Darnell Washington has career day in outstanding Georgia offensive outing
Darnell Washington had himself a career day yesterday in Georgia’s 55-0 win over Vanderbilt. The 6-foot-7, 270-pound tight end hauled in four passes for a team-high 78 yards on Saturday, both career highs for the Las Vegas, Nevada native. His previous highs came against Missouri a couple of weeks ago with three catches for 64 yards. He also caught three passes as a freshman in the 2021 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl against Cincinnati.
“Darnell practices really well. He practices really hard. He’s a great kid. I thought he practiced really physical this week,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said in his postgame press conference. “He got some opportunities off play action. When the run game works, so that’s your chance to take shots at guys, he’s one of those guys that goes up and gets the ball.”
Washington caught each of those passes from quarterback Stetson Bennett. Bennett also had himself a nice day on Saturday, completing 24 of his 30 passes overall including a stretch of 14 straight to start the game 15-for-16.
“He usually comes down with them,” Bennett told reporters after the game when asked if it’s any easier throwing to a guy as big as Washington. “It’s like throwing into the Pacific Ocean.”
Overall, Georgia threw for 387 yards and rushed for another 192 to total 579 yards of offense on Saturday. That’s their highest total yardage number this season, and could be what’s needed for the Bulldogs with a tough stretch of games upcoming after the bye week.
“They had good focus during the week,” Smart said about the offense. “We had good practices Tuesday, Wednesday. I told the team that afterwards that I thought the maturity in terms of practicing physical and not worrying about who we played. We just had good practices. That does not always equate to playing well, but sometimes you peak too early in the week and I was worried about that. I thought Wednesday we got after it and had a really good practice. We had a good practice Tuesday too and played well today.”
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“I think we had a great week of practice, and you’re right, it does help to have that momentum going into it,” Bennett added. “Hopefully we can take care of business and get better.”
Georgia is off this week with Florida awaiting on October 29th after the bye. Then it’s a tough stretch in November beginning against Tennessee (November 5th) at home before continuing with Mississippi State (November 12th) and Kentucky (November 19th) on the road to close out the SEC schedule.
“I think our ceiling is limitless. When we play to a standard and everybody executes, our ceiling is limitless,” Georgia center Sedrick Van Pran said. “I think for us it’s just about maximizing the bye week and getting better. Each day everybody has to get better. We have to hone in on whatever our coaches give us, whatever we self scout on ourselves and get better at it.”
