When Georgia’s football team lost Malcolm Mitchell — the primary deep threat and most explosive playmaker among its wide receivers — to a knee injury five minutes into the season, Justin Scott-Wesley sensed it was his time to step up.
“I feel like I’ve been preparing myself for this moment,” he said a week ago.
On Saturday, he proved the point.
With Georgia leading South Carolina 34-30 early in the fourth quarter, but facing third-and-13 from its own 15-yard line, quarterback Aaron Murray scrambled to his left to avoid a rush from the Gamecocks’ Jadeveon Clowney. Then Murray saw Scott-Wesley, inexplicably alone near the sideline and behind the secondary.
“When he was rolling out, we were looking eye-to-eye,” Scott-Wesley said later. “I was, like, ‘Come on, throw it, throw it, throw it.’ He got it to me, man, and the rest is history.
“I just caught the ball and made the play and turned the speed on.”
Scott-Wesley sprinted away from his pursuers to an 85-yard touchdown, which gave Georgia a 41-30 lead that held up as the final score and indicated the Bulldogs, minus Mitchell, may have a receiver who can stretch the field after all.
“I claim I’m the fastest guy on the team. It was just an opportunity for me to show it,” said Scott-Wesley, the Class AA state champion in the 100- and 200-meter dashes at Mitchell County High in 2010. “It’s really the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve gotten an open opportunity to show how fast I am. And I showed the world.”
The showcase play was not one the Bulldogs expected to use in this game.
“Man, it was just a crazy moment,” Scott-Wesley said. “We hadn’t run that play in practice all week. It wasn’t even in the game plan, wasn’t something we studied this week.”
He credited offensive coordinator Mike Bobo with spotting a vulnerability in the South Carolina defense and calling the play.
Scott-Wesley “was the second read on the play,” Murray said. “I went through the first read and then had to get out of the pocket. When I did, I went to him, and he was wide open on the sideline. It was easy pitch-and-catch from there.”
After losing Mitchell for the season to a torn ACL early in the opening game at Clemson, the Bulldogs faced a question of whether their offense could offset the loss of his speed and playmaking ability.
“I knew I had to step up, man,” Scott-Wesley said. “Replacing a guy like Malcolm Mitchell, it’s not easy. But just for me to be able to be a guy my team can depend on, I feel honored.”
After redshirting as a freshman in 2011 and catching only six passes in limited action last season, Scott-Wesley has caught seven passes already this season — four for 55 yards against Clemson and three for 116 against South Carolina. He was so open on the 85-yard touchdown that someone asked if he felt the defense forgot about him.
“I don’t think they’ll forget about me any more,” he said.
About the Author
