NEW ORLEANS — Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is pulling for Arian Smith.
That’s not just because the Georgia wide receiver has persevered through a string of injuries that began even before he arrived in Athens. And it’s not just because he has had difficulty holding onto passes thrown his way this season. It’s mostly because of who Smith is.
“I love that kid because there’s not a harder worker on our football team than Arian Smith,” Bobo told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “He’s a guy that’s going to give you 100% every play.”
At practice, coaches have to dial him back “because he goes 100 miles an hour every play,” Bobo said. That would seem an accomplishment at Georgia, where effort at practice is paramount. It’d be like a NASA engineer being told to cool it with all the attention to detail.
But there also is the subtext of his season and career at Georgia, the latter defined by injury and the former by drops. Smith has set himself apart in his response to both.
It makes Smith a Bulldog worth getting behind in Wednesday’s Sugar Bowl matchup against Notre Dame in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal.
“I know the injuries, I know what he’s been through,” Bobo said. “He was a track guy coming out of high school. He’s learning how to play the receiver position. Every year — this is my third year with him — I see him getting better every single year.”
If he were to have a big game against the Fighting Irish, “it’d mean everything to me, honestly,” Smith told the AJC. “I put in a lot of work this year, I put in a lot of work the years I’ve been here. It would be like a moment for everything coming together, all I did over the years and over the course of this week.”
The Smith injury history: A broken-wrist injury suffered in high school limited his playing time in 2020, his first season at Georgia. In 2021, he tore the meniscus in his right knee. After returning to competition, he broke his right fibula to end his season.
Just before the start of the 2022 season, he broke his right ankle and tore a ligament in it.
“All on one leg,” Smith said. “Crazy.”
He found encouragement in coaches and teammates who pushed him and kept him included as he rehabilitated.
“That just made me want to get back to it and get back and help the team any way I can,” he said.
Healthy in 2023, his fourth season, the trials were not quite yet complete. He didn’t get the snaps he wanted. His eight catches ranked 11th on the team.
At that point, jumping in the transfer portal for a new opportunity would have been an unsurprising solution. But Smith stayed the course and came back for this season.
“He’s an inspiration, to be honest,” wide receiver Izayah Reeves told the AJC.
And that finally led to this season, when he was expected to be a breakout player. His production has been substantial — 47 catches for 750 yards and four touchdowns. But he’s mostly recognized for his trouble holding onto the ball. He has been assessed with 10 drops by Pro Football Focus, tied for most among power-conference players. Most recently, he had a critical drop in the SEC title game against Texas.
It has not deterred him. Against Texas, for instance, he ran a fake punt for a first down and hustled on a run play to recover a fumble by running back Nate Frazier that enabled Georgia to keep possession.
Smith said he doesn’t look at the social-media arrows that have been fired at him over his pass-catching struggles, but it sounds as if he has an idea of what’s being said.
“It motivates me for sure,” Smith said. “They say, ‘Oh, he can’t catch.’ It just motivates because I know I can catch. In practice, I don’t drop any passes.”
(For the record, “Oh, he can’t catch” would fall among the less vitriolic tweets regarding Smith’s pass-catching challenges.)
Georgia would welcome a drop-free Sugar Bowl from Smith. With quarterback Gunner Stockton making his first career start in place of the injured Carson Beck, Smith could take pressure off Stockton by being a reliable target and using his speed to create explosive plays.
“Everybody wants to talk about the drops, but when Arian Smith’s on the field, he’s a threat,” Bobo said.
Smith’s speed makes him dangerous. Running for the Georgia track team, he has run the 100-meter dash in 10.1 seconds and ran a leg on the Bulldogs’ 4x100 relay that finished second in the 2021 NCAA Championships. Assuming he enters the NFL draft — he has a season of eligibility remaining — his speed will make him a tempting option.
To Smith, running fast is not merely a way to evade secondaries, but a form of beauty. At Georgia’s media day Monday, he spoke of feeling the wind in his face and hearing it in his ears.
When he is at top speed, “I’m just out of it,” he said.
Smith, who earlier this month received his degree in housing management and policy, is hopeful for Wednesday.
At practice, “coach (Kirby Smart) pressures you so much,” he said. “When you take accountability at practice, so when it happens in a game, it doesn’t affect me because I’m practicing my butt off to not drop one.”
Could Smith be the star of the Sugar Bowl?
It would be an inspiration, to be honest.
SUGAR BOWL
CFP quarterfinal
No. 2 Georgia vs. No. 7 Notre Dame at New Orleans, Wednesday, 8:45 p.m., ESPN, 750 AM, 95.5 FM
