SEC title picture takes a hit in one expert projection, with Georgia vulnerable to South Carolina

Georgia’s path to a third consecutive SEC championship is being tested in one prominent projection for 2026, with a CBS analyst suggesting the Bulldogs could be knocked off course by South Carolina despite an otherwise dominant run.

In a preview published by Yahoo Sports, CBS college football analyst Brad Crawford is mapped out Georgia beginning the season 10-0. The forecast then turns sharply at South Carolina, where Crawford expects Georgia to lose to the Gamecocks, though he still has the Bulldogs alive in the SEC title race by reaching the conference championship game.

Crawford’s overall season math, as relayed by UGA Wire, projects Georgia finishing the regular season 11-1 and going 8-1 in SEC play. That would keep Georgia in the league’s upper tier even with the added wrinkle of a nonconference-level loss inside conference play, a difference that matters because SEC seeding can hinge on head-to-head results, late-season form, and how many teams end up with similar conference records.

The context behind the upset comes down to two things: South Carolina’s unpredictability and the particulars of the opponent’s matchup. According to UGA Wire’s account of Crawford’s reasoning, he frames the Gamecocks as a team capable of springing an upset, and he emphasizes that Georgia must travel to face South Carolina.

The projection also leans on historical and performance cues. UGA Wire notes that Georgia last lost to South Carolina in 2019, underlining how rare a defeat has been in the recent series. At the same time, it points to a 2025 season in which South Carolina went 4-8 overall, winning only twice against Power Four opponents, a reminder that the Gamecocks’ rise is more of a “capacity” argument than a “recent results” argument.

Crawford’s SEC Championship Game picture in that same UGA Wire summary has Georgia surviving the regular-season shakeup and still playing for the league title. Texas, led by quarterback Arch Manning in Crawford’s projection, is expected to beat Georgia in the SEC championship, which would shape the playoff positioning he imagines afterward. Even without treating those end results as anything more than predictions, the structural point remains: one conference loss does not automatically end a contender’s title hopes in the SEC’s expanded 9-game league schedule.

That matters for fans because the SEC’s 2026 regular-season slate is the first time conference teams will play nine conference games during the regular season. More league games increase the odds that a contender will experience at least one surprise result, which makes the “can you lose once and still win the right games later” test more central than in past years.

What to watch next is how Georgia and South Carolina handle the early-season momentum. If Georgia indeed starts 10-0 as projected, then the South Carolina road game becomes a high-leverage checkpoint, not just a one-off upset threat. For South Carolina, the focus shifts to whether the Gamecocks can translate “upset profile” into consistent execution against an elite opponent in a league that now asks teams to play more conference football than ever.