Georgia linebackers make mistakes but are loud in doing so to Smart's pleasure
Georgia’s inside linebackers were a position to watch on Saturday as the Bulldogs played their first game in the post-Nakobe Dean, Channing Tindall and Quay Walker era. Jamon Dumas-Johnson and Smael Mondon made the start while Rian Davis, Trezmen Marshall and Xavian Sorey all played important snaps. Kirby Smart said that they made some mistakes, but it was ones he was okay with for one simple reason: they were making them at full speed.
“Those guys had some WTFs and they have to improve on those,” Smart said, referencing the coaching staff’s name for some of the mistakes made. “They can’t have those in order to be elite players. But they played with confidence. And we call it, you know, being loud and wrong is better than quiet and right. And they had some moments where they were loud and wrong. But they were confident in what they called. You know, when you go with a team that plays some tempo and hurry up, it creates a little chaos. And I thought those guys managed that well. They managed the leadership position well. Physically, there’s things we can improve on in terms of toughness, tackling. All the guys can. I mean, we didn’t tackle the man with the ball real well.”
For Dumas-Johnson and Mondon, a pair of sophomores, it was their first career starts. Really it was their first game ever being a big part of the game plan. The same goes for Sorey, also in his second season, while Marshall and Davis made their respective returns to the field from injuries that ended their 2021 seasons. Both of them have battled injuries throughout their career, limiting them to a combined 15 games the last two seasons. Before that, Marshall played in 14 his freshman season – almost exclusively on special teams – while Davis only saw action in one. Neither is all that much more experienced than the trio of second-year players being mentioned in the same light as them.
“I feel great out there. Being out there is the best feeling,” Marshall said on Monday. “I’m trying to stay healthy. That’s something that is really not in my control, but I just get treatment every day. I talk to Ron [Courson] to see what I can do to prevent that from happening. That’s still out of my control, but I get guidance. As long as I stay readied up, I should be good.”
“It looked pretty good on paper, but ‘going to the doctor’ just means fixing our mistakes. They didn’t score, so it looks like we did not play a bad game, but you still ‘go to the doctor’ on Monday and see what you did wrong to get better,” he continued. “I could’ve had a possible takeaway, like the pick. I could’ve completed one of our goals with three takeaways. There is always room to do better, and we’re trying to come back and practice Monday to work on that.”
Asked about those ‘WTFs,’ Marshall laughed and said he didn’t think he had too many. Still, he sees room for improvement. Interestingly enough, it’s in the area that Smart said that the linebackers did the best.
“From this past week what I can improve on, probably my communication. I haven’t played meaningful minutes, so being out there while the crowd is loud, it’s very different,” he said. “You’ve got to be extremely communicative. You’ve got to communicate with hand gestures, go up to the line and tap the line and tell them what to do. It’s different, and our fans are some of the loudest in the country, so just being out there and communicating.”
Marshall and the rest of the Georgia linebackers will be back in action this Saturday, returning to those loud fans between the hedges at Sanford Stadium. The Bulldogs take on Samford at 4:00 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.
