Georgia Bulldogs UGA logoATHENS, Ga. – At the beginning of this college football season, Georgia junior defensive end Ray Drew had half a sack for his career and had yet to start a game.
At the midway point of Georgia’s 12-game schedule, Drew is displaying why he was a top-10 national prospect in the 2011 signing class and the most heralded member of Mark Richt’s “Dream Team” crop. The 6-foot-5, 276-pounder from Thomasville sacked LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger on the final Saturday of September and since has added four more.
“Ray’s been a little bit of a surprise,” Richt said this week. “When we signed Ray, everybody thought we had this five-star guy who was going to come in and do this and that, and it’s taken Ray a little while to get going. Now that the light came on, or however you want to say it, he’s really playing well. I like his attitude.”
Drew leads the No. 15 Bulldogs (4-2, 3-1) with the five sacks and six tackles for loss entering Saturday’s game at Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-3), which should be his fifth start. Within the Southeastern Conference, his 0.83 sack per game is topped only by Missouri’s Michael Sam (1.00) and Arkansas’ Chris Smith (0.86).
Despite bringing down Tennessee’s Justin Worley and Missouri’s James Franklin two times each, Drew has enjoyed no sack more than his takedown of Mettenberger.