ATHENS — If JT Daniels is going to play for Georgia this week, he’s going to have to prove he’s capable later on this week.
Coach Kirby Smart on Monday said the Bulldogs’ junior quarterback will practice on Monday, but he won’t be allowed to throw the football. Redshirt senior Stetson Bennett started and played the entire game against No. 8 Arkansas this past Saturday as Daniels sat out with a grade 1 sprain of the latissimus dorsi muscle. Georgia won 37-0.
“He’s practicing. He’s doing everything but throwing,” Smart said during Georgia’s weekly media day news conference on Monday. “Then we’ll see how it goes day-to-day. I mean, the biggest thing is he’s got to rest and recover and try to heal. And, so, we’re very hopeful that he’ll be able to go Tuesday, Wednesday and be able to throw, like he was able to do last week some days.”
The No. 2 Bulldogs (5-0, 3-0 SEC) travel to Auburn to face the No. 18-ranked Tigers (4-1, 1-0) on Saturday (3:30 p.m., CBS). Auburn came from behind to defeat LSU 24-19 late Saturday night.
Early betting lines on Monday showed Georgia as a 14.5-point favorite, according to VegasInsider.com.
Daniels’ “lat strain” is considered mild. Such an injury is common among throwing athletes. Generally it takes two to three weeks of rest to heal.
“As there is in everything in the medical field, there’s people who think they can fix it really fast,” Smart said. “But that’s not necessarily the case. ... We’ve done some more scans on JT just to confirm what we thought it was all along. So, it is what it is, and I think it’s just going to be a time thing.”
It certainly hasn’t held back Georgia so far. This is the second game Daniels has missed with injuries. He sat out the Week 2 home game vs. UAB and the Bulldogs rolled to a 56-7 victory behind Bennett’s five first-half TD passes. Daniels played only the first quarter of Georgia’s 62-0 win at Vanderbilt on Sept. 25.
Saturday, Bennett completed just seven passes for 72 yards as the Bulldogs piled up 273 yards rushing against the Razorbacks.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Obviously, Georgia is thankful to have such an experienced backup available as they have in Bennett. Smart was asked Monday how much convincing was involved in getting Bennett to stick around for a fifth college football season.
“I know he was frustrated,” Smart said of Bennett, who started the season third in the quarterback rotation. “He was more frustrated about his volume of reps. For him, it was more about competition, getting opportunities. It wasn’t necessarily about 1 reps; it was about 2′s reps, because he wasn’t getting a lot of those. But the way we practice, he was able to get work in. Probably not as much as he likes.”
Daniels is just one of several injured players Georgia is trying to get back on the field before traveling to Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Bulldogs played Saturday without three wide receivers who would otherwise be in the rotation -- Dom Blaylock (hamstring), Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint (ankle) and Arian Smith (leg contusion).
“They’re all closer this week than they were last week, but none of them are definite,” Smart said.
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