Oscar Delp stepped up for Georgia after Brock Bowers was injured last year, but he won’t be the only important tight end on Kirby Smart’s squad this season. When Brock Bowers was injured last season, Georiga promptly turned to sophomore Oscar Delp to fill in. Delp stepped up, catching 24 passes for 284 yards, although he never had more than three catches in a single game, demonstrating that he may never be the receiving threat that Bowers was.
That is why, this offseason, Kirby Smart went into the transfer portal and scooped out Benjamin Yurosek, a graduate transfer from Stanford, and it may be Yurosek, not Delp, who replaces Bowers in the passing game for Heisman Trophy favourite Carson
Beck. Yurosek has received wonderful praises during fall camp, not only for the maturity he brings to a very young tight end group, but also for what he will offer to the field.
Delp’s offensive performance was unimpressive, with only 24 catches, although it was still more than Yurosek’s 2023 season. Yurosek caught only 16 catches for 239 yards over six games, but it wasn’t very representative of his abilities as a 6-foot-4, 245-pound playmaker.
🔋 @StanfordFball takes one back!
Yurosek takes it 49 yards to the 🏠 pic.twitter.com/4qNxh5pN8f
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 28, 2021
In 2022, Yurosek caught 49 of 65 targets for 444 yards and one score. Not game-changing figures, but given that Stanford’s offence finished 92nd in the country that season, his inefficiency is understandable. Yurosek’s career average was 1.50 yards per route run while playing. On one of the poorest teams in the country, better than Delp’s lifetime 1.31 or 1.37 yards per route run in 2023. Even last season, Yurosek averaged 14.9 yards per reception, ranking 18th among 106 tight ends who had at least 25 targets. Delp was placed 45th at 11.8. Yurosek was doing this on a little more functional offence in 2021 with Tanner McKee at quarterback, and now he has the opportunity to play with the best quarterback in the country. Despite all of this, and the buzz that has been emanating from Athens throughout August, Delp will remain the No. 1 tight end versus Clemson in Week 1. He’ll likely get the most snaps at the position throughout the season, but it might be
Definitive list of tight ends you’d run a 50-yard end-around with:
Brock Bowers
Benjamin Yurosek pic.twitter.com/6UH721B8WJ— Benjamin Wolk (@benjaminwolk) February 9, 2024
Yurosek is a stronger factor in the passing game, and possibly on the ground. Smart targeted more than just tight ends in the portal. He also pursued wide receivers, signing Colbie Young from Miami (FL) and London Humphreys from Vanderbilt. Pairing those two with Dominic Lovett and Dillon Bell will offer the Dawgs more depth on the outside than they have had since Smart took charge, but Mike Bobo’s offence may benefit from formations with two tight ends on the field.
There is certainly no one player in Athens or college football who can replace what Bowers gave the Georgia offence over the previous two seasons, but with Oscar Delp and Benjamin Yurosek, the Bulldogs may have discovered a way to replicate him and his production.
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