ATHENS – Georgia’s running back situation is so precarious as it readies to play the season opener on Saturday that the Bulldogs are considering some radical alternatives.
How might Brock Bowers look at tailback? What about Dillon Bell?
Those are at least two options that have been discussed – if not rehearsed – during Georgia’s preseason practices. Coach Kirby Smart would neither confirm nor deny those alternatives as real options, but he did concede the Bulldogs have some health concerns in the backfield.
“We’re looking at everybody at running back,” Smart said during the Georgia’s game week media day on Monday. “We’ll try to find the best way possible to get the ball in the hands of the playmakers.”
Bowers would qualify as one of those. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound junior tight end was a running back for a time back in high school in Napa Valley, California, and he has actually run the ball quite a bit with the Bulldogs.
Of his 24 career touchdowns, four have come via the rush. In his previous two seasons at Georgia, Bowers has carried the ball 13 times for 165 yards. That’s a 12.7 yards-per-carry average.
Bell also spent a lot of time in high school carrying the football. The 6-1, 210-pound sophomore rushed for 655 yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior at The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas, while also catching 46 passes for 662 yards and 10 TDs and passing for 164 yards and three scores.
The need to explore options at running back had arisen due to an onslaught of injuries in preseason camp. The Bulldogs lost sophomore Branson Robinson for the rest of the season we he went down with a ruptured patellar tendon two weeks ago. That was followed by an MCL sprain for projected starter Daijun Edwards, and senior Kendall Milton has been held out of scrimmage work for the entire preseason due to a chronic hamstring issue.
Meanwhile, one of the best performers in camp has been redshirt freshman Andrew Paul, who is a year removed from an ACL reconstruction. That has left the Bulldogs with true freshman Roderick Robinson and walkons Cash Jones, Sevaughn Clark and Len’Neth Whitehead to turn to.
Smart said some of the injured backs are making their way back and the situation is not quite as dire as it once seemed.
“We feel good about Daijun’s status,” Smart said. “… He looks good. Kendall, he’s been dealing with a hamstring almost all of camp. He feels 80, 90 percent. And we’re hopeful to get him back today as well in terms of practicing and taking reps. The volume they do we have to be careful of because they haven’t been in the heat as much as the other guys in the last week. But we feel good about those. I feel good about Andrew Paul. Roderick Robinson has had a good camp. Cash has had a good camp. Really, we’ve got a bunch of guys who have repped and done some good things there.”
As for Bowers, the longshot Heisman Trophy candidate said he’d love to play some running back if asked. As it is, though, he gets plenty of opportunities to carry the football from his hybrid tight end position.
“I’d be open to it,” Bowers said. “It’s fun whenever you get the ball in your hands and try to make things happen. So, I mean, if they tell me to go to running back, I’ll do whatever.”
Bell seems less likely to add backfield work to his resume.
“We need Dillon at wideout; we need Dillon on special teams,” Smart said. “He’s had a good camp in terms of being wide receiver.”
‘Dooley Intersection’
One of the busiest and most iconic intersections in Athens has been named for Georgia’s winningest coach of all time.
The Vince Dooley Memorial Intersection, as the crossway of Broad and Lumpkin streets now will be known, was officially christened in a small ceremony Barbara Dooley on Monday. Two-feet-high by 4-feet wide brown signs affixed to the both sides of the poles holding traffic signals make the name visible from all directions.
When the Dooleys came to town in 1964, Barbara Dooley recalled that her husband began a tradition of visiting downtown Athens after games to “drag the main,” the main streets of downtown.
Broad Street, known in other stretches of town as Atlanta Highway, has been the main thoroughfare into downtown Athens since Dooley arrived from Auburn to become the Bulldogs’ head football coach in 1964. Barbara Dooley told those gathered for the ceremony that she and her husband drove that stretch of road every night after games until his death at age 90 in October of last year.
“Students now are packed at 10 o’clock at night. In 1964, it was dead,” Mrs. Dooley joked at the ceremony, according to a story in the Athens Banner-Herald.
Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia state representative Houston Gaines and UGA President Jere Morehead were among the dignitaries in attendance.
Willock to be honored
Georgia’s offensive linemen are keeping detail under wraps, but they plan to honor their fallen teammate Devin Willock on Saturday -- and all season, in fact.
“To be honest with you, we’ve talked about a bunch of different things,” senior center Sedrick Van Pran said Monday. “Nothing’s really set in stone. It’s hardly to fully commemorate somebody you came in and it was going to be their senior season. So, if you do it you want to do it right. We’ve talked about a few things … but it has to be organic and natural.”
Willock was killed along with recruiting staff Chandler LeCroy in a car crash the night after Georgia’s national championship celebration in January. Police said LeCroy, who was driving UGA-leased vehicle, was driving more than 100 mph while intoxicated when the accident occurred on Jan. 15.
At the G-Day Game last spring, the Bulldogs’ No. 1 offense lined up with nobody in Willock’s left guard position and called a timeout. The linemen have left Willock’s seat empty in the team meeting room since he passed. A No. 77 patch, Willock’s jersey number, has been affixed to Georgia’s helmets.
Saturday’s plans, however, remain closely guarded.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” junior Amarius Mims said. “I think it’s going to be a surprise.”
Red Cross Report
Junior flanker Ladd McConkey, who missed practice last week while being treated for a back issue, will be able to play Saturday if needed, according to Smart.
“Ladd’s doing great,” the coach said. “We had to shut him down for a little bit. He’s dealt with it before. (He) practiced Saturday, will be out there (Monday).”
Linbeacker Smael Mondon (foot) and cornerback Kamari Lassiter (foot) – both projected starters – have returned to practice while wearing non-contact jerseys and could play Saturday. Safety David Daniel-Sisavanh also returned over the weekend, according to Smart.
“Those guys look good, been practicing.
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