Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter ruled out of Missouri game
Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter has been declared out of the Bulldogs’ SEC East contest at Missouri with a knee injury. Carter, a junior out of Apopka, Fla., left the game after being blocked low by a Missouri offensive lineman. He came into today already banged up with an ankle injury.
Kirby Smart told media members that he was dealing with an ankle injury at South Carolina and was limited that game. Ahead of and against Kent State, his limitations appeared to be even greater.
“Jalen Carter’s been practicing and taking more volume and rotating with those guys at defensive line,” Smart said earlier this week on his star defensive lineman. “He looks much better this week.”
Carter, a projected first round pick, is seen as the leader of the Georgia defensive line, a unit that lost three starters from last year’s team to the 2022 NFL Draft. He started the first two games of the season and had a solo tackle in the season-opening win. He added one more, along with a batted pass and three quarterback hurries, in the next game against Samford.
Carter was named a Preseason All-American first-teamer by the Associated Press, the Walter Camp Football Foundation and Athlon Sports on top of All-SEC honors by coaches and media alike. Carter was also included on the preseason watch lists for the Lott Trophy (nation’s top defender), Outland Trophy (nation’s top interior linemen) and Bronko Nagurski Trophy (nation’s top defender).
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“Jalen, when he makes his mind up to do something, he has a freakish natural ability,” Smart said on Atlanta area radio about Carter after the season-opening win over Oregon. “He’s one of the most quickest (sic) twitch… it’s like a MIKE linebacker or a really good, athletic inside linebacker playing with his hand down because he can make movements and twists and suddenness, we call it body quickness. He has twitch. When you have that, most linemen can’t recover to that suddenness and twitch that he possesses.”
Kirby Smart’s halftime update
Headed into the locker room, Kirby Smart shared with SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic on where he thinks the Bulldogs might be able to right what’s gone wrong. Stetson Bennett has completed less than 50 percent of his passes and Missouri’s been dominating the matchup up front.
“We’ve got to get some field position,” Smart said. “We started off in a hole on field position. We turned the ball over. They’ve got all the momentum and we haven’t been able to reverse that. We’ve got to reverse the momentum and we’ve gotta get some momentum back.”
“They’re knocking us off the ball,” he added. “They’re whipping us up front. You can’t win in the SEC unless you win the line of scrimmage.”
No. 1 Georgia is trailing Missouri 16-6 with the second half underway.
