ATHENS – This is not what Josh Harvey-Clemons signed up for, but he’s loving it nonetheless.

The sophomore from Valdosta signed with Georgia as a ballyhooed outside linebacker with designs on chasing quarterbacks for his books and board. Instead, the 6-foot-5, 222-pound athlete has found himself traipsing all over the field trying to cover running backs, tight ends and NFL-bound slot receivers.

And you know what? It has worked out pretty well.

Harvey-Clemons is coming off a 15-tackle, two pass-breakup performance in a win over No. 6 LSU. He’s now a bona fide “star.”

That is, of course, a play on words. “Star” is the linebacker-safety hybrid position that Harvey-Clemons is manning the majority of the time on Georgia’s defense. When the Bulldogs are in their base 3-4 defense, which they were a good amount of the time against LSU last Saturday, Harvey-Clemons plays strong safety.

By all accounts, he’s playing them both well.

“He’s very dynamic in his diversity and his ability to cover and just run,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said this week. “He has good speed sideline-to-sideline. If you blitz him, he’s a good pass rusher. He looks tall and skinny and he kind of is tall and skinny, but he’s much bigger than he used to be. He’s much more stout. He can take on blocks, he can take on backs without getting knocked back, and he’s a great special teams guy. Everyone wants him on special teams because he can run and tackle people in space. He’s a big-time guy, and he’s really starting to blossom.”

Nowhere was that more evident than this past Saturday against LSU. Harvey-Clemons was literally all over the field. He was logging tackles coming up strong in run support and he was running down the field in coverage. In the fourth quarter, he zeroed in on tight end Travis Dickson streaking down the right sideline and knocked the ball loose with a bone-jarring pass break-up.

“Leonard Floyd was a little behind him and I just read the quarterback and got there right when the ball did and made a play on it,” Harvey-Clemons said. “I liked that one.”

Trying to cover Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry was a little less enjoyable for the rangy sophomore. Opponents are always trying to pit their best receivers against fifth defensive back, which often is Harvey-Clemons. That presents quite a challenge for a player of his size.

“I’ve adjusted to it a lot better than I thought,” Harvey-Clemons said. “Landry was the best receiver I went against this year. I feel like I did an all right job against him. I still have a lot of work to do on my coverage skills though.”

Secondary coach Scott Lakatos is not one to toss around a lot of praise. He said he has never coached a defensive back of Harvey-Clemons’ size and is impressed with his progress so far.

“You’ve got to think back when we first started repping him. Everybody was saying how big he was, how rangy he was, what he needed to get better at, what he needed to do differently and all that,” Lakatos said. “And now here we are a couple of years later. Does he still he things to work on? Yeah. Is he a lot better. Yeah. He’s coming along. He’s getting better. But he’s come a long way.”

Where Harvey-Clemons has excelled the most is at simply bring down the ball carrier. He missed the Bulldogs' opener against Clemson due to suspension due to an offseason marinjuana incident, so his first game came in the season's second week against South Carolina. He took a bad angle on a play against the Gamecocks' dynamic tailback Mike Davis, but has since proved very proficient at one-on-one battles in the open field. Six of his tackles against LSU were solos and he’s third on the team with 12 while playing in only two games.

“That’s my strong point,” Harvey-Clemons said of tackling. “I just have to work on my coverage skills and get better at that. This (past) game I was in the box a lot. It’s really just whatever the game plan is that Coach Grantham dials up.”

Tennessee, under first-year coach Butch Jones, plays more of a spread offense similar to what the Bulldogs saw against South Carolina and Clemson. So Harvey-Clemons can expect more snaps at star than safety.

“Star, you really have to focus more on the receiver,” he said. “They do a lot of play-action and a lot of little routes like screen-and-go. So your eyes have to be disciplined at star a lot more than safety.”

Harvey-Clemons said he was more sore than usual after last week’s slugfest against LSU. But he said it was worth it considering the magnitude of the game and the electrifying atmosphere the Bulldogs enjoyed in Sanford Stadium.

“It was big,” he said. “It’s the biggest game I’ve ever played in. All the fans, all the hype around it, it was a big game. But we have another big one this week. You know, we have to forget that one and move on.”