ATHENS, Ga. — Jaden Rashada is making another move in his well-traveled college football career, after just one semester at Georgia.
Rashada plans to enter the transfer portal, a source close to the team confirmed on Sunday. This would be Rashada’s fourth stop including Florida, where he initially signed in Dec. 2022, then left amid a name, image and likeness deal that broke down, leading to Rashada suing Florida and head coach Billy Napier.
Rashada spent his freshman year at Arizona State, where he started the first two games, then got hurt and missed the next nine before playing the regular season finale. He transferred to Georgia last spring, knowing he would play behind starter Carson Beck.
But Rashada was also behind backup Gunner Stockton and freshman Ryan Puglisi, who had a head start at Georgia after enrolling in Dec. 2023. When Beck was hurt in the SEC championship and replaced by Stockton, it would have been Puglisi who went in the game next, head coach Kirby Smart said.
Rashada competed with Puglisi during the next couple of weeks of bowl practice. But when Puglisi was installed as the top backup to Stockton for the Sugar Bowl, the chances of Rashada sticking around diminished.
Still, Rashada put a positive face on his experience at Georgia when he spoke to reporters before the Bulldogs’ quarterfinal loss against Notre Dame.
“I think I needed this place a lot right now in my life. Specifically, I needed Georgia,” he said. “Everything that I kind of had been going through and experienced this year, I learned a lot. I feel like I needed this year a lot, and it’s exceeded every expectation plus some more.”
Rashada will use that experience at his next stop, where he will almost certainly look for a quicker path to playing time.
Georgia, meanwhile, has four scholarship quarterbacks remaining: Stockton, Puglisi and freshman early enrollees Ryan Montgomery and Hezekiah Millender. The team was also looking at transfer portal options, especially someone with playing experience who could compete for the starting job. Stockton’s performance in the Sugar Bowl probably shores up the job for next year, if, for no other reason, it scares off anybody from coming in. But if the team can find someone with playing experience it will do so, at least for insurance.
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(Photo: Joshua L. Jones / USA Today via Imagn Images)
