Georgia WR Dominick Blaylock seeking transfer, enters portal
Georgia has lost its ninth player to the transfer portal since it opened on December 5. Persons with knowledge of the situation tell DawgsHQ that fourth-year junior wideout Dominick Blaylock entered on Monday. Dawgs247’s Rusty Mansell was the first to report.
Blaylock is coming off a season where he caught 15 passes for 227 yards and a touchdown. He had a 20-yard catch in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl that jumpstarted Georgia’s offense when it was down 21-7 Ohio State in the first half.
The Walton High School (Marietta, Ga.) product overcame two ACL tears in the same knee to play the past two seasons. He had a promising freshman season that ended with the first of those ACL tears. He caught 18 passes for 330 yards and five scores before getting hurt in the SEC Championship game.
Blaylock tore the same ACL roughly 10 months later in 2020 preseason camp after what had amounted to a pretty impressive recovery. Prior to the injury he had gotten himself on track to play during the COVID-19 affected 2020 season. He didn’t get back on the field until last season where he caught two passes for 11 yards. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
Injuries depleted Georgia’s wide receiver depth for most of the season and Blaylock was one who helped hold the line. He came up with three big catches for 42 yards in Georgia’s toughest regular-season test at Missouri. Blaylock helped Georgia come back in the fourth quarter and win 26-22.
While he clearly wasn’t himself in 2021, Kirby Smart foreshadowed some improvement in 2022. He saw a more confident player this spring.
“He’s doing well. He’s been pretty consistent,” Smart said in March. “The off-season program was good for him in terms of getting confidence, changing direction, doing some things well. I think he would be the first to tell that he’s still rusty, but he’s so confident with the ball. He catches the ball really well. He’s smart, very savvy. He’s a great route runner in the slot.”
The Bulldogs have lost two slot wideouts this week. Kearis Jackson, who got most of those snaps this season, eschewed a sixth-year-senior campaign for the 2023 NFL Draft.
Georgia is, however, bringing in a couple of really talented wideouts from the transfer portal and three more from the high school ranks. Dominic Lovett is now with the team after a standout season at Missouri in 2022. Rara Thomas spent the last two seasons at Mississippi State but he, too, is now in Athens.
Georgia also signed Yazeed Haynes, Anthony Evans, and Tyler Williams, all four-star prospects, in the 2023 class. All three of those players have joined the team as well.
