Kirby Smart sends message to Georgia wide receivers, young players

Georgia won the 2021 National Championship, but the Bulldogs still have room for improvement in 2022. Following Georgia’s first fall camp scrimmage on Saturday, head coach Kirby Smart was asked to assess his group of wide receivers which led to a strong response that called for more guys to step up.

Georgia lost a few receivers from last year’s team, and the Bulldogs are also dealing with a number of injuries at wide receiver right now. Smart has liked what he’s seen from some of his younger guys, but he admitted that the depth at the position just isn’t great.

“Dillon Bell made some plays today. Jackson Meeks made some plays today if you’re counting him as young because nowadays sophomore is not young, sophomore is old. You know, 35 percent of our team is freshmen,” Smart said. “So I thought Dillon Bell stepped up and made some plays and flashes. Oscar [Delp] made some plays at tight end, counting him as a receiving weapon. So those guys continue to do a good job, but we just don’t have the depth at receiver.

“I thought [Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint] did a good job today, [Adonai Mitchell] made a few plays. But we’re going to have to be really good on the perimeter to be explosive. Yeah, we’ve got good tight ends. But we’ve got to be good on the outside to complement the tight ends. We need to get De’Nylon [Morrissette] back and we need to get Dillon Bell rolling to get where we need to get at wideout.”

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Smart: Georgia is capable of producing productive freshman wide receivers

Right now, a lot of younger weapons are being thrown into the fire maybe a little earlier than anticipated. That experience could prove to be valuable, though, and the Bulldogs have an opportunity to see who’s capable of stepping up into a bigger role early in 2022.

Smart has produced talented freshman wide receivers before, and he knows that will be an important factor this season as well.

“He’s working into the rotation by necessity,” Smart said of Bell. “I mean we don’t have enough depth at the position there. De’Nylon’s just hyper-extended his knee before we started camp, so he’s got an injury that’s lagging over. But he’s back running, he should be back here shortly. Hopefully we can get him back healthy and get him in there competing.

“But it’s just every year, I don’t think across the country you see four senior wideouts. Show me where you got four senior wideouts, show me where you got two seniors and two juniors. Because wideouts are very similar. If they don’t get the ball they’re gone. So you constantly have young players. Or if they’re really good, they’re gone to the draft. So that’s where one of our juniors is. So everything is kind of cyclical. Right now at wideout, we don’t have great depth and we have a couple injuries. So those young guys are getting thrust out there and they got to grow up. We’ve done it before. I mean we’ve had productive freshman wide receivers.”