The Georgia Bulldogs are averaging a robust 454.3 yards and 37.6 points a game this season, and their 282.9 rushing yards per contest rank ninth nationally.
They are posting those averages with a true freshman quarterback, Jake Fromm, whom most folks have known about for weeks. They also are doing this with true freshman right tackle Andrew Thomas, who may not be attention-grabbing but is the first player in the Kirby Smart era to start his first seven games straight out of high school.
"He's a freshman out there playing in what I think is the toughest conference in the country," Smart said in a recent news conference. "He is holding up. He is holding his own.
"We haven't put him in a lot of really tough positions. We try to avoid that, whether we cover him up - and being able to run the ball helps with that - but he is mature beyond his years and he is very understanding of how important practice is, which I think allows him to play well.''
The No. 3 Bulldogs practiced Tuesday for the first time since Saturday night's 53-28 win over Missouri. They will work out again today and Thursday and take Friday through Sunday off.
Thomas is a 6-foot-5, 320-pounder from the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia who starred on both sides of the line for Pace Academy. He racked up 59 tackles a year ago as a Pace senior but was a consensus top-10 offensive tackle prospect nationally.
ESPN and 247sports.com rated Thomas as a top-50 national recruit overall.
Georgia signed five offensive linemen this year, including top-20 overall prospect Isaiah Wilson of Brooklyn, N.Y., but it was Thomas who worked his way to first-team status in preseason camp and refused to let go.
"I saw that he was something different during camp," Bulldogs senior outside linebacker Davin Bellamy recently told reporters. "He was a freshman, so I was expecting to have my way with him, and I wasn't. So I just thought, 'It was the first day.'
"The second day, I was like, 'I'm going to come at him hard,' but he kept blocking me. Then some other guys who had gone against him were like, 'This guy is for real.'"
The Bulldogs rushed for 423 yards two weeks ago in a 45-14 win at Vanderbilt, which was the highest such total for the program in 30 years. In last week's win, Georgia amassed 696 total yards, a program record against a league foe.
In other words, it's now Georgia's opponents who are learning about Thomas on a weekly basis.
"He is long," Bellamy said. "He knows the playbook. He has good feet, and he is patient to be so young."
Eason stays put
After playing during the fourth quarter of victories at Tennessee and Vanderbilt, former starting quarterback Jacob Eason did not get in against Missouri.
The Bulldogs had the ball at their 21-yard line with 7:43 remaining in a 53-28 game, and they drained most of the clock with 10 consecutive runs, six by Elijah Holyfield and four by Brian Herrien. Quarterback Jake Fromm took a knee on the game's final two plays.
"It was that last drive, and we were handing the ball off," Smart said Tuesday night in a news conference. "We weren't going to throw the ball. When you're given the opportunity to go in and throw the ball, that's different, but we weren't going to do that."
Getting healthier
Junior receiver Terry Godwin, junior defensive tackle Trenton Thompson and senior inside linebacker Reggie Carter practiced Tuesday. Godwin left last Saturday's win with a rib injury, while Thompson has missed the last two games due to a sprained MCL suffered in the first half at Tennessee.
Carter also left the Tennessee game early with an undisclosed injury and had not practiced since.
Defensive linemen David Marshall and DaQuan Hawkins-Muckle missed the Missouri game and Tuesday's practice as well. Smart is hopeful of having the pair in Jacksonville.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.