Surely there were some moments of panic within the Bulldogs’ Twitter Nation when tweets went out Wednesday reporting that Todd Gurley and Nick Chubb were both wearing green jerseys at Georgia’s practice.
Green at Georgia signifies a player is injured and/or is being withheld from contact. The Bulldogs are already without two of their prized tailbacks, Keith Marshall (knee) and Sony Michel (shoulder), due to injuries. The thought of the two others also being banged up might’ve been too much for some fans to bear.
Alas, coach Mark Richt reported following the two-hour practice that “they’re fine.”
“My guess is that was probably just the fact that we’re running out of those dudes,” Richt said with a laugh. “I think it actually might have been the defensive coaches who requested it.”
Chubb, a freshman who’s averaging 6.3 yards on 23 carries, is playing with a broken thumb that required surgery two weeks ago. Gurley, the SEC’s leading rusher at 152.5 yards per game, doesn’t have any apparent injuries but is coming off a game in which he had 34 touches for 285 yards.
Brendan Douglas, a sophomore who played in 12 games last season, moves up to third-team tailback. He’s had eight carries for 47 yards this season, all coming in the Troy game.
As for Georgia’s rehabilitating receivers, Richt reiterated that he’s optimistic that Malcolm Mitchell and Justin Scott-Wesley will play in Saturday’s game.
“They’ll definitely play,” Richt said. “There shouldn’t be any setbacks but we’ve had some Thursdays where bad things have happened. If there’s no setback at all, I would think both will play. I don’t know for sure how many plays they’ll play, but we’re planning on them playing.”
The 13th-ranked Bulldogs (3-1, 1-1 SEC) conducted a two-hour workout while finalizing their preparations for Saturday’s homecoming game against Vanderbilt (1-4, 0-3).
“We finished real strong,” Richt said. “I thought we had an excellent day. A lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of positive energy today. So I was pleased with the tempo and the work.”
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