ATHENS — Tate Ratledge said he knew immediately what had happened.
On the first play from scrimmage in the 2021 season opener, going against Clemson’s All-ACC defensive tackle Bryan Bresee, Ratledge planted his drop foot into the ground to withstand a bull rush. Pop!
“I knew right away when it happened,” Ratledge recalled after Georgia’s practice Tuesday night. “I looked at Warren McClendon, our tackle in the game, and I said, ‘Warren, my foot’s broke.’ He was like, ‘What do you mean?’ The next thing I knew they’re calling a play.”
That’s right, Ratledge played the next play with what would later be diagnosed as a Lisfranc fracture in his right foot. The pain, those who have experienced it say, is excruciating.
“I’ll just say I don’t want to know what it would’ve felt like without adrenaline pumping,” Ratledge said.
Not even a year later, Ratledge is back. He’s practicing at full speed again and participated in the Bulldogs’ second preseason scrimmage at Sanford Stadium on Saturday.
The fact that coach Kirby Smart sent the sophomore out to talk to reporters is a sign that the Bulldogs believe Ratledge will be able to help them at right guard again this season. If he is indeed back to the form he displayed last September, that is very good news.
A year ago, the 6-foot-6, 320-pound lineman from Rome was the talk of preseason camp. He was dominating, especially when it came to run-blocking. A road grader, folks were calling him. Undisputed, he won the job at right guard.
So, Ratledge’s departure in the first five minutes of that very high-profile game was an alarming – and potentially disastrous – development. But, remarkably, the Bulldogs adjusted without hardly missing a beat.
By third down of that first series against Clemson, Warren Ericson was in a right guard, Sedrick Van Pran was in at center. Georgia went on to a 10-3 victory over the No. 3-ranked Tigers. It was the first of 14 wins on the way to the school’s first national championship in 41 years.
Yes, Ratledge acknowledges, it was tough to have to take it all in from the sideline. But while he was no longer contributing on the field, he very much felt a part of it.
“I think we have a really close group,” he said of the offensive line corps. “So they really brought me into it and made me feel like I was a part of it.”
Getting back into the mix has been Ratledge’s goal ever since. Now he most definitely is.
Whether he returns to start at right guard remains undetermined. The competition for both guard spots has been some of the most intense of Georgia’s preseason camp. In addition to Ratledge, also vying for playing time are Ericson, Xavier Truss, Devin Willock, Austin Blaske and Chad Lindberg. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs seem settled with Broderick Jones at left tackle, McClendon at right tackle and Van Pran back at center.
Now under the direction of first-year line coach Stacy Searels, the only assurance at this point is that “the best five” will take the field against No. 11 Oregon in a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game Sept. 3 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Ratledge aims to be among them. If he’s back to where he was a year ago, he will be.
“I think I’m very close to last year’s version,” he said. “Of course, there’s little hiccups here and there, learning curves I’ve got to get through with this. A lot of it’s mental. I think, physically, I’m pretty close to where I was.”
Regardless, Ratledge said he’s going into this season with “a lot of joy.” The injury and having to work back from it has provided great perspective for a player for which everything has always come so easily.
“I kind of took it as a growing experience,” he said. “It kind of messed with me a little bit. You live and you learn. It ended up being a good thing for me. I got my head in the right spot. It really put things in perspective for me to don’t take things for granted.”
Off the field, things couldn’t be going better. He has joined with tight end teammate Ryland Goede to start a new podcast, and he has drawn national acclaim for what is considered a world-class mullet.
Ratledge also explained Tuesday how the hair thing came to be.
“In high school, I wasn’t allowed to have long hair,” said Ratledge, who attended the private Darlington School in Rome. “It couldn’t touch the collar. Then I got to college and I was like, ‘I’m going to do something with this.’ There was like a six-month awkward phase, but here it is now. The way I see it is, I’m too far into it to cut it now.”
Yes, Tate Ratledge is back, mullet and all.
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