ATHENS — The club is gone. May it rest in peace. Or in the mind of Davin Bellamy, may it never, ever return.
For two-plus games, ever since midway through Georgia’s game at Tennessee, the senior outside linebacker has played with a big white cast on his left arm. Bellamy fractured the third metacarpal bone in the hand during that game, and played through it thanks to the club.
But it was gone at Tuesday’s practice, which Bellamy called “a plus.”
“While I had it on I didn’t want to make any excuses, but it’s already hard enough to play D-line in this league, and especially with one hand,” he said after practice. “It can get pretty tough. Like I said, it’s back to regularly scheduled programming.”
Bellamy had two tackles apiece against Vanderbilt and Missouri, the two full games he played with the club on. He had zero sacks and assisted on a tackle-for-loss at Vanderbilt.
All in all, the thing was a hindrance, as Bellamy explained on Tuesday:
“In the run game, while I was striking I couldn’t grab and keep leverage on the left side, so I was allowing people to get up on me. And when it came to pass rushing on the right side I wasn’t able to stab or I wasn’t able to counter-move because I couldn’t grab. It kind of forced me to be on one side of the field when pass rushing. It also slows the hands down. When you don’t want to go power you want to knock the hands down, (and) it slows the hands down.”
The club may have had one positive: Bellamy knocked down a Missouri pass on Saturday night with that clubbed-up left hand.
“I think I would’ve deflected it anyway. But with the circumference of the big ol’ club, I guess,” Bellamy said, thinking about it. “I didn’t even feel it, I just felt the ricochet of the ball off the club. I guess it helped right there.”
Either way, it’s gone now, assuming his left hand stays safe.
Asked if he was keeping it somewhere as a keepsake, Bellamy laughed.
“Oh no,” he said. “I want to get that as far away as possible.”