Brock Bowers on seeing Darnell Washington: It's pretty amazing
Georgia may have the best one-two punch at the tight end position in the entire nation between Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington. The two have been major keys in both the running and passing game in UGA’s offense so far this season, as Bowers spoke on the play of Washington and the other Bulldog tight ends.
“I think the tight ends have been playing pretty good, Darnell on film he’s playing physical I feel like I’m trying to do my part, and whenever Oscar [Delp] and AG [Arik Gilbert] are out there they’ve been doing their thing too knowing their assignment. And everyone else who gets out there is doing their thing,” Bowers said.
Washington was a 5-star prospect out of Desert Pines high school in Nevada, where he was ranked the No. 2 tight end in the country for his 2020 class according to On3 Consensus. His physical presence stands out when watching his play, as he stands at a towering 6-foot-7 weighing 270 pounds, but his highly anticipated season 2021 season was riddled with injury.
Thankfully for the Bulldogs, Bowers took the reigns in his historic breakout season last year where he broke various single-season tight end school records and earned a litany of all-conference and all-American honors.
This season, the duo gets to finally play together, and Bowers spoke about having a front-row seat to the show that is watching his tight end teammate Washington play.
“It’s pretty amazing, just his size and being able to move under control moving that fast and it was pretty funny watching the film from the last two games. Just him tossing people and running people over, it’s pretty fun,” Bowers smiled and said.
Washington made a viral play in the Bulldog’s week 1 game versus Oregon, where he turned a ball caught at the line of scrimmage into a 20 plus yard gain after breaking a tackle and capping it off with an impressive hurdle. Bowers spoke about what he would do himself if tasked with lining up across from Washington.
“If I was them I’d be probably going backwards if he was coming at me, I’d be trying to get out of the way,” Bowers said.
The duo of Bowers and Washington through two games this season have combined for 9 catches and 161 yards, while also making big contributions in the run-blocking game for the Bulldogs. Quarterback Stetson Bennett surely has some mouths to feed in the tight end room, but Bowers believes who gets touches will be predicated on a combination of the game plan and the flow of the offense.
“I think it’s a little bit of both, just trying to get the ball to our athletes, but it just kind of depends how the defense plays it and who gets the ball when,” Bowers said. “I think it’s just the way it will happen.”
Georgia’s tight ends will likely continue to cause matchup problems for defenses throughout the duration of the season, which will surely be fun to watch, as the Bulldogs try to maintain their new No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 poll and defend their National Championship from a season ago.