Starting Georgia OL Jared Wilson accepts Senior Bowl invite, signaling NFL Draft decision
It appears as if Jared Wilson is taking his talents to the National Football League after four years at Georgia and one as a starter. The North Carolina native has accepted an invite to the Reese’s Senior Bowl, signaling the end of his Bulldog career.
Accepting an invitation to the Senior Bowl isn’t an official declaration for the NFL Draft. It is, however, almost always a signal of plans to enter. Should Wilson follow through and enter the draft, he exits Georgia after starting 12 of 14 games in 2024, the only starts of his career.
Wilson is the fourth Georgia starting offensive lineman to move on to the NFL. Xavier Truss is out of eligibility after six seasons and Tate Ratledge has decided to give up his sixth and final season to enter the draft. Starting left guard Dylan Fairchild has also declared for the 2025 NFL Draft.
That means at least eighty percent turnover from an offensive line that helped Georgia power its way to the SEC Championship with a second-half comeback over Texas but also had plenty of struggles throughout the 14-game season.
Wilson is one of a handful of Georgia offensive linemen who battled injury this season and it started early for the athlete snapper. He was shut down to begin preseason camp with an achilles injury and didn’t practice for the first two and a half weeks. Wilson was healthy enough to start the first three games of the season but he suffered an ankle/achilles injury against Alabama at the end of September.
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While he was able to come back into that Alabama game, Wilson was unable to play the next two weeks. Drew Bobo stepped in and started against Auburn and Mississippi State. Wilson returned for Georgia’s 30-15 win over Texas in Austin and started eight straight games to end the year.
It took some patience for Wilson to reach starting status at Georgia. He waited three years behind two-time UGA permanent team captain Sedrick Van Pran-Granger, the starting center for both National Championship teams.
No one was happy to see Van Pran-Granger exit the program but Kirby Smart told reporters in the preseason that he was excited for Wilson’s opportunity. The former three-star prospect had been putting his freakish athleticism on display at practice for years.
“I’m excited for the rest of the world to get to see Jared Wilson,” Smart said prior to the start of the season. “This a guy that, No. 1, I don’t put a lot of high expectations on people and anoint people, he has a lot to do to be the best player he can be. But when you talk about athleticism at the center position, this guy runs faster than a lot of our defensive backs, believe it or not, our tight ends, our quarterbacks. His numbers, extremely athletic, over 300 pounds, can get to the second level as quick as anybody. Just really athletic.”
