Georgia looking at veteran linemen for leadership this spring
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia returns several key pieces along the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Between Tate Ratledge and Xavier Truss on the offensive line plus Nazir Stackhouse and Warren Brinson on defense, Georgia brings back 2,202 snaps from last season and a combined 174 career games played. It’s that experience that’s being leaned on now and looked towards for leadership.
“The leadership thing is going to be a question that everybody asks, but you earn that, you know? You don’t inherit it from previous years, so from January offseason conditioning, February, all the running we’ve done, March practices will show a lot of that,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. “There’s been guys popping up in skull sessions doing a good job. We get to cultivate better leadership in these small groups. It gives more people an opportunity to speak.”
“I’m very pleased with where we are,” he continued. “I’m very pleased with some of the returning players not accepting complacency for themselves. You know, as much as it is onboarding the 33 new guys, it’s taking the top 33 — 1/3 of your team — and making sure they’re not on cruise control and just back to be back, just back to be around. I mean, the guys like Naz, Tate Ratledge, Truss, Warren Brinson, Carson Beck, I mean, these guys have been a core part of our program for a long time. They’ve got to continue to grow and develop themselves, otherwise, we’re (going to be) pretty stagnant.”
The players understand that challenge from their coach. Having a bad taste left in their mouth from last season, guys like Ratledge feel it’s even more important for them to help shape the identity of this year’s team.
“Definitely, I think there was a bad taste in our mouth after last year. Of course there’s things I want to accomplish by myself and I want to see this team accomplish. Those things had a big reason why I came back,” Ratledge said.
“Just the leadership of the offensive line room and the team, I’m trying to step into some of those roles, try to pick up where he left of,” Ratledge added, speaking on the leadership shoes there are to fill on the offensive line with center Sedrick Van Pran, a starter of 44 straight games, gone. “It’s a great leader that left so it’s hard to replace. I think we have a couple guys doing a really good job stepping up and trying to take that role over.”
Ratledge isn’t the only one trying to take those steps in the right direction as a leader either. With defensive lineman Zion Logue off to the NFL, both Stackhouse and Brinson are trying to emerge – something a former teammate of theirs got a taste of while watching the first day of spring practice last week.
“I think it’s going to be good for both of them,” Logue said about Stackhouse and Brinson returning for another season. “I think they kind of left last season with a bad taste in their mouth – shoot, I did. I felt like my time was up here, and I just wanted to let those guys have their time … They’re doing really well. I watched them in practice yesterday. They’re taking the right steps and leading and doing all the right things. I think it’s going to go really well for them.”
Georgia is in its second week of spring practice with a total of 15 sessions set to be completed. The Bulldogs will scrimmage for the first time next week, one of three opportunities to do so including the annual G-Day spring game scheduled for April 13th (1:00 p.m. ET, SECN+).
