Lorenzo Carter has done Graceland. In fact, even though he gathered all those laurels as a five-star recruit at Norcross High, Carter spent six of his earliest years living no more than five minutes from Elvis’ place.
So, Memphis is not so much a tourist destination for this particular outside linebacker during Georgia’s Liberty Bowl trip.
Rather than communing with the Memphians, a more important activity this week may be bonding with his own. Carter’s always embraced the pack mentality, especially as he assumes an alpha role in “the Wolfpack,” as the Georgia outside linebackers have called themselves for a couple of seasons now.
He’s always been one of those players who keeps the light-heartedness on in the locker room. This is, after all, a classical-music-appreciating, cello-playing guy (one who’s woefully out of practice) who wears a wristband with the message, “Be Happy By Choice.”
“It’s a choice you have to make to be happy because there’s always something going on that can bring you down,” Carter said earlier this month, explaining the philosophy he wears on his sleeve. “If you chose to be happy, it makes the whole day better, the whole outlook on life better.”
Or as Bulldogs nose tackle John Atkins puts it, “He’s the kind of guy you want to be around all the time, not just during football.”
Another priority, as with any remaining college game on Carter’s docket, is working on becoming known as a more complete defender. Not just the one-trick pass-rusher, a niche of which he is not fond.
“From Day 1 coach (Kirby) Smart was here, he really made an emphasis on working on playing the run and not just being a player who goes in on passing downs,” Carter said. (That emphasis occasionally came at very high volume.) “I do not want to be known as a designated pass-rusher. I want to show people that I can be an every-down player and stop the run. And once it’s time to go after the passer, I can do that too.”
Woofing down massive amounts of ribs and white bread this week wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. Anything to put a little more lead in his britches (see the whole playing-the-run-better thing).
At 6-feet-6 and a very knotty 240 pounds, Carter is the kind of athlete that strains a coach’s imagination. You believe he can do anything — like play deep as a primary defender against a Hail Mary pass. OK, that didn’t work against Tennessee, but you get the idea.
In the more traditional role of run-stopper, he knows he could use some more bulk. He also knows that his metabolism burns calories like a wildfire burns dry brush. But Carter promises this offseason to try to widen out a little.
As draft-eligible players hither and yon have been dropping out of bowl games to save themselves for the pros, Georgia got all kinds of better news on that front. Its two headline running backs — Nick Chubb and Sony Michel — and a pair of linebackers — Davin Bellamy and Carter — not only declared they would deign play in the Liberty Bowl, but they also would return for their senior seasons.
A player still trying to discover the boundaries of his potential, Carter made the wise move in staying. He kicked it in a little bit this season under Smart’s prodding, improving upon a sackless sophomore season with 4 1/2 in 2016, with twice the tackles (37). But there remains work to do.
Credit him with making the smart play in a realm where that is not necessarily the norm. And a funny thing about linebackers in Athens, past returns at Georgia are not necessarily an indicator of future performance in the NFL. The player to whom Carter is most often compared, Leonard Floyd, had a similarly modest sack total his last season in Athens and yet had immediate impact as Chicago’s first-rounder (7 1/2 sacks this season before he was slowed by a scary neck injury).
Of course, Carter noticed that. “We see it. Flo, his senior year had like 4 1/2 sacks, and now he has (almost) eight. Dang, we could be doing that. It’s so close,” he said.
But: “No need to rush.
“I’m not in a rush to go to the NFL, to get to the next level. Especially if you’re not ready. That’s really what you don’t want to do. I’m excited to be back, ready to go to work. This is one of those decisions you can only make once. You can’t go back, you can’t change your mind. I’m cool with it.”
Yeah, but, Carter is asked, mightn’t he regret that decision the next time the head coach starts climbing his tree in practice? If you’re going to get hollered at, shouldn’t you go ahead and get paid for it?
Here he smiled, which he does a lot.
“I would have been regretting it by now if that was the case,” he said.
“We all — me, Sony, Chubb and Bell — know that it’s only going to get more intense now because of all the pressure on us to be leaders, to play well, to do everything right. We came back and we’ve accepted it and we’re ready to take it on.”
The cello will have to wait. Coming from a musical family, Carter took up the classical instrument as a child, but hasn’t really fiddled with it much since 11th grade. Oh, he might fire up a little Yo-Yo Ma when it’s time to relax, but other than that, he’ll busy himself with more current and pressing pursuits. Like his working checklist to “just keep growing, keep growing as a player, get physical and add more weight. That’s one of the biggest things.”
The choice to stay at Georgia was a practical one, given an uncertain draft status.
But there also was an emotional component. Cater seems to genuinely love Georgia, love the college experience, even when Smart is chewing on him. “We (the Wolfpack) sit and talk about all the different places we could have been when we’re watching other games,” he said. “But at the end of the day we’re always happy we made the decision to come to Athens. I feel there’s no place like it.”
And he certainly loves being part of that Wolfpack. He helped form the collective of outside linebackers after watching a nature show that featured wolves on the hunt. “We’re hungry. We want more. We always want more,” he said.
In short, Carter chose to be happy.
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