ATHENS — Kenneth Towns and Tommy Long came to Georgia as walk-ons, paying their own way. They will leave it as scholarship equals to the four- and five-star players they’ve practiced with the past four years.
Towns, Long and long snapper Trent Frix have all been awarded scholarships for this school year, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart announced after Tuesday’s practice. Towns and Long are seniors, and Frix is a junior.
“Those guys have done a tremendous job for our program,” Smart said.
Towns, a wide receiver from Albany, has contributed each of the past three years, even making a start last year. He has 11 career catches for 93 yards, and two touchdown catches. The touchdowns came against Appalachian State as a freshman and Troy as a sophomore.
Long, an outside linebacker from Marietta, has only played in one game, last year against Southern, but has dealt with injuries during his time at Georgia.
Frix, the younger brother of former Georgia long snapper Ty Frix, is expected to be the team’s main long snapper this year. He split the long-snapping duties last year with Nate Theus, who was a senior.
Another player who came to campus as a walk-on, defensive back Aaron Davis, also remains on scholarship, a team spokesman confirms. Davis was awarded a scholarship long ago and has started 19 games over the past two years.
There are other walk-ons expected to contribute this season, including at kicker, where either Rodrigo Blankenship and William Ham will win the job. But Georgia is limited to 85 scholarship players per NCAA rules.
“I do want to say this: There are a lot of deserving walk-ons out there, so I’m always hesitant. It’s a hard decision on who you give those scholarships to,” Smart said. “And there are a lot of deserving guys out there that are really giving great effort, and playing with toughness, and doing the things that we ask them to do. So it’s hard to just single out three guys, because there are certainly others that are out there helping us out.”