Kirby Smart Hoping JT Daniels Will Cleared By Saturday vs Arkansas
JT Daniels has yet to be fully cleared from the ACL Tear he suffered during USC's season opener against Arkansas. Georgia's head coach Kirby Smart told the media today that he is hoping that Daniels gets the okay from the medical staff heading into Saturday's matchup against Arkansas.
Smart told the media today that he hopes there will be an announcement made on Daniels prior to the game on Saturday. Last week, Kirby gave insight into why it's taken as long as it has for Daniels to be cleared to play.
On J.T. Daniels’ condition and, aside from being cleared to play, what he has to do to be ready to take the field…
“Be tackled. To be hit. That’s a medical decision that is usually based on… You know the interesting thing with J.T. that I don’t think everyone understands is that he’s post-op, a lot further than most ACLs. Post his surgery fixing it. He had a repair done, I want to say either December or January, he had to go in and do some of those things to fix it from the original surgery and that was before we even knew about him or with him. That put him behind a little bit. The part about him getting cleared, we certainly expect him to get cleared and think he will get cleared but that’s not my decision. That goes a lot into Ron [Courson] and them. That goes into flexibility. That goes into strength. How far is the left knee from the right knee? What is the girth of the knee? What is the muscle mass missing? There are a lot of things that go into it that the doctors have to do to clear him medically, to clear him to take hits, to be able to play.”
There's been plenty of rumors and speculation flying around the Georgia football program about the quarterback situation. And as we've reported, D'Wan Mathis has taken the majority of the reps during their final scrimmage, and it was D'Wan Mathis taking the majority of the reps when they returned to practice on Tuesday, and perhaps this is exactly why.
Though Kirby Smart continues to be confident that Daniels will be cleared for their opening game of the season against Arkansas, at this point, a mere 5 days from kickoff in Fayetteville, it's time to begin identifying who will be taking those first snaps, and without Daniels being fully cleared, it's not reasonable to assume at this point that it's going to be him taking those snaps.
As Smart alluded to, it's likely going to be a game-time decision, at least in terms of any public announcement regarding the starter. But that's not going to stop them from beginning to tip their hand a bit in practice. And Saturday's scrimmage was exactly that. A tipping of the hand. They are grooming D'Wan to begin the season it appears, will it remain that way throughout the season? There's really no telling. In fact, Smart didn't rule out a chance for both quarterbacks to rotate.
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