With spring football now in the rearview, teams can now assess the main takeaways from the period. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach named what he saw as the biggest post-spring overreaction regarding Georgia for next season, saying, “Georgia’s offense won’t be nearly as good without star tight end Brock Bowers and receiver Ladd McConkey.”
Bowers and McConkey provided Georgia’s main receiver firepower a season ago, but Georgia is not deprived of talent at their respective positions. Schlabach notes, “Dominic Lovett and RaRa Thomas should emerge as go-to receivers after transferring to Georgia before the 2023 season, and Dillon Bell is a versatile playmaker as well.” All three improved greatly as the season went on and will look to build on that progress this season, as will returning tight end Oscar Delp.
Georgia also brought in help through the transfer portal at both receiver and tight end, which Schlabach notes, “Miami transfer Colbie Young looked like a red-zone threat in the Spring… Stanford transfer Benjamin Yurosek will give (Carson) Beck another proven target.” This is in addition to London Humphreys and Michael Jackson entering the program from Vanderbilt and Southern California respectively.
The overall depth of talent at these positions coupled with Carson Beck returning at quarterback should greatly mitigate the impact of the losses of Bowers and McConkey and could even lead to statistical improvement of the Georgia passing game this season.
