but he sure doesn’t look like it.
He’s been on the field largely on third downs and has logged 94 defensive snaps. The Swedish native had six tackles, one-half of a TFL and a half-sack.
Biggest 2026 impact to come: WR Craig Dandridge
There’s a prediction wrapped into this assessment here. That’s for an even bigger second half for Dandridge. He’s been the second most-productive freshman Bulldog so far this year, but we think he’s got more to show.
He’s second on the team behind Talyn Taylor with his 17 catches, but he leads the Dawgs with 310 receiving yards. Dandridge has flashed an explosive 18.2 yards per catch.
The former Cambridge star has only one touchdown catch against Arkansas, but he should add a handful more down the stretch.
He was limited to two catches for 11 yards in the Oklahoma and Vanderbilt games, or he’d be having a Freshman All-American-type season so far. Dandridge has 179 offensive snaps so far this fall. That’s roughly half of Helton’s total.
Most surprising stat: DL Anthony Lonon Jr.
Go check the sack leaders for the Dawgs so far this year.
There’s Raylen Wilson, Chris Cole and Just Williams at the top. Those guys were all former 5-stars. Now keep looking.
Freshman DL Anthony Lonon Jr. is tied for second with two sacks so far this fall. He’s played in only five games and has three total tackles, two of which came on sacks. Those came against Western Kentucky and Auburn.
The UGA legacy was only ranked as the No. 29 DL in the nation coming out of Clarke Central, but he’s made an early impact despite being undersized at about 6-foot-2 and 265 pounds.
He wins with his intelligence, quickness and solid technique off the line.
Biggest play: DB Blake Stewart
Think about all the plays that a freshman has made this year. There have been some punishing Helton blocks and several big Dandridge catches.
Tyriq Green also flashed those big plays against Western Kentucky. But who made the single biggest play by a freshman?
That’s the fumble Stewart covered up late in the Alabama game after Sacovie White-Helton let a punt slip through his grasp. Stewart recovered. Georgia recovered and went on to earn its best win of the season against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Stewart has three tackles, a 27-yard interception return against Western Kentucky, and three PBUs this year. The ball-hawking safety was an instinctive two-way player at Woodward Academy in Atlanta last fall.
First-year outlier: CB Justice Fitzpatrick
Fitzpatrick, one of this class’s most talented freshmen, hasn’t seen any action this fall.
That should be an outlier for his UGA career. Fitzpatrick suffered a season-ending knee injury around this time last year. He’s since worked his way back, but he didn’t enroll at UGA until May.
So he’s had that acclimation, learning curve and rehab to overcome so far in his first season. Not to mention the talented freshmen and veterans ahead of him on the UGA depth chart.
The younger brother of NFL veteran Minkah Fitzpatrick was the only true freshman at UGA this fall to snag a single-digit number with his No. 6.
Those coveted jersey numbers usually go to veteran players. That shows how much the program values his skill set. He could very well be a starting corner at UGA next season.
