On Monday, Kirby Smart announced that Roderick Robinson II, Georgia’s top returning runner, will be out for an extended period after undergoing surgery on his injured toe. Smart was hesitant to give a timetable for his return, but Seth Emerson of The Athletic expects it to be “several weeks, if not months.”
Robinson’s absence adds to the lack of depth at the running back position created with the departures of Daijun Edwards and Kendall Milton last offseason. That need drove Smart to the transfer portal, where he acquired Trevor Etienne from Florida, but he could also miss the Bulldogs’ Week 1 opener against Clemson at Mercedes-Benz Stadium as he serves a one-game suspension for a drunken driving arrest this spring.
Smart has not yet confirmed Etienne’s suspension, but has not denied it either, saying on Monday: “All the other things related to suspensions for our players are something I don’t really talk about.”
All signs point to Georgia being without Robinson and Etienne against Clemson, so the depth of Smart’s roster will be severely tested. The most likely candidate to play the lion’s share of the game is Branson Robinson, a redshirt sophomore who suffered a torn patellar tendon this time last year.
But with not much certainty about Robinson’s knee, Georgia and Mike Bobo will almost certainly have to field freshmen in the backfield. If Etienne is suspended, the only Bulldogs running back available on game day is walk-on junior Cash Jones, who played for Georgia last year. Jones carries the ball just 22 times for 161 yards and one run, including 65 yards against Vanderbilt.
Wide receiver Dillon Bell also managed 25 carries for 157 yards and two touchdowns in 2023, so he could temporarily move into the backfield for the season opener if Smart and Bobo don’t trust their younger, unproven options at the position. However, using Bell as a running back would further thin out the wide receiver room that lost Rara Thomas after he was released from the team this offseason.
The most important newcomer on the roster is 5-foot-10, 215-pound freshman Nate Frazier, who was the second-best running back in the country last season. The Santa Ana, Calif., product impressed his teammates in fall training camp, but it’s unlikely anyone on Georgia’s coaching staff expected to throw him in the deep end so early in his career.
Now is a true freshman’s opportunity to take the reins in the backfield, and if Frazier’s explosiveness comes out of high school, he’ll be hard to keep off the field. There’s a chance he could establish himself as Georgia’s lead back, and it wouldn’t be the first time a freshman has really taken off in Athens.
In 2014, Nick Chubb rushed for 1,547 yards as a freshman and two years earlier, freshman Todd Gurley rushed for 1,385 yards. Both were excellent from the start, but none were as dominant as Herschel Walker, who set the NCAA record for most rushing yards in a freshman season with 1,616 yards and became the first true freshman to be named an All-American. That record has since been surpassed by the likes of Ron Dayne, Adrian Peterson and Jonathan Taylor.
To have a successful season, Frazier doesn’t need to be able to keep up with the Georgia legends. He just needs to be good enough to help the Dawgs beat Clemson when Robinson and Etienne are on the bench.
