UPDATED: Kirby Smart shares latest on Brock Bowers, Georgia injury situation

Attention turned quickly to the next one for Georgia on Saturday night after a 31-23 win over Georgia Tech. The Bulldogs, who finished the regular season 12-0 for the third consecutive campaign, have Alabama awaiting in Atlanta for the SEC Championship, and that means they’ll want to have a full cast of characters available.

Tight end Brock Bowers was one of four Georgia starters out on offense alongside wide receivers Ladd McConkey and Rara Thomas and offensive lineman Tate Ratledge. Both Bowers and Ratledge were in uniform and went through warmups in some capacity before being sidelined for the game. Meanwhile, McConkey and Thomas were in street clothes after a week that didn’t see either participating much at all.

“Define close,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said when asked if any of the four were ‘close’ to being available. “If they could’ve play, they would have played, 100 percent.”

“It was a championship game. It was a state championship game,” he continued when the reporter clarified his definition of ‘close’ by asking if they would have been available if it were a championship setting. “They wanted to play, all of them wanted to play. But guys, we’re beat up. We’ve got two freshman linebackers out there playing, I don’t know, 50 percent of the snaps. Smael’s out there fighting his tail off, he’s hurt and beat up. Everybody does, we’re not going to whine and cry about it. We’ve just got to get the next man up and got to continue to make plays with the other guys.”

Bowers of course had ankle surgery earlier in the season, and his absence was due to some soreness related to that Smart said. A semifinalist for the Biletnikoff Award (receiver), Rotary Lombardi Award (lineman), Mackey Award (tight end) and both the Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, Bowers returned after tightrope ankle surgery in just 26 days to play against Ole Miss. He suited up against Tennessee as well the following week before sitting Saturday’s game out.

“Yeah, he was more sore this week than he’s been,” Smart said. “He was not able to do much during the week. He tried to go, he wanted to go, but it just, I mean, he’s sore. He’s got to be honest with us and tell us.”

As for the others, McConkey suffered a minor ankle sprain against Ole Miss and has been limited the last two weeks. He played just six snaps in the win over Tennessee, all in the first quarter. Thomas (foot) and Ratledge (knee) both exited the game against Tennessee and underwent x-rays that came back negative. According to Smart, Thomas’ injury could be classified as a bone bruise while Ratledge ‘banged knees’ and was sore throughout the week.

Of course Georgia will want to have all of its players available for the top-10 showdown with Alabama. Only once this season have the Bulldogs had their full arsenal of weapons offensively, and it resulted in an offensive onslaught. Against Ole Miss, both Bowers and offensive tackle Amarius Mims returned from injury while McConkey and the Georgia running backs were completely healthy as well – something that couldn’t be said early on in the season. Georgia put up over 600 yards of offense including 300 both on the ground and through the air. On the scoreboard, the result was a season-high 52 points.

Kickoff time between the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta is set for 4:00 p.m. ET on CBS. Georgia, according to the early released lines, is considered to be about a 4.5-point favorite.

Update (5:15 p.m. ET): Smart spoke with reporters for the second time in 24 hours on Sunday. Once again, he was asked about Georgia’s injury situation and had the following to say:

“As far as last night, Brock was probably the closest to being able to go of those guys,” Smart said. “Just didn’t feel as good as he had. He was a little sore. We wanted to be able to use him situationally or see what he could do if he felt comfortable with it, and just didn’t think that he could go. Nothing about who we’re playing or anything else. He’s got to be able to go compete at a high level and be able to feel good about what he’s doing. We didn’t feel that he had that last night.”

“And Tate, he maybe could’ve played, but he was not 100%. And we’re hoping to get him back. As far as the other guys go, it’s gonna be, to me, day-to-day. I mean, we just don’t know anything. We certainly don’t know anymore today because we haven’t done anything.”