Position Week: Three questions for Georgia’s interior OL

The summer is here and after enjoying an extended break in May, Georgia players have made their way back to Athens to participate in workouts. The team will spend the next month and a half getting bigger, stronger, faster, and more connected.

That work will be done out of sight but not out of mind. In order to make sure everyone knows Kirby Smart’s ninth Georgia team as well as possible, DawgsHQ is providing readers with a week-by-week look at every room on the roster with our Position Week series. Today we have three questions for the interior of Georgia’s offensive line.

Will it be the strength of UGA’s offense?

Multiple sources close to the program had the same thing to say this spring, that this interior offensive line might be the best since Smart got to Georgia in 2016. Georgia has three guys it feels can be dominant in the run game and really effective in pass protection.

Micah Morris has the greatest upside of the group as one of the biggest, most powerful players on the roster. Dylan Fairchild is also a mauler and Tate Ratledge has shown that he can handle business against the best of the best in the SEC. The begs the question — can the interior of this Georgia offensive line meet lofty expectations?

That’s always a concern, right? We’ve seen some ultra-talented offensive lines at Georgia that played well but didn’t exactly live up to the hype. The 2019 group comes to mind, a unit that had five guys drafted and two in the first round. To be fair, injuries played a role there. Throw those three guards with Jared Wilson at center, a guy everyone considers a freakish talent, and Georgia should be able to move people off the ball.

Can Georgia pick up where it left off at center?

This keeps coming up because it’s really important. Sedrick Van Pran was a three-year rock for Georgia football. He was a tremendous leader and a heck of a football player. Wilson has one hell of a challenge in front of him because whether it’s fair or not, he’s going to be compared to one of the best centers in school history until he asserts himself.

Wilson is explosive, powerful, and one of the best athletes, pound-for-pound, in the program. He also seems to be handling the transition well and has a strong relationship with the guy who went before him. Georgia doesn’t necessarily need him to be special although we have yet to speak to anyone inside the program who doesn’t think he will be.

Who is the center of the future at Georgia?

The interior of that UGA offensive line is so strong that we had to reach to 2025 in order to find a third question. Drew Bobo was basically an afterthought for his first two seasons on campus but multiple persons close to the program tell DawgsHQ that the redshirt sophomore had a really good spring.

With that said, Ratledge is likely to be the next man up at center in 2024 if something happens to Wilson. Bobo should get some mop-up reps but it’ll be interesting to see how many of those go to Ratledge just to get him some game experience that could prove valuable later in the season. Malachi Toliver is also working at center and the Bulldogs are going hard after Cortez Smith in the 2025 class.

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