ATHENS — The best athletes in the world often are described as being gifted and blessed. That’s because they usually are. Take Georgia’s George Pickens, for example.
He’s tall and lithe, standing 6-foot-3 and wiry strong at 200 pounds. He’s fast, and his long legs allow him to stride ahead of smaller defensive backs. Rarely is he out-leapt for a high throw. But to say that those physical attributes are what makes Pickens a great receiver is missing the point. That’s according to the coach who has watched him play longest.
Josh Niblett first met Pickens when he showed up at Hoover High when Pickens as a ninth-grader. The physical gifts weren’t quite as prevalent then, but something else was.
“It was his work ethic,” said Niblett, Hoover High’s head coach the past 14 years. “It was how much he worked on his skill, day-in and day-out. That’s what told you this is something this kid wants to do. He wants to catch balls and run routes. That’s why he’s good at what he does. That’s why he has the best ball skills of any player I’ve ever coached.”
Niblett referenced the Bulldogs’ game against Baylor in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. Georgia fans — and probably quite a few from Baylor — will recall Pickens' MVP performance that night. He had 12 catches for 175 yards and a touchdown in Georgia’s 26-14 victory and thoroughly dominated a secondary that was considered the backbone of the Big 12′s best defense.
Credit: Bob Andres
Credit: Bob Andres
But what happened in New Orleans isn’t what Niblett is getting at. It was what Pickens did in Hoover afterward.
“The next week he’s out on our field doing his drills,” Niblett said. “Who does that? Really? Everybody’s looking for some time to rest, and he’s looking for a day to go out and get better. But that’s his hobby. It’s what he loves to do. Some people like to go fishing or ride bikes or play golf. George, he gets more joy out of catching balls and running routes than he does anything.”
This is the side of Pickens that Niblett said few people know and appreciate. That includes those that follow the Bulldogs.
Pickens came to Georgia with a solid football reputation. He left Hoover as a 5-star prospect, the No. 1 recruit in Alabama and the No. 4 receiver in America, according to 247Sports. He had 16 catches for 1,368 yards and 16 TDs as a senior. The Buccaneers won the 2017 and 2018 Class 7A titles largely because Pickens was on the team.
Everybody in the country wanted Pickens, especially the home state schools of Auburn and Alabama. But Kirby Smart convinced him he was more needed in Athens, and rightly so, probably.
But Pickens arrived at Georgia with another sort of reputation. There were whispers that he could be a hothead, that when the competition ramped up, he could lose his cool.
The Bulldogs saw a couple of instances of that last season. As Pickens worked his way from backup split end to primary target, there were isolated incidents of jawing and maybe a subtle shove.
But then it came to a head in the regular-season finale when Pickens locked up with Georgia Tech defensive back Tre Swilling in the second half of a blowout win for the Bulldogs. While Swilling certainly contributed to the melee with his hands-to-face defensive tactics, it was Pickens who was ejected for slinging Swilling into the stadium wall by the facemask.
The flagrant foul meant Pickens would have to sit out the first half of the SEC Championship game against LSU. By the time he got into the game, the Bulldogs trailed by two touchdowns and would lose by four.
It was a powerful lesson for Pickens, one that he said was a continued point of emphasis heading into this season.
“From then on, I have just been focusing on the team,” Pickens said in a video conference call Friday. “That’s kind of how I got good in the Sugar Bowl game and how I got the numbers that I had, because I was just focused on the team. Now that’s what I’m really working on. … Team is way more important to me.”
Pickens certainly is more important to his team this season. Pickens already had supplanted the oft-injured Lawrence Cager as the Bulldogs' primary target by the end of last season. But at the start of this one, Pickens is undisputed as Georgia’s top wideout and is being counted on to put explosiveness in new coordinator Todd Monken’s spread offense.
As such, he is being looked up to for leadership. Pickens knows it and is embracing it.
“I just want to take everybody under my wing and coach everybody up,” Pickens said. “… We’ve got a lot of young guys and I’m trying to help them out. I’m a little bit older now and I know that I’m a big part of the offense.”
He was last season, too. Despite starting only two games and struggling early on with route concepts and adjustments, Pickens still finished the season as the Bulldogs' leading receiver, with 49 catches for 727 yards and eight touchdowns.
What Pickens might be able to accomplish as the focus of the Bulldogs' reconfigured passing attack designed by Monken has everybody excited. Pickens included.
“Last year I was just running the route that they told me to,” Pickens said. “But this year, I’m learning a lot of the little things that (Monken) has seen from the teams that he’s been with, like the Browns, with Odell (Beckham) and Jarvis Landry. He’s showing me the tricks and tools that he took from those guys. So, he helps me every day.”
Coach Kirby Smart is reserved as usual in his assessment of Pickens' role in Georgia’s offense. He acknowledges Pickens’ tremendous potential but remains focused on the star wideout’s growth.
“He has a really good grasp on the overall entire system,” Smart said. “At times last year he was a guy you had to put in a certain place and really explain what to do. He understands a lot more now about the bigger picture — what route is the other guy running? What is the coverage? What does the coverage do to change my route? How do I affect the play? Am I primary on this play? Am I the secondary on this play? He has a better understanding of all of those things, and that’s important to the rest of our offense. George is a talented player that can make us better in other ways than just catching the ball.”
Niblett will second that assessment. He believes Pickens has so much more to give the Bulldogs than he’s shown to this point.
“The more you get to know him, the more you realize he’s a good, fun-loving kid, man,” Niblett said. “That’s the thing I love most about George, that he’s just genuine. He plays the game like you played it when you were young, with a smile on your face and just trying to score. He’s just going to get better and better before he gets through because he’s going to keep working at it."
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