Georgia Bulldogs

ATHENS, Ga. -- After losing their security blanket at safety, Todd Grantham and Scott Lakatos had to weigh their options at the position for the first time in a long while.

Bacarri Rambo and Shawn Williams started 80 percent of Georgia’s games (66 of a possible 82 starts) at the two safety positions since defensive coordinator Grantham and defensive backs coach Lakatos arrived on campus in 2010. So this spring might have felt like a throwback to the coaches’ first few months in Athens when they had to evaluate which young players were mentally and physically prepared to guard the back line of the Bulldogs’ defense.

“I want to see what they can do and how they can learn it and what they can handle because the days of just lining up and playing are gone,” Grantham said. “You’ve got to be able to affect the game with lost-yardage plays and pressures and things like that and your safeties have got to be really involved in that kind of stuff. So we’ve just got to continue to work and see what they can handle and then we’ll develop our game plans as we move forward from that.”

The good news for Georgia’s coaches is that two players with the athleticism to do those things -- Josh Harvey-Clemons and Tray Matthews -- pushed into the lead for starting positions this spring. The bad news is that Harvey-Clemons, a sophomore, and Matthews, a true freshman who enrolled in January, have never started a college game and have a long way to go before they develop the knowledge and experience base that Williams and Rambo possessed.

Grantham said at Wednesday’s UGA Day meeting in Atlanta that he is not particularly concerned about their inexperience, however, because of the way they performed during spring practice. Harvey-Clemons was the Bulldogs’ defensive MVP of the spring and Matthews’ big hits generated major buzz among the coaches and players.

“Tray’s a guy that he’s a good tackler in space, he’s got good ball skills, he’s physical,” Grantham said. “He actually knocked two guys out in three scrimmages. The only problem is one of them was a defensive guy.”

Nonetheless, safety is one of the most detail-oriented positions on the defense, so young safeties have to do a lot more than drop a receiver with a bone-crushing hit before Lakatos’ uneasiness about playing them in important situations subsides.

“[I watch] when they can get lined up, number one, and communicate with the rest of the team depending on the situation,” Lakatos said. “And when the offense starts moving people around, are they going to be able to handle the adjustments that we have to make? And once a guy can prove he can do that, then that’s when you start to feel a little more comfortable.”

In a matter of weeks, Georgia’s list of options at safety will grow once signees Shaquille Fluker, Kennar Johnson and Paris Bostick enroll in Athens for summer classes. Asked to name a few defensive newcomers that he’s excited to evaluate in preseason practice, Grantham named Fluker and Johnson before anyone else because he believes the junior college transfers “can have an immediate impact.”

“I think all of them have some upside and a skill set that they can help us,” Grantham said, also mentioning Shaq Wiggins and Brendan Langley as new cornerbacks who he will be excited to observe. “So I really look forward to all of them, but particularly the defensive back kind of guys.”

The reason for the intrigue is obvious since five of the Bulldogs’ eight defensive back signees are not yet on campus, and there is plenty of playing time available thanks to the departures of Williams, Rambo, Branden Smith and Sanders Commings.

Newcomers and young players will almost certainly fill a large portion of that void -- if they can prove to Grantham and Lakatos during preseason practice that they know where to be and have the ability to make the proper play once they arrive.

“We need to get roles established as soon as possible so we can get ready for the season. But a lot of that depends on how guys progress,” Lakatos said. “The more situations that we can create out there through practice and scrimmages and those type of things, the better we’ll have an idea of where they stand once the other guys get here, the May and June graduates.

“Then we’ll kind of put them in and see how they handle all the stuff without the benefit of spring practice. But we’re certainly going to give them opportunities and give them a lot of work when we start practicing in the summer and see where we go after 29 practices.”

Tray Matthews is among the young defensive players at Georgia that showed promise this spring.

Editor's note: This week we continue to clean out our notebook from Georgia's spring practices to tell the stories we didn't get to tell before the Bulldogs' G-Day game. Previously we featured fullback Quayvon Hicks, tight end Jay Rome, defensive end Ray Drew, safety Connor Norman and receiver Rantavious Wooten. Today we recap a conversation with cornerback Damian Swann.

