Every Play Georgia Runs Starts With a Man Who Might Not Play
Written by Jarvis Prime on November 13, 2026
GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Friday, November 13, 2026
Center Drew Bobo turned up on Thursday's availability report as questionable, which is a poor week for it with Missouri's front coming to Athens.
ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk
Nobody buys a ticket to watch the center. He is the fellow who hands the ball backward between his own legs to a man he cannot see, while a large stranger prepares to fall on him, and the only time his name gets called is when something has gone wrong. So it is worth noting that DawgNation reported Drew Bobo, who has started every game at center for Georgia this season, was added to the SEC availability report Thursday as questionable with an undisclosed injury. The No. 1 team in the country found that out about two days before kickoff.
DawgNation named three men who might snap it if Bobo cannot: Cortez Smith, Malachi Toliver and Zykie Helton. The trouble with Helton is that he already has a job. He is the starting right guard, and moving him to center fixes one hole by digging another, the way my uncle used to repair his fence with boards off his barn. Dontrell Glover, who plays beside Bobo, told reporters Monday that Bobo and Earnest Greene had made the game easier for him by talking him through it. A center is mostly a man who tells the others where to go.
A center is mostly a man who tells the others where to go, and it is a bad week to be short a talker.
It is a bad week to be short a talker. UGA Wire reported that Kirby Smart considers Missouri's front one of the most disruptive in the league, and the press file backs him up: the Tigers allow 95.8 rushing yards a game, third in the SEC, and Daeden Hopkins has 7 sacks. Georgia's sack rate allowed has already crept from 2.6% in 2023 to 4.1% with the regular center in there. Glover did not dress it up Monday. "It's a challenge," he said. "What we need to do to be productive is move people."
The bookmakers have not flinched. DraftKings opened Georgia at 13.5 and has since gone to 15.5, and the Columbia Daily Tribune, which is Missouri's own hometown paper, picked Georgia 34-15. The desk's exploratory simulation is the lone grouch at the party, calling it Georgia 28, Missouri 22 and giving the Dogs a 26.9% chance of covering. I will say this for the machine and against it: it has no idea who is snapping the football. Neither, as of Friday morning, does anybody else outside the building.
Georgia has been here before, and recently. The Dogs won big at Alabama, came home, and lost to Auburn 17-10 in this same stadium. Smart said it himself after the Ole Miss game: "We're a good team that's a week away from humility." Georgia has beaten Missouri ten straight, but the one Missouri win in the series came in Athens, 41-26 in 2013. Saturday is clear, about 57 degrees at the 3:30 kickoff, and the last SEC home game of the year. It would be a fine afternoon for nobody to learn the center's name.
The Notebook
- HOW NO. 1 CAME OPEN: Notre Dame 31, Miami 24, a week ago, with CJ Carr throwing three touchdowns and no interceptions against the top-ranked Hurricanes. Miami is still arguing about a late touchdown that was wiped off the board, and Georgia is sitting in the chair.
- ANOTHER LIST FOR STOCKTON: Georgia's athletic department said Wednesday that Gunner Stockton is one of 20 semifinalists for the Walter Camp Player of the Year, and one of nine from the SEC. The man from Tiger has 20 touchdown passes and four interceptions.
- SATURDAY NIGHT: The Longhorn Steers visit the Bayou Bengals at 7:30 Eastern with LSU favored by 4, which the desk rates a coin flip. LSU outgained Alabama through the air by 174 yards last week and lost 31-13, so bring your own conclusions.
Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.
Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.
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