GEORGIA
Last season: 13-2 (7-1 SEC)2018 opener: Sept. 1 vs. Austin Peay in Athens (3:30 p.m. on ESPN)Fun fact: Nick Chubb and Sony Michel combined for 77 rushing touchdowns the past four seasons. Georgia’s top three returning rushers — sophomore D’Andre Swift, junior Elijah Holyfield and junior Brian Herrien — have combined for six.Coming Friday: Kentucky
Georgia senior receiver Terry Godwin is always quick to flash a smile, and the grin is constant when discussing his career with the Bulldogs.
Godwin was a five-star prospect in Mark Richt's 15th and final signing class in 2015, and he was the MVP of the TaxSlayer Bowl after the 2015 season, when the Bulldogs topped Penn State 24-17. Richt had been let go and Kirby Smart named as his successor before the bowl game, so Godwin earned his honor playing under interim coach Bryan McClendon, who is now the offensive coordinator at South Carolina.
"That seems like forever ago," Godwin said last week at SEC Media Days in Atlanta. "To be honest, I feel like I've been at Georgia almost 10 years. There have just been so many obstacles from my freshman year until now - the coaching change, players leaving and coming, assistants changing positions.
"It has been fun going through football and school, but there has just been a lot going on. It's been a wild ride."
Godwin threw for a touchdown and caught a touchdown against Penn State. He also had a rushing touchdown as a freshman out of the wildcat package, which was not an uncommon occurrence for him that season.
"That was fun while it lasted," Godwin said, his smile as big as ever, "but they don't need me back there anymore."
The 5-foot-11, 185-pounder from Hogansville, Georgia, has adapted to whatever has been needed from him. Godwin has been the second-leading receiver each of his three seasons with the Bulldogs and had his most production last season, when he snagged 38 catches for 639 yards and six touchdowns. Godwin's average of 16.8 yards per catch was noticeably higher than the 10.8- and 10.4-yard clips of his first two seasons.
"Terry Godwin is a kid I've known since the ninth grade," Smart said. "I have watched him practice every year or play in baseball games since his ninth-grade year in Hogansville. He has a wonderful family, and he is just a bright-eyed guy who loves to practice every day."
Godwin had at least four receptions in each of Georgia's last three games last season - the Southeastern Conference championship victory over Auburn, the Rose Bowl thriller over Oklahoma and the national championship loss to Alabama. He was dependable late and electric early a year ago, gathering a 59-yard touchdown strike from Jake Fromm on the first play of the fourth game against Mississippi State and making an acrobatic, one-handed grab for a score in the second game at Notre Dame.
His 5-yard score against the Fighting Irish made it 10-10 in the second quarter of a contest Georgia won 20-19, a victory that ignited the most memorable season for the Bulldogs since they won the 1980 national championship.
"I still hear about that catch two or three times a week," Godwin said.
The jump from appearances in the TaxSlayer Bowl in Richt's last season and the Liberty Bowl in Smart's first season to a run to the national title game a year ago did not take Godwin completely by surprise. He thought bigger things would be in store as soon as the Bulldogs were leaving Memphis to finish Smart's debut season.
"We told ourselves, 'We can't come back here. No offense to the Liberty Bowl, but we're better than this,'" he said.
Georgia's offense should be stacked again this season, though the Bulldogs must replace the tailback tandem of Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, left tackle Isaiah Wynn and leading receiver Javon Wims. Also gone is Jacob Eason, the starting quarterback in 2016 who was supplanted last year by Fromm and is sitting out this season after transferring to Washington.
Now Fromm is competing with heralded early enrollee Justin Fields, with Godwin now having to lead an offense with so many potential dynamics. Godwin was quiet and shy as a freshman, but he knows being vocal comes with the territory when it's your turn to lead.
"When you're a freshman, you see the guys leading throughout the year, and you see the same thing when you're a sophomore," Godwin said. "It's been that way with Nick, Sony, Davin Bellamy and Dominick Sanders. I had been looking up to those guys since I got there.
"Being able to take over that role from them is a little bit challenging given how they left with their senior seasons, but I know that I can help lead our team to get us to that level."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.