Georgia football has had to deal with their fair share of injuries so far this season. Typically during the bye week you expect a lot of progress to be made on the injury report, however that wasn’t necessarily the case with Georgia this past week.
However, there are two key players Georgia is hoping make a full return very soon in offensive lineman Tate Ratledge and defensive lineman Mykel Williams. Both players have missed significant time this season, and the hope is that they would get a lot closer to 100 percent during this extra week off.
Kirby Smart provided on update on both of their statuses on Monday, and it sounds like progress is in fact being made.
Tate Ratledge Injury Update
“We’re hopeful. We think he’s going to be able to give us something,” Smart said via Dawgpost.com. “He broke some last week, took some reps, did rehab over the weekend. Hopefully, he’s raring to go. I know he wants to play it’s really important to him.”
Ratledge has suited up the past few games for Georgia and warmed up for them both, but he was held out and being saved in case of an emergency. However, it doesn’t look like he’ll need to wait for an emergency to see the field this Saturday against Florida.
According to Smart, Ratledge was still rehabbing his ankle this past week, but he was also on the field going through reps with his teammates. Georiga’s offensive line has been playing very solid the last few games, so that is probably why Smart hasn’t rushed Ratledge back. But his veteran presence will be a welcomed site once he is back in the starting lineup and regularly on the field.
Mykel Williams Injury Update
“Mykel’s still not full. He wasn’t last week in terms of full strength and all the way back,” Smart said. “I want to be clear on that. I think people look at the output against Texas and think he didn’t play a lot of snaps. He didn’t play, probably, the 100 percent role that he was playing against Clemson. We think he’s going to be much better this week.”
Williams on the other hand is someone that has played in the last three games, but has not been at the level that we would expect to see. He has however played limited snaps but only totaled four tackles in the last three games combined. This total did include two sacks as well as a forced fumble in Georgia’s win over Texas though.
Unfortunately, Smart shared that Williams still isn’t 100 percent yet. The expectation is likely for Williams to play a smaller role than we would expect against Florida once again, but he should be out there and get more snaps than he has since the season opener against Clemson. But as long as Williams continues taking steps in the right direction, he will be ready to go by the time the postseason rolls around.
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