ATHENS — Georgia hasn’t spent a lot of time the past couple of years mining the transfer portal for talent. That doesn’t mean the Bulldogs haven’t struck some gold.
That’s certainly the case this year as Georgia landed at least one starter and a regular out of the NCAA’s transfer database – and possibly two. Dominic Lovett, a receiver who came to UGA from Missouri, appears to have won the starting job at slotback for the Bulldogs. The 5-foot-10, 185-pound junior was the Tigers’ leading receiver last season (56 receptions-846 yards-3 TDs).
Similarly, Rara Thomas was one of the leading pass-catchers for Mississippi State last season (44-626-7). However, a run-in with the law and some injury issues have left Thomas toward the back of what is an extremely deep receiver rotation at Georgia. Eventually, though, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound split end also is expected to make his presence known.
“The new guys, Dom, Rara, them coming in, you know, they’re going to make an impact,” quarterback Carson Beck told former Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray on “The Players’ Lounge” podcast. “They’ve been working really hard to get caught up to speed. Obviously, going through spring ball helped them a lot with that. But you can see them starting to play faster and understand things at a higher level and more in depth.”
Georgia had two other transfers come in via the portal. Sophomore safety Smoke Bouie was a former 5-star signee with Texas A&M who decided to come play nearer his home in Bainbridge. However, he since reentered the portal without playing a down for the Bulldogs.
Len’Neth Whitehead was on scholarship as a running back at Tennessee when he transferred to Georgia over the summer. However, so far at least, the Athens native is not figuring into the Bulldogs’ plans and is not presently counting against the Bulldogs’ 85-scholarship allotment.
On the flip side, Georgia has seen a mass exodus of its own players via the portal. In all, 14 Bulldogs with eligibility left after the 2022 season have landed at new destinations. The most notable of those players was rising sophomore defensive lineman Bear Alexander. A potential starter for Georgia this season, Alexander accepted an NIL deal from USC that reportedly will pay him more than twice what he was earning at UGA. However, Alexander cited no assurance of playing time.
The Bulldogs also saw starting split end A.D. Mitchell land at Texas and linebacker Trezman Marshall end up at Alabama. Two UGA players now are at Georgia Tech, three at Nebraska and five more with other Power 5 programs.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart said he doesn’t want to become overly dependent on the portal for filling gaps on his roster.
“We try to find people that want to be (at Georgia),” Smart said at SEC Football Media Days in July. “We call it ‘signability and retainability.’ …. Do we have a chance to sign them, and do we have a chance to retain them and keep them here? It does no good to keep a guy one year and then he leaves. So, you want guys that want to stay and develop, and that’s what we worry about.”
The Bulldogs have gotten contributions from transfers pretty much every season since Smart was coach. That dates to before the portal was a thing.
In Smart’s first season, the Bulldogs fought tooth-and-nail to get Maurice “Mo” Smith approved as a transfer from Alabama. At the time, direct intraconference transfers weren’t allowed under any circumstances in the SEC. Georgia managed to convince the league to allow Smith to enroll at Georgia based on his status as a graduate transfer. Smith ended up starting 11 games for the Bulldogs in 2016 at the “star” defensive backfield position.
That same year, J.R. Reed came in from Tulsa. However, he had to sit out that season per the now-defunct NCAA transfer rules of the day. Reed went on to become a three-year starter at safety for Georgia.
The transfer portal as we know it today didn’t come into existence until 2018, and then it still was governed by several rules and conditions. The Bulldogs landed receiver Lawrence Cager from Miami before the 2019 season. Tight ends Tre’ McKitty (from FSU) and Eli Wolf (from Tennessee) came in for the 2020 season, and each played significant roles. All were graduate transfers.
Not all of the grad transfers were success stories, however. Defensive tackle Jay Hayes transferred to Georgia as a Notre Dame graduate in 2018. He appeared in only two games that season and finished with three tackles as a Bulldog. Quarterback Jamie Newman came to Georgia from Wake Forest in 2020 but opted out because of the COVID-19 pandemic before preseason camp. That same summer, quarterback JT Daniels arrived from Southern Cal and ended up starting five games over two seasons
New regulations were adopted by the NCAA in 2021 that allowed athletes what’s now known as a “one-time transfer exception.” That is, as long as an undergrad hasn’t transferred before, he can transfer to another school and be immediately eligible. That’s what has caused the mass of ingress and egress of transfers that we see today.
Having won the past two national championships and played for another in recent years, Georgia is in an ideal position with the portal. The Bulldogs can look to shore up key positions that might have talent concerns heading into the season. Conversely, they can use it as a resource to help players on their own roster who might be struggling to get onto the field find a team that might be able to play them quicker.
But the Bulldogs remain frugal about the portal. They did not take in a single transfer after the 2021 season despite having 15 players enter the NFL draft and nine others enter the portal.
“Our portal approach helps us in recruiting,” Smart said in a Sirius XM interview on the subject last spring. “The question from recruits now is, ‘How many are you going to take? Will you take guys out of the portal at my position?’ When elite high school talent asks you that and you can say, ‘Well, we didn’t take any.’ It allows them to say, ‘Well, I will have a chance to come here and play and develop. They’re not going to just pull people from over top of me.’ That’s been important for us.”
