ATHENS — For the first time since Georgia’s win over Cincinnati in the 2021 Peach Bowl, someone not named Sedrick Van Pran-Granger got the start at center.

And while it wasn’t the smoothest start against Clemson, Jared Wilson impressed head coach Kirby Smart.

“I don’t think we had an errant snap, and that was something that was really important,” Smart said. “We chart his snaps every day, and he’s been about 95-96% snap accuracy. That’s something that you can’t afford to have. It’s got to be 100%. I thought he did a good job of doing that in the game.”

Wilson has been Van Pran-Granger’s understudy the last two seasons, ready to fill in. With Van Pran-Granger now playing for the Buffalo Bills, Wilson is now the chief communicator on Georgia’s offensive line.

Wilson did miss some time during fall camp with an Achilles injury, but he was good to go against Clemson.

“I think if you asked Jared there’s some things that he should’ve done better or he could’ve done better and that he didn’t play his best football game, but like I tell kids all the time, if you miss time in training camp it tends to show in the first game,” Smart said. “He missed some time. He did some really good things, some really athletic things, and then he had a couple plays that he didn’t make. He was the first guy that came up to me walking off the field and said he screwed up a couple plays, but that’s football.”

Georgia’s offensive line didn’t have the best start against a stout Clemson front, with the Bulldogs rushing for only 34 yards in the first half. The group also gave up a third-down sack, which led to a field goal.

But as the game dragged on — and Wilson got more comfortable — the offensive line improved. Georgia ran for 135 yards in the second half, opening holes for Nate Frazier and Cash Jones to score touchdowns.

Clemson may well have the best defensive front Georgia faces this season and it’s understandable as to why it took Georgia some time to get going.

“Not rusty, but you know, you just got to get the kinks out a little bit,” Georgia offensive lineman Earnest Greene said. “And I’ll say that that was the biggest emphasis going into the second half. So I started pushing it this week and getting better at communicating.”

Georgia’s offensive line rotation wasn’t as deep as some anticipated as well, with Micah Morris playing only seven snaps in the game. Tate Ratledge and Dylan Fairchild took most of the snaps at guard, perhaps to make Wilson feel more comfortable with those around him.

This week against Tennessee Tech will be another key moment for Wilson. It will be his first career start at Sanford Stadium. Wilson and the offensive line will look to take another step forward and put forth an even better performance than what the group showed last week.

Saturday’s game against Tennessee Tech is set for a 2 p.m. ET start on SEC Network+.