ATHENS – Every indication at this point is that tight end Brock Bowers will be on the field for the Georgia Bulldogs against Alabama on Saturday. Nick Saban, for one, believes that’s a big deal.
It’s often debated just how much of an impact a tight end can have in a game. But in the case of the Georgia All-American, you’re not talking about just a tight end. The legendary football coach turned to the game of basketball to illustrate his point.
“If you have a really talented big guy and he’s athletic enough, you’ve got to guard him with a smaller guy, that creates some advantages for the bigger guy,” Saban said of Georgia’s 6-foot-4, 240-pound junior. “If you cover him with a bigger guy, and the bigger guy is not as athletic, that creates some problems, too. I think it’s a mismatch issue that comes from having guys that also are really good blockers. If you have smaller guys guarding them, then you got a mismatch in the running game, too.”
Bowers’ availability was brought into question last Saturday when he didn’t play in the Bulldogs’ regular-season finale against Georgia Tech. It was the third game of the season that the reigning Jim Mackey Award winner has missed, but his absence was somewhat of a surprise considering he’d played in the last two.
Bowers famously returned to the playing field just 26 days after undergoing TightRope surgery to repair a high-ankle sprain. But coach Kirby Smart said cumulative soreness from playing in the previous two games simply required Bowers to rest against the Yellow Jackets.
But Smart added that “Brock was probably the closest of being able to go” of all the players that missed the Tech game with injuries. And the Crimson Tide definitely expects him to play.
“He’s definitely a great player for them,” Alabama defensive back Malachi Moore said. “He lines up in many different positions and I think that’s going to be big in this game. He lines up at receiver and runs receiver routes which gives them an extra receiver on the field. When he lines up in the ‘C’ area, playing tight end, he does a great job being physical in run protection and he’s a tough runner himself and also runs routes from there. So, it’s going to be key to know where he is at all times because he’s a big part of their offense.”
However, so are flanker Ladd McConkey (ankle) and split end Rara Thomas (foot) and their availability remains very much in question.
Burton-Lassiter matchup
Kamari Lassiter was having to line up and try to cover Jermaine Burton on Georgia’s Woodruff Practice Fields in 2021. Saturday, Lassiter will be lined up across from Burton and trying to cover him at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the SEC Championship.
Burton was starring for the Bulldogs as a sophomore wide receiver when Georgia won its first of two national championships in January of 2022. At that point, Lassiter was a back-up cornerback who got the majority of his work in 14 games on special teams.
Two years later, Lassiter is considered one of the best cover-corners in all of college football and has filled a designated “shut-down role” for the Bulldogs this season. As such, it’s a virtual certainly that he will be asked to cover Burton often on Saturday.
“Jermaine and I are definitely good friends or whatever; we were close two years ago,” Lassiter said Monday. “Obviously, we’re on opposite sides now and everything between the lines is different. So, we’ll have to put that aside when it comes down to the game.”
How Burton and Lassiter perform could go a long way toward determining the game’s outcome. Nobody has played more defensive snaps for Georgia than Lassiter at 614 this season. Generally, he stays outside but the Bulldogs moved him inside to cover the slot when Missouri and Luther Burden came to town. Burden caught 3 passes for 53 yards and his 39-yard TD came against a different defensive back.
Burton leads the Crimson Tide with 749 yards on 33 receptions and 7 touchdowns. He’s coming off an Auburn game in which he had a 68-yard touchdown and 107 receiving yards on just four receptions.
Like he was at Georgia, Burton remains very much the deep-ball threat.
“Definitely a challenge,” said Lassiter, who should know.
Beck knows Bama
Most Georgia fans can tell you that quarterback Carson Beck was once a Florida commitment – in baseball. But long forgotten by many is the fact that he also was once an Alabama commitment – and that was in football.
That actually happened on June 26, 2018, a few days after the rising high school school junior had taken an unofficial visit to Tuscaloosa. He would remain on the Crimson Tide’s commitment list for another seven months before flipping to Georgia. Beck was asked Monday what he remembers about his time as a Bama pledge.
“I mean, that was a long time ago,” Beck said on the SEC players teleconference call Monday. “But, obviously, (Saban is) a great coach, one of the greatest of all time. … It’s a very similar program to Georgia and the things that we believe in, the ideals. But obviously Coach Saban is a great coach, and I have tons of respect for him.”
It took a full four years, but Beck finally earned his place as the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback this season. A semifinalist for the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien awards, Beck’s 72.4% completion percentage would stand as a UGA single-season record. He heads into Saturday’s game with 3,495 yards and 22 touchdowns passing and six interceptions.
“He does a really, really good job of executing their offense,” Saban said. “He doesn’t make very many bad reads. He throws the ball in the right place. He’s very accurate with the ball, throws it on time. He understands their offense very, very well, executes the play that’s called and distributes the call correctly, almost flawlessly.”
‘Week-to-week’
Smart refused to provide even the most minute of details regarding the availability of linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson or cornerback Julian Humphrey for Saturday’s game.
“Yeah, still week to week with their injuries; trying to get both those guys back,” Smart said Monday.
Dumas-Johnson, an All-American who has started 24 games at the “Mike” inside linebacker position for the Bulldogs, plays perhaps the most important position of all when it comes to defending running quarterbacks. But the beloved linebacker known as “Pop” fractured a bone in his forearm tackling quarterback Brady Cook in the fourth quarter of Georgia’s 30-21 win over Missouri on Nov. 4. He reportedly underwent surgery that week, putting him at just over three weeks of recovery time ahead of Saturday’s game.
Pressed for more information on Dumas-Johnson at the end of Monday’s press briefing, Smart only repeated his earlier comments.
“He’s week to week,” Smart said.
“Day-to-day” would at least seem more encouraging.
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