ATHENS, Ga. -- Count Damian Swann among the Georgia players whose expectations were fairly low when the Bulldogs’ rebuilt defense first took the field for spring practice. But it didn’t take long for that outlook to change.

“The first day, I kind of looked at it like, ‘Man, we’ve got a lot of work.’ But that just comes with we’re losing all those guys to the NFL,” Swann said of a 2012 defense that had seven players drafted and five more sign free agent deals after the draft. “We’re returning, what, four guys that have played a tremendous amount? So we have seven guys out there that didn’t really know. But after the first couple days once we put on pads, the first scrimmage, it’s like, ‘We’ve got something.’ ”

Swann made that comment midway through spring practice, but that optimism only grew throughout the spring -- up through the G-Day game, when the first-team defense largely held in check a starting offense that returns nearly everyone from last season’s record-setting unit.

Of course, the low-pressure nature of spring practice makes it a perfect time for unbridled optimism. Also factor in that the offense played without some of its key pieces for all or most of the spring. Nonetheless, junior cornerback Swann -- the only returning defender who started all 14 games last fall -- was reassured by what he saw from the numerous youngsters who got their first heavy doses of playing time in the spring.

“Before we went into [the first] scrimmage, we had our competition days where we’d go team this, team that, and out of all the competition drills with the one-on-ones and two-on-twos and three-on-threes, what we win are the team drills. The drills that really matter,” Swann said. “And that gave me confidence that, ‘If we’re doing this now with a very experienced offense, once we get very in sync come August, we should be fine.’ ”

Swann led the team with four interceptions last season and also forced two fumbles and recovered two more. But by this point it’s a well-documented fact that he is the only returning member of the secondary with any significant playing experience.

With that in mind, he took it upon himself to become a leader for the group by setting a tone with his play and even learning the duties at the safety positions so he could help newcomers such as safeties Tray Matthews and Quincy Mauger progress more rapidly. Prior to the spring, Matthews cited Swann as one of the veterans who best helped him learn what to do when practices began.

“I think if I know more, I can teach more,” Swann said. “Me being here, this is about to be my third year, I think I know exactly what to do at all three corners. So it wouldn’t hurt me to try and learn safety, strong or free, to try and learn either one of them so I guess I can be more helpful and more beneficial to the guys that are going to be playing with me.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Swann was the youngster who leaned on more experienced teammates to make sure he played assignments correctly. He played intermittently as a true freshman in 2011 before enjoying a solid debut season as a starter last fall.

Now the veterans who preceded him such as Sanders Commings, Branden Smith, Bacarri Rambo and Shawn Williams are gone, causing Swann to shift from mentee to mentor. He embraced that role this spring because he knew that was the time for the Bulldogs to endure their growing pains if they are to avoid getting embarrassed when they open the season against Clemson’s high-powered offense on Aug. 31.

“I think I have to take charge out there,” Swann said. “When guys are kind of confused, I have to tell it to them on the fly because the offense knows we’re new, but they’re not taking it lightly. So we’ve just got to get everybody on the same page so everybody can play fast.”

GEORGIA BULLDOGS

2012 record: 12-2

2012 conference record: 7-1 (first, SEC East)

Returning starters: Offense: 10; defense: 4; kicker/punter: 2

Top returners: QB Aaron Murray, RB Todd Gurley, CB Damian Swann, WR Malcolm Mitchell, OLB Jordan Jenkins, OL Kenarious Gates, OG Chris Burnette, ILB Amarlo Herrera

Key losses: OLB Jarvis Jones, LB Alec Ogletree, S Shawn Williams, S Bacarri Rambo, NG John Jenkins, CB Sanders Commings, WR Tavarres King

2012 statistical leaders (* - returner)
Rushing: Gurley * (1,385 yards)
Passing: Murray * (3,893 yards)
Receiving: King (950 yards)
Tackles: Alec Ogletree (111)
Sacks: Jones (14.5)
Interceptions: Swann * (4)

Spring answers
1. Safety starters: With 2011 All-Americans Rambo and Williams completing their college careers, the Bulldogs entered the spring with two big holes at safety. It appears sophomore Josh Harvey-Clemons and January enrollee Tray Matthews have all but claimed the starting positions, however. Harvey-Clemons was named the Bulldogs’ defensive MVP of spring practice, and Matthews generated the most buzz of anyone this spring with his ability to deliver crushing hits. Georgia’s inexperience along the back end of the defense is not ideal, but the two youngsters could become a pleasant surprise.

