Georgia Bulldogs land on Mackey, Rimington watch lists

More preseason watch lists were announced on Friday, and to no surprise, more Georgia Bulldogs were included. Tight end Brock Bowers, center Sedrick Van Pran and tight end Oscar Delp found their names on the lists for the John Mackey Award, which goes to the nation’s top tight end, and the Rimington Trophy for the country’s top center.

Bowers’ inclusion should come as no surprise. In fact, he’s looking to make history this season by being the first two-time winner of the award after he took home the hardware in 2022.

Bowers, Georgia’s first winner of the Mackey Award, has led the Bulldogs in receiving each of the last two seasons since arriving in Athens. He’s totaled nearly 2,000 total yards with 1,824 yards receiving and another 165 rushing. Bowers topped the 1,000-yard mark last year with 942 receiving and 109 rushing, finding the end zone 10 times as a sophomore. After records for Georgia freshmen and tight ends – plus one record that was good regardless of position – in 2021 with 56 catches, 882 yards and 13 touchdowns, he had a statistically better year with 63 grabs and 942 yards receiving.

“I wonder why we shy away from talking about him as the best college football player right now in America. Like, why are people afraid to have that conversation?,” SEC expect Cole Cubelic said recently. “Best tight end, sure, maybe best offensive weapon, but he should be on a very short list discussion of best college players right now. That’s it. Game, set, match. Nothing else to talk about. You don’t need to add an asterisk to it, you don’t need to parenthesis that thing, he might be the best player in America.”

Bowers is joined on the watch list by the sophomore Delp. Last year, Georgia had a 1-2 punch at tight end like none other with Bowers and Pittsburgh Steelers’ third round pick Darnell Washington. While Delp doesn’t quite have the same intimidating presence as the 6-foot-7, 270-pound Washington, he’ll be asked to serve as the second tight end to Bowers oftentimes this season.

Delp, who’s listed at 6-foot-5, 245 pounds (20 more than last year), saw action in 13 games. He had five catches for 61 yards in total, including a touchdown against South Carolina from projected Georgia starter Carson Beck on his first career catch. Delp had a season-best three grabs against Auburn. He was targeted four times on G-Day, hauling one in for 17 yards.

Sedrick Van Pran-Granger has been named to the Rimington Trophy watch list. The award is presented annually to the nation’s top center.#GoDawgs | @SedrickVanPran pic.twitter.com/RngDcXUc8H

— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) August 4, 2023

As for Van Pran on Georgia’s offensive line, the New Orleans, La. native returns after starting 30 straight games for the Bulldogs. That makes up the entirety of the past two season, both of which of course ended with a National Championship trophy.

Van Pran was also a team captain for Georgia last season and is expected to be in contention for that honor again this year. A natural leader, Van Pran explained his decision to pass up on the NFL for another year by saying that he believes he still has room for improvement, plus he wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to be a part of something special once again.

“I think starting off, just from the selfish side, even though I hate talking about myself, it would have to be that I felt like I could gain more from coming back,” Van Pran told reporters at SEC Media Days when asked why it was he returned for his fourth year with the program. “But then when you start to think about the aspect of the University of Georgia, I really felt like I had a great opportunity to help my guys.  And I think that’s what ultimately drove me back is I think that we had a great opportunity to be a good team, and I wanted to be a part of it and help try to lead the guys to a good season for us.  I think that’s what it was and ultimately the connection that I felt with the guys in the locker room.”

Georgia held its first practice of fall camp on Thursday. The Bulldogs will host UT-Martin on September 2nd (6:00 p.m. ET, ESPN+/SECN+) to kickoff their 2023 campaign.