Welcome to Gimme 5, a weekly Q&A where one member of the DawgNation team answers your questions about the Georgia football program. To ask questions, simply check out the DawgNation forum and your questions could be featured in a future edition of Gimme 5.
Connor Riley answers this week’s questions, ranging from the ceiling to the offensive line to the potential of freshman safety Malaki Starks.
NOTE: Questions have been lightly edited.
Bum on the DawgNation forum asks: “This should definitely be Kirby’s best OL, right? I think so.”
Answer: ✨In video below✨
Chris Herold: Who is Georgia’s starting offensive line against Oregon?
Answer: Broderick Jones will be the left tackle, Sedrick Van Pran will be the starting center and Warren McClendon starts at right tackle. That much was determined before the start of fall camp.
Tate Ratledge has earned the right guard spot, with health being the only thing that would keep him from starting. He dealt with a turf toe injury earlier in camp but he’s well past that.
The left guard spot is still up for debate but it seems Xavier Truss will get the start on Saturday. It should not come as a surprise though if Devin Willock plays meaningful snaps for Georgia during the game. The position battle could go well into the season.
The Bulldogs also have strong depth options behind the starters, with Georgia feeling good with sophomore Amarius Mims at both tackle spots and Warren Ericson as someone capable of playing at both guard and center.
Fredrick Meredith asks What are the chances that either Malaki Starks or Jacory Thomas unseats Dan Jackson at Safety on the back end of Georgia’s Defense by say, late October?
The answer: Jackson is going to start for Georgia on Saturday. Starks though is also going to play, with the Georgia coaching staff eager to get him reps in order to get him that valuable college football experience.
“He is going to be able to help us. He is going to be a good player,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said earlier in August. “Malaki having the spring has helped him. He and JaCorey (Thomas) have both come along really well.”
But let’s not forget about Tykee Smith here. At a recent Georgia practice, Smith was spotted without his knee brace. That was the first time we had seen that this fall and would seem to indicate he is healthy enough to contribute.
Whether he’s able to hold off or even catch up to Starks is a different matter but expect Smith to factor into the safety position. Remember, last season Latavious Brinni started the first 12 games of the season at the star position, only for William Poole to start Georgia’s final three games of the season for the Bulldogs.
Georgia may not feel the need to overplay its hand and start Starks for the Florida game, which comes after the off week. They might be content to let him continue to develop by fully tossing him into the deep end. Lewis Cine did not make his first career start as a freshman until the game against LSU in 2019. By that point he was ready.
Starks and Thomas will play plenty of special teams snaps for Georgia. Given the Bulldogs will be big favorites in so many games, they’ll get a chance to earn semi-meaningful snaps in blowouts.
Just don’t overlook Jackson though because of his previous recruiting standing or scholarship status. He was on the field last year for the biggest play of Georgia’s season and expect that to be the case in 2022 as well.
C.H. on Twitter asks about the latest on Arik Gilbert.
The answer: Smart has been very supportive of Gilbert throughout the offseason, while stressing it is just as important for Gilbert to be in a good place mentally as he is physically.
But this week, Smart struck a very different tone when asked about the talented tight end.
“It is hard to measure because I think the sky is the limit in terms of his talent and things,” Smart said. “The consistency and performance he has to have, he has to have consistency in practice. That is something he needs to work on and strive on. Nobody wants it more than he does.”
Those comments come on the heels of Gilbert running fourth in a drill with the Georgia tight ends. Normally I wouldn’t advise putting much stock in that but it was curious that Georgia had Oscar Delp running ahead of Gilbert the week of the Oregon game. That was a departure from what they had done in previous weeks.
Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington had better fall camps than Gilbert and are comfortably ahead of him in the pecking order on offense. The Bulldogs feel very good about what they have with both of them.
For Gilbert, we’ll see how much Georgia wants to involve a third or fourth tight end in the passing game on Saturday. The Bulldogs have the personnel to do so but coaches have also noticeably been pushing Gilbert to give maximum effort during practice.
Related: Georgia football practice report: Todd Hartley pushing Arik Gilbert hard ahead of Oregon opener
It would not come as a surprise if Gilbert happened to finish the game against Oregon with no catches and only a handful of snaps played based on the way things have gone in the past week.
CFFInsiders asks who Kirby Smart was referencing when discussing the Auburn quarterback situation.
The answer: Bo Nix. While Oregon coach Dan Lanning has not named a starting quarterback, Smart very clearly feels Georgia will see the former Auburn quarterback
“I know who the quarterback is going to be,” Smart said. “I’m not worried about that. Worried a lot more about how our guys play and what our guys do and how our guys execute. Regardless of which quarterback is in there, they’re going to do what they do. Maybe he does one thing better than the other guy. At the end of the day, they may play both of them.”
During Georgia practice this week, Georgia had freshman quarterback Gunner Stockton wearing the No. 10 jersey in practice, the number worn by Nix.
Georgia has found success against Nix in the past, winning all three games he started at Auburn. The Ducks have a strong offensive line, but they face major questions at wide receiver and running back. That puts a lot of pressure on Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham to get the most out of Nix on Saturday against the No. 3 Bulldogs.
Check out previous editions of Gimme 5:
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- Kirby Smart pushing on and off field to keep Georgia football at great heights
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- Kirby Smart praises mindset of Kelee Ringo, wants more consistency from Arik Gilbert
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