Jamon Dumas-Johnson, Smael Mondon rise in response to spring sit down

ATHENS, Ga. — Jamon Dumas-Johnson and Smael Mondon received a call from Kirby Smart this spring saying that he wanted to see them in his office. The now eighth-year Georgia head coach of the Bulldogs pulled up tape from the spring before and compared it to what he was seeing out at practice in 2023. There was a noticeable drop off in Smart’s eyes.

With big shoes to fill, Dumas-Johnson and Mondon were doing everything they could to prove themselves capable of replacing Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker and Channing Tindall, a trio of players at the position all drafted in the first three rounds of the 2022 NFL Draft. However, after Dumas-Johnson and Mondon successfully replaced them as starters and finished top two on the team in tackles, the rising juniors just weren’t quite the same. The meeting, according to Smart, fixed that in a hurry, and their response has been easily seen over the months since.

“They both answered the bell a little bit,” Smart said at SEC Media Days. “I think they were maybe cruising. I don’t know. It certainly looked that way when you looked at their spring practice the previous year and the spring practice last year and we do the same practice format and there’s three practices to look at, and it doesn’t look the same. They saw it, and there’s no greater evidence than what you see with your eyes. They responded to it. They’ve both been great leaders, and I think they acknowledge also that there’s good players behind them … If you sit around at linebacker, you’ll be sitting down somewhere if you don’t perform.” 

Dumas-Johnson admitted to that himself when he spoke with reporters following Georgia’s first day of fall camp. After posting 70 tackles – good for second on the team behind Mondon – as a sophomore, Dumas-Johnson has aspirations for this season to accomplish the same things as a team – a National Championship – and be even better individually.

“When he told us that, we had to really look ourselves in the mirror and actually, you know, be truthful with ourselves about what Coach was saying,” Dumas-Johnson said. “And he actually showed us some film and some clips of us that sophomore fall camp going into our sophomore year, and he was right as if we looked at it. We were hungry. So fast forward to now, you know, you’ve just go to keep the same energy. We’re really trying to do the same thing as we did last year. You know people are still, we like to say, doubting us. Just keeping that chip on our shoulder and growing.”

“I’ve been incredibly pleased with Pop through this early part of camp – his leadership and how vocal he is. His overall effort and approach to practice on a day to day is consistent, and we need that from him,” Georgia defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach Glenn Schumann said. “He wants to be significantly better than he was last year, and he’s practicing like that’s what he wants to do.”

Same goes for Mondon, who despite suffering a foot injury at the end of spring and still not quite being full speed for the start of fall camp has shown Schumann enough already to know that he’s taken the spring sit down to heart.

“Smael, obviously from being out there y’all know he’s limited, but he’s working extremely hard,” Schumann said. “I’ve talked to (head athletic trainer) Ron Courson, and he says, ‘This guy is doing every single thing that he’s being asked to do,’ which is hard to do in treatment. Sometimes that means you’re getting treatment three times a day. Whatever that is, he’s doing a great job, and right now that’s all we can ask of him. The training staff will decided when it’s his time to return, but he’s doing everything he needs to do as a vet in that way.”

“Going back to this spring, uniquely for those two guys, they had a lot of success early,” he continued. “A lot of times people are going into their third year and guys are having to compete and scratch and claw to create their role or earn respect. Those guys were fortunate enough to have earned it at an earlier age. So there was a brief lull there. From that point forward, they accepted that challenge and they have elevated their game.”