ATHENS - Georgia football coach Kirby Smart was thrilled with his defense's performance over the weekend against the Florida Gators.
The Dawgs were aggressive all game long during their 27-8 victory, creating big turnovers and causing consistent chaos in the backfield. The secondary was active, picking off three passes in coverage.
While he may not have picked off one of the passes, Bulldog safety KJ Bolden made a major impact in his return from injury. The speedy 6-foot-0 195-pounder from Buford, Georgia made six tackles against the Gators, flying to the football consistently for four quarters.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart called Bolden a "warrior" after Georgia's big win .
"Yeah, he's a physical player," Smart said. "He's a 190-pound guy that plays bigger than that. He's tough. He grew up in Atlanta playing youth football against guys like Baughand I thought that was agreat play for him to show his ability to knock back tackle and get low."
"Just really just proud of him," Smart added. "He didn't have to play in the game. He wanted to play in the game. In this day and age you've got guys that might think twice about playing. I think he's a warrior. He's a competitor. He's everything you want on your team and I knew Thursday when he went out there and said, "Coach, I wanna play," he's hard to take out of the game."
Bolden, a captain in the Bulldog secondary, could be playing his last season in Athens as he's draft-eligible after this season. The former five-star prospect has lived up to the lofty expectations and could hear his name called in the first round if he continues his stellar play in the second half of the season.
Of course Bolden needs to be at his best when the Dawgs head to Oxford this weekend to take on Trinidad Chambliss and the Ole Miss Rebels. The Bulldogs had a hard time containing Chambliss last year in the Sugar Bowl, so look for Bolden and the Bulldog defense to play with a chip on their shoulder against arguably the best quarterback in college football.
"The accuracy that he's elite at, the release, the decision-making," Smart said about what impresses him the most about Chambliss. "His pinpointing. He has an anticipation of windows that's probably unmatched. I don't know if that was God-given or the fact that he played a lot of football before he got to Ole Miss. He has played a lot of football and experience helps. You throw all that in, and you have a tremendous athlete. He goes forwards, backwards as fast as he goes sideways. He can back up and go for it. He's just a great athlete that is a great quarterback."
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/georgia as Beast Mode: Georgia Football's "Warrior" Is A Game-Changer For Dawgs .
