ATHENS — The Georgia Bulldogs may or may not have been trying to orchestrate something when they sent Chaz Chambliss and Jalon Walker to post-practice media availability Thursday night. But, intentional or not, there was some symmetry to hearing from the two linebackers back-to-back.
Chambliss came to Georgia as an inside linebacker and now plays outside linebacker for the Bulldogs. Walker arrived as an outside linebacker who’s now slated to play inside linebacker this season. Both players exemplify the coveted “coachability” factor. Each credits his father for instilling in him the ability to accept and benefit from harsh instruction.
Both players are described by coaches and teammates as extremely hard workers who are willing to do anything to contribute to the team. Each accepts such a distinction as high praise.
“I attribute it to my dad,” said Chambliss, a 6-foot-2, 250-pound junior who’s slated to start as outside linebacker this fall. “He was a drill sergeant for 25 years in the military, and he kind of instilled that in me from a young age.”
Walker’s father isn’t a drill sergeant, but he’s as close as one can be to one outside the armed services. Curtis Walker is a football coach. The longtime head coach at Catawba College coordinated the defense at Coastal Carolina for a short while before returning to the high school ranks recently as head coach at North Charleston (S.C).
Wherever Curtis Walker was coaching, Jalon Walker was never far from his side. He grew up running around locker rooms and practice fields seeing how his father built boys into men.
“I appreciate my dad so much because this opportunity was in front of me before I even knew it,” said Walker, a 6-2, 245-pound sophomore and former 5-star recruiting prospect out of Salisbury, N.C. “Watching him give pregame speeches throughout the years and hyping his team up and seeing what his players have done in life was a great opportunity.”
Walker is splitting first-team reps at “Mac” inside linebacker with fellow sophomore Xavian Sorey. They’re both angling for as many snaps as they can get alongside Jamon Dumas-Johnson while Smael Mondon continues to recover from a foot injury.
Heading into his third season with the Bulldogs, Chambliss is slated to start at the “Jack” outside linebacker position occupied by Nolan Smith the past two years. Chambliss saw his role increase significantly last season when Smith was lost midseason to a pectoral-muscle tear. A first-round NFL draft pick this year, Smith is turning heads with the Philadelphia Eagles.
While Smith was as well known for his verbal motivational skills as he was his playmaking ability with the Bulldogs, being a vocal leader is something that doesn’t come naturally to Chambliss. But he’s trying.
“I was more of a lead-by-example leader in my (group),” said Chambliss, who had 16 tackles and two sacks in 12 games last season. “Obviously, I didn’t have to talk before that because there was Nolan. Going into summer, I realized I had to be more of a vocal leader to the young guys and teach them how it’s done.”
Chambliss’ group is loaded with talent. The Bulldogs have recruited elite outside linebackers to Athens at an incredible rate. They added Damon Wilson, Sam M’Pemba and Gabe Harris to a group that already included Marvin Jones Jr., Darris Smith and C.J. Madden. With Smith and Robert Beal now in the NFL, Chambliss is the elder statesman.
While some of his position mates may be bigger, faster or stronger, none of them will out-work Chambliss.
Credit: Chip Towers/AJC
“Chaz strains both in terms of his competitive nature and, like, his physical willingness to battle with people,” defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann said. “So that makes him a hard guy to block by nature. The guy works extremely hard in all areas, whether it’s walk-throughs, meetings, on the field, individual drills. He’s one of the most common people to stay after practice to work on his own. Naturally, when you work like that and you focus on your process, you grow. I think he buys into that and does it every day.”
It’s not like Chambliss was an afterthought recruit. He was a consensus 4-star prospect when he graduated from Carrollton High and enrolled at UGA. He has played in 26 of the Bulldogs’ 30 games the past two seasons.
The fuel for such a work ethic came from his father. Chambliss wears it on his sleeve – literally. His right bicep is adorned with tattoos honoring his father, the centerpiece a depiction of a father and son fishing.
Cliff Chambliss, a civil engineer by trade who served in the U.S. Army for 20 years, died suddenly at the age of 53. That was only three years ago.
“I did my whole right arm for my dad,” Chambliss told John Frierson of UGA Sports Communications. “We used to go fishing and do everything together.”
Walker didn’t mention any special tattoos. None were immediately apparent. But he, too, said much of his mentality and perspective was formed by watching his father coach and seeing how the best players on his teams reacted to being coached hard.
That has helped Walker immensely since he got to Georgia. Last year, he cross-trained at outside and inside linebacker. He got most of his game reps out on the edge.
“I take every day with pride,” said Walker, who finished with nine tackles and a sack while starting on the kickoff coverage team. “I take every day like you don’t know when your last snap is. I take every day with hard work and a positive attitude. When I have an opportunity, I know I need to seize it and attack it.”
This year, the concentration for Walker decidedly is on learning to play inside. The goal is that one day soon he will be able stay on the field longer and play all three downs.
“We want to challenge him to be as versatile as possible, to go back and forth between being an edge rusher in our third-down packages and playing inside linebacker on first and second down,” said Schumann, who is the Bulldogs inside linebackers’ position coach. “That’s probably more than you guys realize we’ve done that with a lot of guys over the years. Maybe they didn’t end up being in that role on game day, but he was able to do that for us last year.”
It’s a role that Quay Walker and Mondon did exceptionally well for the Bulldogs the past couple of seasons.
At this point, Chambliss and Walker are still trying to figure out exactly what their roles will be on the 2023 Bulldogs. Whatever it ends up being, they’ll carry the lessons of their fathers into it.
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