Gunner Stockton knows he’ll have a big challenge on his hands should he take over as the team’s starting quarterback.
Fortunately for him, he can lean on one of his best friends in Oscar Delp to help him.
“Tight ends, they can make your life easy,” Stockton said last week at SEC Media Days.
Delp was voted second team All-SEC last week at his position, the lone offensive player for Georgia on either the first or second team.
Yet Delp, who bypassed the NFL draft a season ago, wasn’t even Georgia’s most productive tight end last season. That was Lawson Luckie, who is also back for the 2025 season.
Delp and Luckie are two of the few veterans on the 2025 team. That they both play the same position helps explain why it is perhaps one of the most important and valuable on the team.
“Having Oscar back gives us something that not many teams have. He can physically, at the point of attack, block you,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I mean, he is stronger than most tight ends you play against. He’s a great play action threat. (Jaden) Reddell, Lawson, those guys have all grown up. Then the young kids are talented. So I’m excited about that room.”
The tight ends figure to be a key part of an offense that has to play better than it did a season ago.
Tight end production was somewhat curious last season, especially in losses. For as well as Delp and Luckie played at times last season, Delp didn’t have a reception in losses against Alabama and Ole Miss. Then against Notre Dame, with Stockton at quarterback, Luckie failed to record a catch.
Delp and Luckie had the difficult task of replacing Brock Bowers a season ago. Even with Bowers now an NFL star for the Las Vegas Raiders, he still casts a long shadow over the position.
Combined, Delp and Luckie had fewer receptions and yards than Bowers did statistically in his injury-shortened final season in Athens.
Neither alone is likely to equal what Bowers did in his time at Georgia. But given their time in their system, along with the questions around the rest of the offense, together they’ll need to emerge as key weapons for Stockton.
“You have to get the ball to your best playmakers. And your best playmakers got to catch the ball,” Smart said. “So it’s not as easy as, ‘man, we’ve got to utilize the tight end better.’ Well, tight ends got to get open in one-on-one situations. Or we’ve got to run the ball well enough that play action opens up. Because the way a tight end catches the ball a lot of times is off of play action.
Smart recognizes that the tight end room is hardworking, which should only help establish good habits for the younger players in the room. Jaden Reddell is primed to step in for Benjamin Yurosek, while Elyiss Williams and Ethan Barbour were two of the top tight end prospects in the country last cycle.
It’ll be up to Delp and Luckie to set the tone for the tight end room, and thus offense this fall. They’ve done all the right things this offseason and carried that over to the practice field.
If they can produce in-season — both had key second-half receptions in the SEC Championship game when Stockton stepped in — it should make a world of difference for Georgia’s starting quarterback.
