Tight ends remain major part of Georgia’s game plan

That’s according to Georgia tight ends and assistant head coach Todd Hartley. Despite losing a rather notable tight end to the NFL after his junior season – you may have heard of three-time All-American Brock Bowers – Hartley still believes the Bulldogs have “the best tight end room in the country.”

It’s at least one of the more crowded groups. It should follow, then, that they’re going to utilize those guys.

“In today’s game, you see more tight ends,” Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo said. “Here at a tight end position, you’re going to learn how to play in the core (offense), you’re going to learn how to move as an H-back, so to speak, and you’re going to learn how to run routes when we split you out. We try to do it all and have a big volume of offense, and it takes a lot of learning. We put a lot on them.”

Validating Hartley’s claim that the Bulldogs have the country’s best tight end corps is difficult. Magazine publisher Phil Steele has a good reputation for handicapping position groups, but he didn’t bother with tight ends in his 2024 almanac.

Lots of publications rank the best individual tight ends in the college game, and Georgia is well-represented on that front. Junior Oscar Delp is ranked No. 4 in the nation, and teammate Ben Yurosek is just two spots below him, according to SportsGrid.com. Curiously, Yurosek gets a No. 4 ranking from Pro Football Focus, but there’s no mention of Delp. Michigan’s Colston Loveland, Notre Dame’s Mitchell Evans and Iowa’s Luke Lachey occupy the first three spots on both counts.

There was no denying that UGA had the nation’s best tight ends group in 2021. That’s when Bowers and Darnell Washington typically were on the field at the same time, with Delp, then a freshman, occasionally spelling one or the other. The Bulldogs rode that formula to the national championship.

Georgia has had some good tight ends and has proved it knows how to use them. That was the case again this year before the Bulldogs landed Yurosek.

All Pac-12 selection when he caught 49 passes for 445 yards two years ago, Yurosek’s play to six games last season because of injuries. He did not arrive at UGA until early summer as he had to complete his undergraduate coursework at Stanford, which is on the quarter system.

It was a surprising late addition as Georgia already had 10 tight ends in the fold. Included in that group was heralded sophomore Lawson Luckie and a pair of freshman signees in Colton Heinrich and Jaden Redell.

Last week, Hartley corrected UGA’s press corps on the pronunciation of Yurosek’s last name. It’s a Polish name and is pronounced yur-ROSS-sick, as Hartley learned during recruiting. To be sure, Georgia actively recruited the 6-foot-4, 247-pound resident of Bakersville, California, out of the transfer portal.

“One thing that coach Smart does a great job of is he is very selective about who he brings in,” Hartley said. “Sometimes it might look like we’re not as active in the portal as other people, but I think there’s a reason for that. There’s a culture and a standard here, and he is very selective about who he brings in because locker-room dynamics are important. You have to fit certain criteria, not just how many catches did he have, how many yards did he have?”

Yurosek checked the production boxes. But being a 23-year-old graduate student holding a degree from Stanford probably held more value for Georgia.

“Ben was older, right?” Hartley said. “If you look at our (meeting) room, if we needed anything we probably needed a little bit of experience in that room. He’s a kid that’s played a lot at major-level college football, and he was very productive. But just coming from Stanford, you know he’s going to be able to handle the high academic load that Georgia’s going to give him, and he’s going to be able to handle an NFL-type, pro-style offense. That’s what they did there.”

That said, Delp always was going to be the first option among the Georgia tight ends, and he still is. Delp has caught 29 passes for 345 yards and three touchdowns his first two seasons. It might’ve been twice that had he not been sharing snaps with Bowers, the 2024 Mackey Award winner. Delp has also established himself as the best blocker in the group, according to Hartley.

As for Yurosek, he simply provides more of a good thing for the Bulldogs.

“He’s a smart dude, a big dude, and you can tell he’s played a lot of football,” Delp said this week. “He’s here to help us out in every way he can. He’s trying to learn the offense and has done a really good job of that. But he’s helping us out, whether that’s run blocking or catching the ball, he’s doing it all.”

Georgia has better representation than most of walk-on tight ends. That group includes 6-4, 225-pound David Lalaian, 6-5, 260-pound Patrick Hester, 6-4, 220-pound Cooper Johnson and Oscar Delp’s little brother, Henry.

Likewise, Georgia believes its tight end future is bright. Reddell was rated in the top three nationally at his position when he inked with the Bulldogs as a 4-star prospect. UGA believes Heinrich was underrated as a 3-star recruit. Georgia already has a commitments in its 2025 class from Elyissis Williams, the top-rated tight end in the country, plus 4-star prospect Ethan Barbour of Marietta.

All were recruited to Georgia from of the mold created by Oscar Delp, Bowers and Washington.

“It’s my job to make sure my unit plays, practices, prepares to the best of their ability, and it’s also my job to make sure I get every ounce out of them that I can,” Hartley said. “… I’m going to coach Oscar Delp just like I coached Brock Bowers and Lawson Luckie and Ben Yurosek and those freshmen as well. I’m not going to coach them any differently.”

Worked out well so far.