Georgia Bulldogs 23 for '23: No. 1 Brock Bowers
SEC Media Days are completely behind us, and with that the focus is very quickly turning to the football field. Georgia players report for fall camp in less than a week, and we’re counting down the days with our look at who the most important Bulldogs might be.
As we’ve stated before, important can have different definitions. Some players’ importance for this season is based on their past performance and ability to repeat that this fall. For others, it’s about their potential and what living up to it would mean for Georgia and its chances at winning a third straight National Championship. Coming to a close with our look at the most important Bulldogs, No. 1 on our list is tight end Brock Bowers.
Brock Bowers
Position: Tight End
Class: Junior
Height: 6-foot-4
Weight: 230 pounds
Hometown (High School): Napa, Calif. (Napa)
Georgia might have the country’s best player on its team this fall, and that makes him the most important player for the Bulldogs.
Of course we’re talking about Brock Bowers, the junior tight end out of Napa, Calif. who’s finished as the team-leader in receiving each of his two years on campus so far. Why should we expect anything different from him?
As a freshman in 2021, Bowers earned National Freshman of the Year honors with 56 catches, 882 yards and 13 receiving touchdowns – all three of which are records for his position and regardless of position for the touchdown total. He came back with an arguably even more impressive sophomore campaign statistically, totaling 63 catches, 942 yards and seven scores while also adding 109 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the group to put him over the 1,000-yard mark in total.
Bowers won the Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end, and he’s got a great chance to do so again – becoming the first two-time winner in the award’s history.
That kind of player is an important weapon, not only because he’s so special himself but also because of what he does for others around him. Attention has to go to Bowers that frees up the likes of Ladd McConkey and Dominic Lovett.
Furthermore – as was the case with Sedrick Van Pran – he can be a huge aid to the new quarterback in the transition. We’ve got Carson Beck at No. 3, Van Pran No. 2 and Bowers No. 1 on this list, but the work of all three will go hand in hand in determining how successful Georgia is this season.
Know the Quote
“We’re going to try. There’s not a game that we play that we should not have ways for him to touch the ball,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said at SEC Media Days when asked whether there were more ways to get the ball in the hands of Bowers. “That was one of the things that intrigued me about Mike (Bobo). Having played against Mike a lot – both when he was at Georgia but also coached against him when he was at South Carolina and at Auburn – what he had, he used. They had Shi Smith at South Carolina, and they got him touches. They had the big back at South Carolina and they got him touches. At Auburn at the time he was there, they did not have a great offensive unit but we knew who was going to touch the ball and he got them touches. That’s key to success: finding who your playmakers are. And we have more than Brock, but he’s certainly one of the premiere guys in the country.”
Click here to find the complete rundown of our 23 for ’23 series