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Editor's note: Over the next couple of weeks, we'll clean out our notebook from Georgia's spring practice to tell the stories we didn't get to before the Bulldogs' G-Day game. Previously we featured fullback Quayvon Hicks, tight end Jay Rome and defensive end Ray Drew. Today we recap a conversation with safety Connor Norman from a few days before the G-Day game.

ATHENS, Ga. -- Connor Norman doesn’t necessarily want to become a coach, but he assumed that role almost by default this spring.

As the only Georgia safety who has actually started a game on defense, he naturally felt somewhat like a teacher as he helped younger teammates such as early enrollees Tray Matthews and Quincy Mauger experience their first taste of college football.

“There’s a lot of young guys and I feel like I have a pretty decent understanding of the defense, so I feel like if that’s part of what I do, then I’m out there helping,” said Norman, a fifth-year senior. “I guess I do see myself as a teacher.”

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ATHENS, Ga. -- He came into Georgia’s spring practice as one of the most talked-about players on the Bulldogs’ roster and leaves having validated that buzz.

But Josh Harvey-Clemons was still stunned when Georgia’s coaching staff last week named him as the team’s most valuable defensive player for the spring.

“I was shocked. I would have never guessed that,” said Harvey-Clemons, wearing a wide grin after his Black team rallied to beat the Red 23-17 in Saturday’s G-Day game.

The rising sophomore strong safety figured that Sheldon Dawson, who intercepted three passes before injuring his hamstring and missing G-Day, or early enrollee Tray Matthews, whom teammates lauded for his hard hits in practice, would win the award.

“But I thank God they did give it to me,” he laughed.

It was an easy choice, said defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, because of the varying ways that Harvey-Clemons can impact a game. He is the Bulldogs’ starting strong safety in the base 3-4 defense, but can shift to nickelback and outside linebacker in other packages, forcing opponents to account for his whereabouts.

“There’s certain guys on your team that you look for explosive plays out of and I think he’s going to be one of those guys,” Grantham said.

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ATHENS, Ga. -- Hutson Mason is not a rookie, but he felt like one in some ways during Saturday’s G-Day game.

After redshirting last fall -- his third season in college -- to gain a year of separation between himself and fourth-year starting quarterback Aaron Murray, Mason had to shake off some jitters entering his first competitive game in a year.

“Coming into this, I was treating this like a game for me because it’s been so long that I’ve really emotionally and mentally been like, ‘Hey man, this is game day,’ ” said Mason, who led the Black team to a comeback 23-17 victory over the Red. “I wanted to kind of see how my body would react being out there with 40,000 people. It’s not quite like game day, but you kind of get your body back into that feeling and getting ready.”

It was not a perfect day for the redshirt junior. The Black punted on his first three drives and he scrambled and threw an interception to freshman linebacker Reggie Carter at midfield on his fourth.

“I thought that the pick earlier was the worst decision that I’ve made at Georgia, but definitely this spring,” Mason said. “That was just pathetic. I’ve got to throw the ball away.”

But Mason improved as the day progressed. He threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jonathon Rumph in the second quarter and drove the Black to two field goals in the fourth quarter to provide the six-point margin of victory.

Mason completed 16 for 27 passes for 191 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

“We slung it around today pretty well and we had a juco guy in Rumph, so he doesn’t really know what he’s doing,” Mason said. “So I was really just happy for the guys to step up and make the most of their opportunities when they needed to.”

G-Day all-stars: Every spring game has its surprise standouts.

