Editor’s Note: It may be time for the Georgia Bulldogs to take back the SEC East in 2017. We’ve featured the most important UGA players, coaches, fans and staff for the upcoming season in a 20-part video series, which you can binge-watch right here.

ATHENS – If you look up outside linebackers in an encyclopedia of football, you’d find the dimensions of Davin Bellamy and Lorenzo Carter in the description. In the two seniors from the Atlanta area, Georgia has two perfect specimen to guard the edges of the defense

Call them “The Parentheses.”

Bellamy, who is from Chamblee, is listed at 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. Carter is listed at 6-6, 242. Both insist they weigh considerably more than that now, thanks to four years of vigorous training and conditioning in UGA’s strength program. No matter how heavy the players actually are, the Bulldogs definitely consider them a strength for defense, which is expected to be one of the best in the SEC this year.

Georgia also knows it is quite fortunate to have both players back for this season. Bellamy and Carter were was considered viable candidates to turn professional after their junior seasons. But both opted to come back to UGA for one more year, not just to improve their stock but to finish what they started with the Bulldogs.

“We didn’t go out last year like we wanted to,” Carter said. “I feel like I had a lot more to do here, so I couldn’t leave yet.”

The 8-5 record the Bulldogs posted “is not how I want to finish,” Bellamy said. “That’s not Georgia football to me. I know, speaking for these other guys also, that’s one of the main reasons we wanted to come back. You can’t leave with a bad taste in your mouth like that.”

The return of the two seniors gave the Bulldogs a head start on building the 2017 defense. Between them, they’ve played in 72 games with 29 starts, and they have combined to record 205 tackles and 17.5 sacks.

They are two more reasons why Georgia – and Georgia’s defense – should own the East.

Click here to see more of “Own the East,” our 2017 season preview of the Georgia Bulldogs in video form.