Georgia safety spot creating healthy competition between Dan Jackson, Malaki Starks

Georgia’s defensive backs have been in the spotlight so far this season with their fair share of eyes on them. No two players have felt that more than safeties Dan Jackson and Malaki Starks. Spending the majority of their time opposite of Christopher Smith, who had solidified his starting spot coming into the season with two strong years of play on the backend of the Dawgs’ defense, Jackson and Starks were left to compete for one spot and came at it from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Jackson is in his fourth season with the program. He redshirted in 2019 and was a member of the scout team that season as well as the one after in 2020. But in 2021, Jackson broke onto the scene and played in all 15 of Georgia’s games, starting four while Smith was out with injury. He finished with 40 total tackles. Meanwhile, Starks, a five-star freshman out of Jefferson High School just down the road from Athens, has all the hype from his recruitment and high school highlights to live up to in his first season of College Football. He got a jump on meeting those expectations by enrolling early this spring, but Jackson ended up as the starter in Week One. That changed though for Week Two after Starks had an impressive debut. Still, both – and others – are a part of the Georgia plans in the secondary according to head coach Kirby Smart.

“Yeah, Dan, he doesn’t have a ton of experience. He got to play some last year. I don’t know that he started any games. But he does — he got to play in our dime package. So he gained some confidence from that,” Smart said, speaking on the safety spot on Monday. “He’s got two pretty good years of practice under his belt. Which usually in our system, you get to where you’re comfortable and you don’t require 100 percent of reps to get ready if you’ve been in the system two years. So Dan’s in a position where we feel like he knows what to do. But Dan can still grow and get better as a player.”

“Chris played a lot of football for us. We had the luxury of trying to help Chris take care of his body and have a good year and be productive by, you know, putting his reps at 75 percent. And then Malaki needs all the football he can play,” he continued. “He still hasn’t seen everything, done everything. Tremendous talent and continues to stay level-headed and work really hard. Back there, David Daniel’s a guy that I really think has had a good camp. He had some good plays against Oregon. He’s shown confidence. He knows our defense. He’s playing with more confidence and awareness. And we need him to keep getting better.”

As Smart said, Starks needs all the football that he can play to continue to get better. That’s why he’s ended up leading the defense in snaps both weeks so far this season. Still, Jackson is also a big part of any success that Georgia’s going to have on defense and in the secondary. Regardless of who starts, both Starks and Jackson are on the field in DIME package, and they’ll rotate at safety, giving Georgia much needed depth.

“Just honest with him. I mean, honesty is the best way to go about it. I mean, it’s no different in the NFL. It’s no different anywhere in production. Most of our kids know,” Smart said. “I mean, they’ll be the first to tell you that we’re going to play the best players. And Malaki has earned that right. Dan’s not upset about that. He’s a team player. He gets it. Dan has a major role on our special teams units and he continues to play on defense. So you’re one play away at all times. Those conversations are not hard or complicated.”

Georgia goes on the road this week for the first time this season, opening up SEC play at South Carolina. Kickoff time from Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia is set for 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN.