Kirby Smart shares early impressions on Georgia's trio of transfers
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia three transfers are all on campus and already impressing during spring practice. Teammates have spoken about the immediate impact they expect Dominic Lovett, Rara Thomas and Smoke Bouie to make. So too has Kirby Smart. Now, after seeing them in action at Sanford Stadium on Saturday, Smart adds to his earlier comments.
“Yeah, RaRa had — I don’t know what day it was — he had a little bit of a bone bruise on his knee, so he missed one or two days, came back Thursday, had a good practice Thursday, was catching his wind and then he had a pretty good scrimmage today,” Smart said on Saturday. “Biggest thing with RaRa is he’s shown us some ability to make plays downfield, which we think we really need. He catches the ball well. He’s got to learn the system. Like with him, it’s these little administrative things: What’s my split? What’s the call? How do I get the signal? Where do I line up? Because he wasn’t in a system where he had to do all those things. So there’s a little bit of a learning curve there, but we’ve got a guy with good ability. He’s got to be more dependable.”
“Dom has picked things up nicely. Dom’s very intelligent. Dom’s been able to make some plays down the field,” Smart continued. “I’ve been very pleased with Dom. He’s been matched up on Tykee (Smith) and Bull (Javon Bullard) and Joenel (Aguero) a lot, and he’s made some plays on those guys. I’ve been really proud of what Dom’s been able to pick up. And then Deyon (Smoke) Bouie is another guy that, you know, he’s got to learn the defense. He’s got to a long way to go in terms of picking it up, but he’s not afraid to compete and go out there and work.”
The trio of transfers all joined Georgia during the first open period of the transfer portal. Thomas was the first to commit on December 22nd followed shortly after by Lovett later that day. Both receivers led their teams in receiving yards last season, Thomas at Mississippi State and Lovett at Missouri, and both rank as top-10 receivers available in the portal according to On3.
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RELATED: Dominic Lovett, Rara Thomas impressing upon arrival this spring
Then, in January, Bouie joined the class. Coming back to the his home state after spending a year at Texas A&M, it’s his versatility that has him fitting right in with Georgia’s group of talented defensive backs. Bouie played the majority of his snaps last season for the Aggies at a wide cornerback position, where he’s started the spring in Athens. Other snaps he took occurred in the slot or at safety however giving the Bulldogs options should a need be there elsewhere.
Georgia is three weeks into spring practice with two to go. The Bulldogs held their first scrimmage on Saturday and will do so again to end this week of work after practices on Tuesday and Thursday. Then, next week things wrap up at Sanford Stadium with the annual G-Day spring game, set for 4:00 p.m. ET on April 15th, airing on ESPN2 and giving fans their first chance to see the trio of transfers in action.
