We’ve got a really cool Georgia football story on DawgNation.com right now that we recommend you check out.
Especially if you’re a Georgia fan old enough to remember Blockbuster.
Do you remember the name Tim Jennings?
He is a UGA success story from the early 2000s. Jennings had two college offers — Georgia and South Carolina — and elected to leave the Palmetto State to play cornerback for the Bulldogs.
He also sports a less-than-prototypical 5-foot-9 frame that didn’t stop him from becoming a second-round draft pick and a 10-year NFL veteran.
Anyways, he’s got an awesome connection to the newest batch of Bulldogs that our Jeff Sentell wrote about yesterday.
Enjoy more on that and the rest of the news in our coverage below.
Trivia time
What three NFL teams did Jennings play for in his decade-long career?
Answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
DGD talks UGA’s newest WR commit … as his assistant coach
Jennings started coaching defensive backs at Cambridge High School this season. It’s also where 4-star UGA receiver commit Craig Dandridge made a national name for himself with 58 catches for 1443 yards, 24.9 yards per catch and 14 touchdowns as a junior.
Jennings shared the relationship he built with Dandridge this offseason with DawgNation’s Jeff Sentell. The first story he shared involved Dandridge, precommitment, wearing UGA gloves to practice in early June.
“I want to know what you are doing here,” Jennings said.
“Are you trying to say something with this?” he said, while pointing to the Georgia gear. “Because I want you to know that means something to me. It’s part of me. It’s in my heart.”
Jennings shared more about the daily give-and-take he’d have with Dandridge while his college decision stayed under wraps.
“I give him a hard time every day at practice because I know he’s not going to tell you what he is going to do,” Jennings said. “Which he shouldn’t. But every day in practice if he’s wearing some red and black I tell him ‘You know that’s going to come with a lot now as far as how you work and how you prepare’ so I just always want to put that bug in his ear that ‘Hey that’s something different right there so if you do decide to take that — which I would love — it’s all about your work ethic.
“It is all about what you are going to put into it and what you are going to get out of the game from that’ and that’s one thing with Kirby Smart. He’s not going to shy away from it and from that work.”
For more from Jennings on his relationship with Dandridge and his analysis on the kind of receiver UGA is getting, check out the DawgNation story below.
National media’s interesting pick for UGA’s ‘swing game’
To delve into the college football philosophical for a moment, we know that schedules cannot be fully interpreted when seen as 14 individual weeks, unable to affect each other.
The truth is, human factors like physical attrition and mental focus are tested depending on how difficult a schedule is from start to finish. For ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, there’s another key word that seems to matter as he picked Georgia’s “swing game” in 2025.
With tough home games against Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss later in the season, Schlabach focused on one that many Bulldog fans might be overlooking — Georgia’s Week 3 visit to Tennessee.
“It will be a significant road test for starting quarterback Gunner Stockton and the offense playing in one of the most intimidating road environments in the SEC,” Schlabach said. “The Volunteers dominated the Bulldogs throughout the 1990s, but Georgia has flipped the script, winning eight in a row and 13 of the past 15 contests in the series. The Bulldogs won each of their past four games at Neyland Stadium by at least 24 points. With a home game against Alabama coming next on the schedule, coach Kirby Smart will be looking for a similar performance at Rocky Top.”
It shouldn’t be the most significant game of Georgia’s regular season. But it could affect the outcome of UGA’s most significant one more than any other single game does.
Smart claps back at tight end usage critics
One of the common criticisms, fair or not, of Georgia’s offense last season was the lack of tight end production. We got used to watching Bulldog tight ends dominate when Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington made UGA’s “12 personnel” one of the toughest units to defend in the sport.
Many would say tight end production is a key part of Georgia’s offense taking a step forward from 2024. Smart wanted to remind everyone at SEC Media Days that it isn’t that simple.
“You have to get the ball to your best playmakers. And your best playmakers got to catch the ball,” Smart said. “So it’s not as easy as, ‘man, we’ve got to utilize the tight end better.’ Well, tight ends got to get open in one-on-one situations.
“Or we’ve got to run the ball well enough that play action opens up. Because the way a tight end catches the ball a lot of times is off of play action.”
Indeed, Smart connected it all back to running the football. In that case, it seems veterans Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie can help themselves by helping the run game dominate again this season.
“Having Oscar back gives us something that not many teams have. He can physically, at the point of attack, block you,” Smart said. “I mean, he is stronger than most tight ends you play against. He’s a great play action threat. (Jaden) Reddell, Lawson, those guys have all grown up. Then the young kids are talented. So I’m excited about that room.”
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Photo of the Day
Georgia tight ends Oscar Delp (center) and Lawson Luckie (left) celebrate their 30-15 win against Texas at Darrel K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Quote of the Day
Smart’s SEC Media Days comments on transfer receiver Noah Thomas:
“He worked extremely hard. He is a guy that’s now starting to show his personality and you get a little more leadership out of him day in and day out. He’s got tremendous size. He’s a great kid from a great family and you know, we’ve embraced him.”
Mark Richt’s got jokes for Carson Beck
If you hadn’t ever heard of either before ACC Media Days, you probably wouldn’t know what Carson Beck and Mark Richt have in common.
But a simple interaction between Georgia’s widely beloved former head coach and its former quarterback showed they might have more in common than fans even know.
Richt, who left Georgia for Miami for the final stop of his coaching career, was interviewing Beck on a TV set at ACC Media Days. Richt brought up their common Georgia-to-Miami connection before a quip that caught plenty of social media traction.
“You were at Georgia and went to Miami, I was at Georgia went to Miami, the only difference is you got paid more than I did,” Richt said.
Beck threw his head back and had a laugh, saying, “I don’t know about that.”
Richt said, “If you go year by year you got me by about a million.”
Beck likely left Georgia for Miami in less good graces than Richt did in 2015. But Beck appeared to close the book on his UGA career with grace and respect for his former school and team.
