Family Feud!
Written by Tripp Morgan on November 4, 2026
One-third of our family went to Georgia. Two-thirds go—or went—to Ole Miss.
It is a cruel mix of allegiances. You raise your children, teach them right from wrong, give them every opportunity—and somehow Athens still isn’t the unanimous choice.
Now we have a family feud with a football attached.
When I went to Georgia, Ole Miss barely entered our conversation. In my admittedly partisan version of history, Oxford became nationally relevant when half the children who should have gone to Athens started enrolling there.
You’re welcome, Rebels.
Athens remains the ultimate college town. The music spilling out of downtown, the walk toward Sanford Stadium, the red and black gathering beneath the trees—some places become part of you. Oxford has its Square and its Grove, and I will concede that putting a chandelier in a tailgate tent demonstrates commitment. In Athens, we generally expect the football to provide the electricity.
Georgia has history on its side: a 34–15–1 series lead. But the history gets less comfortable when you narrow the geography. Georgia is only 10–7 in Oxford, and Ole Miss won the last meeting, 39–34 in the Sugar Bowl. That is not a supporting actor. That is somebody who has already stolen your scene. Georgia’s official matchup notes
Exceeding expectations
For years, LSU–Alabama felt like the appointment the entire SEC kept. Everything else was what you watched before it started.
Now look at us. Georgia–Ole Miss has shoved its way into the middle of the national conversation—and in our family, it has swallowed the conversation entirely. LSU–Alabama can have the television nobody is arguing in front of.
Saturday brings No. 2 Georgia, 7–1, to No. 12 Ole Miss, 6–2, for a 7:30 p.m. Eastern kickoff in Oxford. Georgia is protecting its championship position. Ole Miss is trying to strengthen its playoff case. Our family is deciding who gets to be insufferable at Thanksgiving. Official preview
Those are three serious stakes.
For the Georgia third, this is about maintaining standards. For the Ole Miss two-thirds, it is an opportunity to make sure the Georgia third hears about it for the rest of the year.
Possibly longer. This family keeps receipts.
Trinidad and Gunner: the argument moves onto the field
Trinidad Chambliss is the part of this matchup that makes a Georgia fan stop telling jokes and start watching the pass rush.
My concern isn’t simply the first throw. It is the second act: the pocket moves, a defender loses his angle, and suddenly a play that looked finished has become a first down. Georgia needs pressure with discipline. Run past him and you may spend the next ten seconds discovering why that was a bad idea.
Gunner Stockton gives Georgia its own answer. The Bulldogs’ game notes put his completion rate at 71.8 percent, sixth nationally. That is the sort of accuracy I would like to discuss with the Ole Miss contingent over dinner. Georgia’s quarterback notes
But Gunner needs more than a tidy résumé in Oxford. He needs protection, receivers finishing plays and a running game that keeps him from having to rescue every possession. Neither quarterback needs to win a beauty contest. He needs to make the right decision when the protection breaks down and the stadium is doing its best to interrupt his thinking.
The biggest early-week availability concern for Ole Miss is Kewan Lacy. On Monday, November 2, Pete Golding said he did not expect the running back to play against Georgia. That puts more responsibility on Makhi Frazier and Shekai Mills-Knight, and makes offensive balance especially important. Linebacker Luke Ferrelli’s ankle is another situation to watch. These are early-week concerns, not final game-day designations. Ole Miss injury reporting
My Georgia prescription is uncomplicated: make Chambliss earn his yards, tackle the replacements as seriously as the starters, and give Gunner enough help that every drive does not become a rescue mission.
But the longer I think about this game—and the people in our family who will be watching it—the less the whole thing seems to be about quarterbacks and rankings.
It is about how a school becomes part of your family. I saw that happening long before I understood it.
Before he was famous—to me
When I was a kid in Camilla, my dad was deeply involved in the community. Every year, we participated in a community tennis tournament and benefit supporting the RYDC.
