ATHENS — Neither Carson Beck nor Gunner Stockton had a great showing on G-Day.
But after the 20-20 tie, Kirby Smart wasn’t exactly celebrating the performance of his defensive backs either.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Smart said. “We lost three really good football players there. We’re thin. David Daniel wasn’t able to go today, Malaki was out, Justyn Rhett was out, Demello [Jones] was dealing with a little bit of a hamstring. We got better in the secondary, but we’re not where we need to be in terms of being able to make plays on the ball down the field and be able to affect the quarterback.”
The three really good football players Kirby Smart references are Kamari Lassiter, Javon Bullard and Tykee Smith. All thre players are likely to be taken in next week’s NFL draft.
As for those who got the first shot at replacing each player, Julio Humphrey started opposite Daylen Everette at cornerback. Joenel Aguero took Smith’s place at the star position, while JaCorey Thomas held down Bullard’s spot in the secondary.
Georgia was also without Malaki Starks, as he recovers from a shoulder injury. Dan Jackson got the start in his place.
Sophomore Daniel Harris rotated with Humphrey at the first-team cornerback spot. While newcomers like KJ Bolden, Jake Pope and Ellis Robinson all made plays on Saturday, they still have some ground to make up as far as cracking the rotation.
Georgia did have three interceptions on Saturday, but none of them came from players in the secondary. Mykel Williams, CJ Allen and Troy Bowles all came down with the turnovers.
Georgia’s defensive backs had opportunities to make impact plays. But in Smart’s eyes, the wide receivers just seemed to have the better day.
“I want to see them attack the ball better,” Smart said of his defensive backs. “We gave up a lot of plays in the spring. What I call 50-50 balls, we didn’t get a lot of them out. What you saw a microcosm of today was a really good quarterback throwing really good touch passes. The throw to Dom [Lovett], I mean, I’ve seen that 20 times this spring. It’s like, we’re right there. We just couldn’t quite get it out.
“When you have a good thrower and catcher with people that protect, it’s dangerous. I want to see more out of the secondary. I want to see, yeah, Malaki’s out but that’s okay. There’s other guys out there that have scholarships that can make plays too.”
Beck might well be the best quarterback the Georgia secondary faces this season. And while it came at the expense of the defensive backs, it’s undeniable wide receivers Lovett and Colbie Young had good showings.
This was always going to be a tough spring for the defensive backfield. Losing three NFL-caliber players tends to precipitate that.
But in speaking for the group after the game, it wasn’t all doom and gloom from Everette. He knows this group got better this spring.
And still has more room for improvement before the season opener against Clemson.
“Overall, we’ve just grown,” Everette said. “We understand the defense and what we have to do, what other people have to do. We’re just learning stuff like that. We showed a lot of energy. We made our plays. I feel like we do have a chip on our shoulder because we’re not really talked about as much, but at the end of the day, this school is built on defense and we’ve got to keep that standard up.”
