Kirby Smart breaks down offensive line competition after Amarius Mims injury

Georgia came away with a hard-fought victory vs. South Carolina, but had some of their troops injured along the way, including starting O-lineman Amarius Mims.

So, after the win, as part of his postgame press conference, head coach Kirby Smart fielded questions about the guys who were banged up during the contest. First, he was asked about Mims, who left the game in the second quarter.

Smart says it could be an ankle sprain but he’s not sure yet.

“I don’t know if it’s an ankle sprain. I don’t know how significant. There was no clue. It seems like there’s ankles sprains is all over the country right now, because everybody’s got ankle sprains. We got ankle sprains everywhere. But I don’t know how significant it is. So we’ll find out.”

Mims was a big part of the rotation last year and entered this season as a surefire starter up front. Now, he could be in jeopardy of missing some time. On Tuesday, though, Smart provided a picture of who could replace Mims in the meantime.

(Xavier) Truss has worked guard and tackle like he always has. More tackle this week. (Austin) Blaske has practiced. Man he is a tough dude. But he’s hurting. He’s trying his best out there. O line is a position you might be able to get away with an MCL because you’re not out there in space running and cutting but he’s not 100 percent healthy. He’s out there working.”

Smart continued, listing some other options at tackle in place of the injured Mims.

“Monroe (Freeling) is out there at tackle, Bo (Hughley) has been developing at tackle. Dylan (Fairchild) can go out and play tackle, Micah (Morris) can go out there and play tackle. Chad Lindberg plays tackle. We’ve got musical chairs. We’re just trying to get it where if the next guy goes down, we can get the best guy in.”

There may not be an obvious choice to replace Mims straight up at the right tackle position. Sure, there’s plenty of options, but Kirby Smart’s job is to find the best one for the line as a whole — which could mean shuffling around several different positions to get the right five in there while one of the group’s leaders is out for a bit.

The good news for Georgia and Coach Smart is… they have quite a deep pool of talent, especially at the OL, that they can pull from for their backups.