Morning, y’all!
We’ll hear from Georgia coach Kirby Smart and a few players later today, as fall camp continues, so make sure you’re sticking around DawgNation.com.
Also, last call for anyone who wants to get me their “sleeper pick” of the 2026 season, an under-the-radar player who you think will steal the spotlight and give the Bulldogs a serious boost this year. Email it to me at sarah.spencer@ajc.com and I will feature it in the newsletter Thursday.
Today, I want to start out with a story on Kyron Jones, who played well in Georgia’s scrimmage Saturday and will look to retake his starting spot:
From ‘crushed’ to confident
Georgia may not have to replace a starter at the safety position opposite KJ Bolden.
Jones held that position for Georgia’s first six games last season. He finished with 24 tackles. He memorably scooped up the goal-line fumble forced by Raylen Wilson and CJ Allen in Georgia’s comeback win over Auburn.
More perplexing than how Jones wasn’t awarded a touchdown on his fumble recovery was what happened next to the veteran defensive back.
Before Georgia’s next game against Ole Miss, Jones was ruled out with a foot injury. At the time, the school said Jones would be out for the foreseeable future. It ended up being the rest of the 2026 season.
“It’s a very sensitive injury,” Smart said at the start of fall camp. “It’s tough to monitor. It’s a feel-base for him. He’s doing a lot of rehab. It’s frustrating for him because maybe when the team does a lot of conditioning, he can’t do it. But he is a very conditioned player. He has to do non-impact cardio when they’re doing impact cardio, and I think that frustrates him.”
JaCorey Thomas stepped in for Jones to finish out the season. The former is hoping to return to college football to take advantage of a fifth season. But it appears there’s no room for him to return at Georgia — in part because Jones has been able to show Georgia who he was before suffering a foot injury that also kept him out of spring practice as well.
Jones had a strong showing at Georgia’s scrimmage this past weekend, excelling specifically at playing with physicality.
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jones knows what he’s doing out on the Georgia practice field. No Georgia defensive back on the roster has been with the program longer.
All that institutional knowledge translates to the field, provided he’s physically capable of being out there.
“For a young man, when something’s taken away from him, they can do one of two things: It can crush him or it can motivate him,” Georgia co-defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson said. “And it can do both. And for Kyron, it crushed him at first, but then it started to motivate him. And he’s motivated right now to come back and prove that he can come back from this.”
Smart and Robinson know Jones has the ability to play at any of Georgia’s safety positions.
With how well Khalil Barnes has played thus far since transferring in from Clemson, he seems like the most likely candidate to step in at the star spot in Georgia’s secondary.
“Khalil is doing a really good job of playing multiple positions,” Robinson said of Barnes. “He can play down at STAR. He can back up and play safety. He was a huge acquisition. He’s been a great surprise, a great deal for us to get.”
No one is going to unseat Bolden from his perch as Georgia’s starting safety. He enters the season as perhaps the best overall player on Georgia’s team.
The battle for that third starting spot at safety already had interesting options in ECU transfer Ja’Marley Riddle and promising sophomore Rasean Dinkins.
Now it has a proven, albeit not over a full season, player in Jones.
“Kyron’s doing some really nice things, been excited about his growth,” Robinson said. “From the day that I got here to now, completely different player. And he earned the confidence in the coaches, and he earned the confidence in the players on his team that he’ll go out there and do things right and do it in the Georgia way.”
Read Connor Riley’s full story here.
Trivia time
For the first time in school history, Georgia has gone five consecutive seasons with at least how many wins?
What is this Georgia football flip target focused on?
Preston Glasco is currently committed to UConn. Currently. It seems like everyone already knows how his recruiting story will end.
Especially after he got interest from schools like Georgia and South Carolina over the summer.
Especially after how he looked in a uniform after the first two outings of his senior year. Glasco has elite size, speed and length. He was hand-timed at 4.47 and 4.57 seconds in Columbia this summer.
The flip possibility might be inevitable, especially now that Alabama is also recruiting him. The reality is he’s not focusing on that right now.
There’s the central thought that Glasco needs to put out three or four games of senior tape. Then he will have his choice to stick with UConn or go play for one of those bigger programs.
After speaking with Glasco over the weekend, that’s not where his head is.
“From the outside looking in, the way to look at it is a guy who’s trying to make the most of his opportunity with his senior season,” Glasco said. “I’ve had limited high school reps, so I’m just trying to make the most out of every rep I get and take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.”
To his credit, he remains loyal to UConn. The Huskies have made him feel like a priority throughout his process. Not just over the last few months.
“A couple of schools from earlier in my recruitment have swung back a little bit just to see where things are,” he said. “Like I said, I’m still committed to UConn. I’m making sure that’s known, but I have been receiving interest from a couple of other SEC schools.”
A detailed discussion frames his story better than any flip from someone’s crystal ball. Glasco told DawgNation the following:
- He logged approximately 35 snaps in a season-opening loss to North Gwinnett last week.
- Glasco only played in two games last year because of a hip injury. “All of last year combined, I played no more than 15 snaps,” Glasco said.
- The Grayson senior also lost his sophomore year to a knee injury. He did not play any snaps that season. He also did not play varsity football his freshman year.
- The 3-star also logged about a handful of snaps against Milton earlier this month in a weather-shortened scrimmage. He’s likely now at 75 varsity reps for his career.
- The 6-foot-2-plus corner was measured by schools this summer with a wingspan of 81 to 82 inches. He had 35-inch arms. That’s elite. An 85-inch wingspan would be rare air for a much taller offensive tackle. As a corner, it is at the top of the charts.
- The 185-pound senior was in contact with UGA after his scrimmage film against Milton. The staff encouraged him to play with more physicality moving forward.
- That was noted. The best clips from Glasco’s game against North Gwinnett last week centered on him doing that. He was in on a couple of perimeter run stops last week, including a solo tackle in space.
- Alabama and South Carolina have also been in contact. The Alabama staff sent him a video message from the practice field last week, wishing him a strong start to his senior season.
- He has taken just two official visits to UConn and UGA.
What Glasco’s thinking right now about Georgia football
He’s one of the few remaining 2027 targets the Dawgs are still pursuing. Georgia has been in evaluation mode after seeing him on 7-on-7s this summer and hosting him for an official.
Georgia pulled him during one of those on-campus camps for a private workout. They know what he can do. The UGA staff just needs to see it translate to the field.
What has the current messaging been like?
“I’ve been in contact with some of the coaches up there,” Glasco said. “Up until this past, I’d say since I played my scrimmage, they’ve talked about a lot of stuff outside of football. Just checking in with my family and me. Just seeing how life’s going outside of ball.
“They checked in after my scrimmage game. Just letting me know what they thought about my performance and how the pros and cons are of some things I can work on.”
He didn’t get a lot of snaps in the Milton scrimmage. Nobody did because of the weather. The UGA staff shared their feedback from that outing.
“I made a couple of highlight plays,” Glasco said. “Coach, he had highlighted that and he also talked about how I could work on tackling.”
Glasco said his tackling is something he “takes pride in” on the field. Despite the positional versatility that comes with his elite size, he’s also only spoken about playing cornerback for the Bulldogs.
How does he currently feel about UGA?
“I feel like it is a great opportunity, like I said before,” he said. “Georgia produces a lot of DBs and safeties as well as corners. My end goal is the NFL and I feel like they do a good job of producing and pushing DBs to the league every year.
“Not just DBs. But every position really. I just feel like they do a great job with their development. So it’s definitely a great opportunity that’s in my hands.”
Read Jeff Sentell’s full story here.
Trivia answer
11
