ATHENS — Kirby Smart has made it clear by now he doesn’t love the thought of having to play a true freshman at inside linebacker.
We saw that last year with Raylen Wilson and CJ Allen. There were moments of promise. And there were growing pains.
Yet because of injuries at the inside linebacker position, Georgia is once again having to turn to a freshman for reps.
This time, it’s Chris Cole, who took Mondon’s spot as Georgia’s third-down linebacker.
“It’s tough if you have to play every down with a freshman, but he is a sponge,” Smart said on Saturday. “He has gotten so much better since he arrived, and he has a high upside. He’s extremely long, he’s extremely fast, but he’s a freshman, so you have to temper your expectations with a freshman because they haven’t done it before. But he has proven to be a good special teams player and he continues to get better.”
Cole was a 5-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting cycle, one of two Georgia brought in, along with Justin Williams.
With the way things are going, Georgia may need Williams and Cole to follow a similar developmental track as Wilson and Allen. Even if that’s not what Georgia planned on doing.
“We’ve been very impressed with him, the way he’s grown up and gotten better, and he’s still not there. It’s like Raylen and CJ last year,” Smart said of Cole. “They weren’t ready for what they had to go do, but they had to go play. We need him to keep getting better, and we need Justin (Williams) to come along too.”
For as forthcoming as Smart is about the progress of Cole, he’s kept the status of Smael Mondon and CJ Allen under wraps.
Mondon was spotted on the sidelines in a walking boot and on crutches on Saturday. The injury is recent, with Mondon speaking to reporters last week. When asked for the specifics on Mondon’s injury, Smart only said that Georgia is hopeful to get Mondon back.
As for Allen, Smart noted that the sophomore inside linebacker is banged up and his snap count would reflect that. He played only 26 snaps, compared to the 44 that Wilson and Jalon Walker each played.
Allen status sounds more like the traditional wear that an inside linebacker accumulates over the course of the season.
Still, if Allen is going to play fewer snaps as Georgia manages his workload, that puts more on the plate of Wilson.
When all Georgia linebackers are healthy, Wilson has traditionally been third in snaps behind Mondon and Allen. If you factor in Jalon Walker, he slides even further down the depth chart.
But now, Wilson is likely the top healthy option for Georgia at the position.
“Yeah, he’s really intelligent,” Smart said of Wilson. “He works really hard. He’s got great athleticism. I think he needs experience. He’s gaining that rapidly. He’s still just a sophomore, and it seems like he’s had to play more than your typical sophomore. But he’s a very intelligent kid, and he takes a lot of pride.”
The 44 snaps for Wilson were a career-high. He’s made a handful of impact plays this season for Georgia, whether it be a forced fumble against Kentucky or a big fourth down stop against Auburn.
For Wilson, the next step is becoming a more consistent, down-by-down linebacker. The only way that happens is with reps.
With Mondon out, Wilson is now getting a lot more of those reps.
“It wasn’t our best game, but it was a solid,” Wilson said after the game on Saturday. “Communication, Smael is an excellent communicator so we’ve got to up the communication level from everybody. All week we were working on that throughout practice.”
Georgia’s defense has always been at its best when it is able to get great inside linebacker play. Think Roquan Smith and Nakobe Dean and what they meant to those respective teams.
But those two Butkus Award-winning linebackers didn’t become monsters in the middle of the defense until their third seasons at Georgia. It’s a difficult position to come in and dominate, with experience often being the best teacher.
Even with someone as athletic as Wilson or Cole, there’s no way to make for all the snaps Mondon has accumulated over the course of his career.
The two young linebackers could well get there one day. But perhaps not as fast as Smart and this Georgia defense needs. Even with the two possessing all the tools you’d want in a young linebacker.
“He has tremendous pride in performance, and we rank that as one of the number one qualities,” Smart said of Cole. “A lot of people rank size, speed, height, weight, stars. He is self-aware and has great pride in performance, and that is a number one trait of a winner, of a good athlete, of guys that play as freshmen. He has size. He can run, but he’s really intelligent. He’s very conscientious.