Several times during the mid-1980s, Dad had one of his buddies come down for the weekend. He stayed with us, went to the tennis tournament, and the two of them had a grand time reliving old memories.
His name was Lewis Grizzard.
At the time, I had no idea he was famous. He was Dad’s friend. Newspaper readers knew the columnist. I knew the fellow who came to spend the weekend with us.
Only later did I appreciate who had been visiting.
Grizzard was, to my mind, the ultimate Bulldog. He had been sports editor of the Athens Daily News while attending Georgia, and his career eventually brought him to the columns in the Atlanta Constitution that made him a household name. University of Georgia’s Grizzard archive
To a Georgia fan, his column could feel like somebody had given our side permanent possession of the opinion page. He celebrated the virtues of being a Bulldog and was happy to explain where you had gone wrong if you had unfortunately attended Georgia Tech.
I didn’t understand the size of his audience then. What I remember is something smaller and, looking back, more important: my dad and an old friend enjoying each other’s company, picking up the conversation and reliving the years that had brought them together.
Before I understood the famous writer, I had seen the lasting friendship.
The E’s have it
Years later, Grizzard’s fondness for his fraternity made perfect sense to me. Joining mine was one of the most important decisions I made in college.
We weren’t merely close while we happened to live in the same town. Those relationships lasted. Several of those men helped me find my footing and achieve success long after the last exam and the last football season we attended as students.
You think you are joining a fraternity. Years later, you realize you joined a family.
Looking back, those weekends in Camilla showed me what an enduring connection could look like. The years pass. Careers happen. Children arrive. An old friend comes down for a tennis tournament, and suddenly there is a whole shared history in the room.
That is also why Kirby Smart’s SAE connection means something to me. The coach leading Georgia is a fraternity brother, too. Beneath the headset and the championship expectations is a connection those of us who share those letters recognize. SAE’s notable alumni
It doesn’t win a third down. But it adds something to the way I feel watching him lead the Dawgs.
The E’s have it. At least, that is how this Georgia third intends to count the votes.
Family comes in many forms. Sometimes you are born into it. Sometimes you find it in a fraternity house in Athens. Sometimes it is your dad’s old friend spending a weekend in Camilla.
And sometimes your children insist on finding theirs in Oxford.
That is where the teasing gives way to something more important.
With my children in fraternities and sororities, I hope they find exactly what I found: friendships that survive graduation, people who answer when life gets difficult, and a place that still feels like home decades after they have moved away.
I hope that someday one of their old friends comes to stay for the weekend, and their children watch them laugh over stories they have probably told a hundred times. The children may not understand what they are seeing yet.
I didn’t either.
I hope they love their Rebels as much as we love our Bulldogs. Not because of a ranking or one Saturday’s result, but because the school becomes inseparable from the people who helped them grow up.
That is what makes this a family feud worth having. Nobody is arguing over something that means nothing to them.
Love is unconditional. Football allegiance is not.
I expect Georgia to win. I also know Ole Miss has earned the right to find that expectation irritating. The Rebels have the quarterback, the home crowd and a recent postseason result that should cure any Bulldog of casual confidence.
I can admit all of that without surrendering Athens, changing shirts or learning to end a perfectly good sentence with “Hotty Toddy.”
A loss to strangers is unpleasant. A loss to your own children arrives with screenshots, callbacks and unsolicited analysis over the Thanksgiving turkey.
So yes, I want my children to have the friendships, the loyalty, the memories and the lifelong sense of belonging that Georgia gave me. I want Oxford to mean that much to them.
They just don’t need another win over Georgia to complete the experience.
I’m proud of all of them. I love all of them.
I would still prefer to beat two-thirds of them on Saturday.
Go Dawgs!
— The Godfather
Sources
- Georgia’s official matchup notes
- Official preview
- Georgia’s quarterback notes
- Ole Miss injury reporting
- University of Georgia’s Grizzard archive
- SAE’s notable alumni
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