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ATHENS, Ga. -- Considering the state of Georgia’s depth chart -- with 10 starters returning from last year’s record-setting offense and 12 key performers missing from the 2012 defense -- Tuesday’s first spring scrimmage has to be viewed as a win for Todd Grantham’s rebuilding defense.

Practicing under blustery conditions at Sanford Stadium, the defense surrendered just one touchdown off a traditional drive before the Bulldogs began working on situational possessions such as third-and-long and goal-line scenarios.

“There were some good plays made out there offensively. As far as putting together drives and scoring points, it just didn’t happen today. The defense did a really nice job,” said Bulldogs coach Mark Richt, who added that the offense scored two more touchdowns in four goal-line possessions.

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Schedule: The Bulldogs will open spring practice on Saturday and conclude the spring with their annual G-Day spring game on April 6 at 1 p.m. ET at Sanford Stadium.

What’s new: Chris Wilson will coach the Georgia defensive line after coming over from Mississippi State, where he was the Bulldogs' defensive coordinator for the past two seasons. Wilson replaces Rodney Garner, who left to take a job on the Auburn staff.

On the mend: Sophomore running back Keith Marshall will miss at least the first week of the spring after pulling a hamstring while running track. Junior receiver Michael Bennett is recovering from an ACL tear he suffered last season and won’t go through any contact this spring. Freshman receiver Tramel Terry, who enrolled early, is also recovering from ACL surgery after being injured in a high school postseason all-star game. Offensive guard Chris Burnette had shoulder surgery and won’t go through spring practices. Offensive tackle John Theus will miss most of the spring while recovering from a broken bone in his foot.

Question marks: The Bulldogs are losing a ton of key playmakers on defense, and it’s particularly important that they find some answers at safety this spring. Freshman Tray Matthews, an early enrollee from Newnan, Ga., will get every opportunity to win one of the starting safety jobs. Learning the defense will be critical for him this spring. Junior Corey Moore will also get a chance to show what he can do before junior college additions Paris Bostick, Shaq Fluker and Kennar Johnson arrive this summer. Finding somebody to do all of the things Alec Ogletree did at inside linebacker will also be a challenge. That makes this spring a big opportunity for junior Ramik Wilson.

New faces: The Bulldogs welcome 13 early enrollees. Junior college newcomer Jonathan Rumph (6-5, 215 pounds) will be a prime candidate to replace Marlon Brown as the bigger receiver in the Bulldogs’ offense. In addition to Matthews, freshman Quincy Mauger will get a look at safety. At nose guard, redshirt freshman John Taylor (6-4, 335 pounds) is the heir apparent to John Jenkins. Freshman John Atkins of Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy and junior college newcomer Chris Mayes, a sophomore, will also compete for early playing time up front on the Bulldogs’ defensive line.

Position of power: The Bulldogs were faced with having to replace three offensive line starters this time a year ago. But they crank up spring practice on Saturday with all five starters returning as well as every other offensive linemen who lettered a year ago. Mark Beard could push his way into the starting lineup at left tackle.

Breaking out: The Bulldogs plan to work Josh Harvey-Clemons at both outside linebacker and safety this spring. Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham made sure to get Harvey-Clemons in some nickel situations a year ago, so covering receivers in the slot should come a little more naturally to him in 2013. He’s a dynamic athlete, and his development will be a key for Georgia on defense. It’s important the Bulldogs settle on a position for him this spring.

Don’t forget about: Jarvis Jones is gone, but not forgotten. Don’t be surprised if talented sophomore Jordan Jenkins gives the Bulldogs a Jones-esque dimension at outside linebacker. He’s a terrific pass-rusher and lighting fast off the edge. He’s smart, instinctive and is always around the football. From the Florida game on last season, Jenkins was a starter for the Bulldogs. He finished with five sacks and could easily be a 10-sack guy in 2013.

All eyes on: The Bulldogs return virtually all of their firepower on offense, led by senior quarterback Aaron Murray, who’s on track to shatter most of the SEC career passing records. Scoring points shouldn’t be a problem. The challenge will be on defense, where the Bulldogs are losing 12 players who started at least two games last season. Grantham likes his young talent on defense, but getting people in the right spots and developing that talent will be crucial this spring.