Georgia defensive coaches talk defensive backs, outlook for fall

In this day and age of College Football, it’s always important to have a strong secondary. That’s exactly what Georgia has this year with Kelee Ringo returning as one of the top cornerbacks in the country, Christopher Smith a proven leader and tons of talent surrounding both of them. Now it’s just about figuring out which of those talented players are going to be on the field and in the rotation on a regular basis.

Cornerback

“When you look at (Jaheim) Singletary, he’s long. He’s competitive. He loves football. He has good ball skills. Julio (Julian Humphrey) is extremely fast. Has great size. Another guy that is willing in terms of his toughness, which is required at that position. They are both working to become better at corner. For them, they got here this summer and we put them to work. They are really making good progress. Now we are on day six. They can continue to build,” Georgia co-defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann said, speaking on some of the names and faces we might see this fall take the field at cornerback. “The rest of the room was here in the spring. Kamari Lassiter and Nyland Green have been working out there … That competition is well underway. It gets changed up every day. We try to mix and match them. We don’t just have one guy running in any group, so they get to go against different wideouts every day until we get to the scrimmage see who shows up when it’s live, when coaches are off the field and it’s live tackle, we’ll know more then.”

Kamari Lassiter has had the edge on Nyland Green for quite some time in the competition for the cornerback spot opposite of Ringo. He played in all 15 games last season, primarily on special teams but also as a reserve defensive back, finishing with 11 stops. Don’t be surprised though if Green stills gets some playing time in rotation with Lassiter. While he only played in four games last season, thus retaining his redshirt ability, Green was the higher rated of the two coming out of high school, being rated as a five-star and ranked the No. 2 cornerback in the country according to On3.

Safety

Meanwhile, Will Muschamp, Schumann’s partner in sharing that co-coordinator title, is spending his time with the safeties and STARs. There he’s also got a competition on his hands, trying to figure out who fits in next to Smith at safety. One name that came to mind, Dan Jackson.

“He’s the second-best walk-on safety in Georgia history. You figure out who the first one is. Everyone loves Dan. His approach to his craft, to his improvement, he has made tremendous improvement in my time here at Georgia, but it’s not because of me, but because of his work ethic, his approach about going and doing the things and addressing the things you need to improve on,” Muschamp said. “He had a huge blocked punt this past year against Arkansas. Huge momentum swing in the game. And then when Chris got banged up late in the year, and then in our dime package as we continue to evolve in the secondary in year one and we got a little better, his role was huge as far as those things were concerned. You talk in terms of respect on the team, the guy has garnered a lot of respect amongst his teammates and certainly his coaching staff.”

Jackson, like Lassiter mentioned before, also played in all 15 games last season. That might have come as a surprise to some Bulldog fans as he was a member of the scout team the two years before, but Jackson came up big. Starting four games and finishing with 40 total tackles including a season-high seven in his first starting assignment versus Kentucky – just a week after finishing as the team’s leading tackler against Auburn and two weeks after his blocked punt against Arkansas – Jackson made his case for a starting spot last season. He has held the first-team role since then, but several others are pushing for their playing time, and as Georgia head coach Kirby Smart – a former safety himself – said, the Bulldogs are focused on finding their top four at the position, not just their two starters.

“Right now, we’re training both of them (Malaki Starks and JaCorey Thomas) to be safeties. Marcus Washington is another young man that is playing the STAR position. All three of those guys are good young players,” Muschamp said. “Obviously, Malaki and JaCorey benefitted from going through the spring, so they have a little bit better of an understanding of practice organization, schematic things we do, and that will come with Marcus. Both of them are going to be really good players—when that happens, I don’t know. We’re only in practice five of training camp, so it’s very early to tell anything, but I’m really excited about both players.”

STAR

Speaking of STAR, the two names that have seemingly separated themselves from the rest are William Poole and Javon Bullard. Both played a part of Georgia’s plans at the position last year with Bullard playing early in the season while Poole was academically ineligible before Poole came on strong at the end of the season, starting important games down the stretch. That’s another spot where Georgia is switching things up on a regular basis to get both Poole and Bullard ready to rotate.

“Sometimes, I think as coaches, our stuff falls on deaf ears after a while. Being able to have an older player to sit down with a younger player, that’s vitally important to your progress and development as a young player,” Muschamp said, speaking on the leadership of guys in the secondary. “I saw it last night, Billy Poole grabs Marcus Washington and I’m trying to explain something to Marcus, and immediately Bill’s like, ‘Coach, I got it.’ Which, Billy Poole graduated two days ago so that’s a heck of a deal too. But, when you see those sorts of things, again, they get tired of Coach Muschamp sometimes, but they’ll listen to a peer, and that’s really, really important to have as you continue to work your way into the program and the culture that you create, and I credit Coach Smart and his staff for that.”

“Javon is an extremely hard worker,” Schumann added, asked about Bullard specifically. “We ask all of our guys to compete at a certain level every day. Javon does a great job of that. He is a guy who was part of that COVID class, so you learn a lot about those guys when they get here. He is a competitor and brings the type of energy we want all of our guys to have.”

And about both Kelee Ringo and Christopher Smith, the coaches had plenty to praise them on too. At this point, they aren’t as concerned about those two and more worried about getting the others ready to play around them.