Nolan Smith included on list of College Football's impact edge rushers
Georgia senior outside linebacker Nolan Smith was named among the top 10 impact EDGE defenders by On3 Sports in its recent rundown of College Football’s top 300 impact players. Smith comes in at No. 6 behind a top five that features Alabama’s Will Anderson, Kansas State’s Felix Anuduke-Uzomah, Clemson’s Myles Murphy, Ohio State’s Zach Harrison and Wisconsin’s Nick Herbig.
Ranked the No. 1 overall player in the Class of 2019, expectations have always been high for Nolan Smith. He came in as a freshman and played right away but had to compete against the likes of Azeez Ojulari, Adam Anderson, Jermaine Johnson and Robert Beal for playing time. The same was true as a sophomore. Two of those have already gone on to NFL careers just a matter of years removed from the situation. So, it wasn’t until Smith’s junior season that he had the best opportunity of his career, and he made the most out of it. Finishing with 56 total tackles including 9.0 for loss and 3.5 sacks, Smith was among the best players for Georgia defensively on a unit that was hands down the best in the country. He’ll be back for his senior season this fall, trying to improve on his draft stock all the while earning a degree from UGA.
Smith will be under the direction of a new position coach this fall with defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach Dan Lanning, who has coached the group for the entirety of Smith’s career, off to Oregon to be the next head coach of the Ducks and Chidera Uzo-Diribe coming in from TCU by way of SMU. Robert Beal, who led the team in sacks last season, will also be back, but Smith is certainly going to be looked to as a leader during the transition from one coach to another and, on a bigger scale, in the process of replacing the talented players from the 2021 defense that are off to the NFL.
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