ATHENS – With the transfer portal closed and the NFL draft deadline past, we know what Georgia’s roster next season will look like.

The Bulldogs had 15 players depart the program via the transfer portal, while four players declared early for the NFL draft. Seniors such as Daylen Everette, Oscar Delp and Brett Thorson will all move on to the NFL.

With so much turnover, it can be hard to know how things stand with the Georgia roster.

But after the frenzy of early January, we now know that the Bulldogs will have one of the most talented rosters in the sport.

As the offensive depth chart below shows, the Bulldogs bring back plenty of key contributors. There are some holes that need to be filled, specifically in the secondary, but Georgia has a number of promising players eager to step up.

Georgia football 2026 depth chart, defense

Defensive tackle

Nose tackle

Defensive end

Analysis: Much like the wide receiver position on the offensive side of the ball, don’t focus too much on who lines up where. Georgia is going to move guys around on the front. For a group that was super young this past season, Georgia brings back plenty of experience while also having a lot of upside. It could easily be the best defensive line Georgia has had since the 2021 Georgia team. With how Griffin finished this past season, he could very well be one of the best players in the country with further development.

Outside linebacker:

Analysis: Harris will help here and Johnson really played well to close the 2025 season. It will be very interesting to see how Gibson, Linton and Ikinnagbon develop this offseason, as the Bulldogs will lean on them to help a pass rush that was among the worst in the SEC.

Inside linebacker:

Mac:

Money:

Analysis: Even losing a likely first-round pick in CJ Allen, Georgia is simply loaded at this position. Cole and Wilson will see the field plenty, while Williams figures to soak up a lot of Allen’s former snaps. With how much talent Glenn Schumann has at the position, it will very interesting to see how Georgia gets Walker on the field. He’s a clear talent, as his performance against Texas and Alabama showed.

Cornerback:

Right cornerback:

Left cornerback:

Analysis: Robinson’s emergence as one of the best cornerbacks in football helps solve the departure of Daylen Everette. Georgia went into the transfer portal to add Williams and it will be interesting to see how he and Jones split reps in the secondary. Georgia likes the 2026 signees it got in Harris and Fitzpatrick, though the latter enters Georgia having suffered a significant knee injury at the end of his high school career.

Free Safety:

Strong Safety:

Star:

Analysis: Like at cornerback, Georgia dipped into the transfer portal to add reinforcements. Riddle is more likely to help at the safety spot, while Barnes could very well help at the star position. Jones is worth watching, given how much time he missed in the second half of the season due to injury. Georgia really likes Dinkins and don’t be surprised if one of the four freshmen safeties finds a way to make an impact for the Bulldogs.

Lawmakers in several states are exploring passing laws that would put statewide bans in place on building new datacenters as the issue of the power-hungry facilities has moved to the center of economic and environmental concerns in the US.

In Georgia a state lawmaker has introduced a bill proposing what could become the first statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The bill is one of at least three statewide moratoriums on datacenters introduced in state legislatures in the last week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are also considering similar measures.

But it is Georgia that is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight against untrammelled growth of datacenters – which are notorious for using huge amounts of energy and water – as they power the emerging industry of artificial intelligence.

The Georgia bill seeks to halt all such projects until March of next year “to allow state, county and municipal-level officials time to set necessary policies for regulating datacenters … which permanently alter the landscape of our state”, said bill sponsor state Democratic legislator Ruwa Romman.

It comes at a time when Georgia’s public service commission – the agency that oversees utility company Georgia Power – just last month approved a plan to provide 10 additional gigawatts of energy in the coming years. It was the largest amount of electricity sought for a multi-year plan in the commission’s history, was driven by datacenters and will mostly be supplied by fossil fuels.

The 10-gigawatt plan – enough to power about 8.3m homes – in turn comes as the Atlanta metro area led the nation in datacenter construction in 2024.

This accelerated growth has already led at least 10 Georgia municipalities to pass their own moratoriums on datacenter construction, with Atlanta suburb Roswell becoming the most recent earlier this month. Municipalities in at least 14 states have done the same, according to Tech Policy Press.

Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent democratic socialist senator, proposed a national moratorium last month.

“What we’re seeing is, as communities are learning more about this aggressive industry’s presence … [they] want to have time to thoroughly investigate all potential harms,” said Seth Gladstone, spokesperson for Food and Water Watch.

The rampant development of datacenters to power AI raises several concerns for residents and activists alike. One is their impact on the cost of electricity. “In the public’s mind, datacenters and utility bills are inextricably linked,” said Charles Hua, founder and executive director of PowerLines, an organization that works on lowering utility bills and involving communities in decisions about energy.

Hua noted that the relationship between the two varies, depending on each state’s market and regulatory system. In Georgia, he said, the Georgia Power utility company makes profit off new capital investments – so it has incentive to keep building new power plants. This approach has led Georgia’s rates to go up by a third in the last several years alone. Meanwhile, he said, the power company doesn’t have incentive to make the electrical grid more efficient – which “could actually lower prices”, Hua said.

But datacenter concerns in Georgia also include water use and lost tax revenue. Republicans in the state legislature have introduced bills this year to protect consumers from increases in their utility bills and to end tax breaks for the centers. A Democrat has proposed that datacenters make public how much energy and water they use each year.

Romman, the first Palestinian American elected to statewide office in Georgia, is also running for governor, hoping to break the near quarter-century hold Republicans have on the office.

Her bill, HB 1012, has a Republican co-sponsor in state congressman Jordan Ridley, who said he signed o nto the measure because he wanted to give local governments time to develop zoning regulations on datacenters, since “it seems like they’re being built across the state”.

“Every local government has zoning codes and … they need public input. That takes time,” Ridley said. At the same time, Ridley added, “datacenters … provide tax revenue and high-paying jobs. I’m not against datacenters.”

Romman’s bill is not just a policy proposal; it’s also a political one. In a statement, she wrote that the moratorium “would provide time for Georgians to vote on the majority of the Public Service Commission seats who make final decisions on energy-related projects”.

Georgia is one of 10 states that elect their utility regulators. Voters in the state elected progressive Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard to the five-member commission in November, leading the agency to lose its all-Republican makeup for the first time in nearly two decades. Another seat is up for a vote this November.

The calculus: if the commission becomes majority-Democratic, it will no longer give a rubber stamp to electricity demands from Georgia Power driven by tech companies seeking to build datacenters.

Hubbard, now in his new position, recently wrote an editorial asserting that Georgia voters “see data centers receiving tax breaks as their power bills go up. They see local communities struggle with competition for water supplies and high voltage transmission lines that reduce property values. And they see how the PSC approved every request placed before it by the monopoly electric utility.

“This is why opposition to data centers is growing in Georgia; because Georgians oppose being treated as collateral damage by the unregulated growth of data centers that will push their power bills even higher.”

There’s another political implication to Romman’s bill. Paul Glaze, spokesperson for Georgia Conservation Voters, said if the bill crosses from the House to the Senate, “it may be a preview of the potential general election” later this year.

“The question is, in communities where datacenters are coming, who are voters going to trust to have their back?” Glaze said. “Anyone serious about statewide office should have a clear position on this.”