The Georgia Bulldogs opened the season on the right foot, beating the Marshall Thundering Herd 45-7. However, injuries did rear their ugly head for Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs. That, notably, included offensive tackle Juan Gaston, who went down with an apparent ankle injury. After the game, Smart addressed Gaston’s injury, confirming it’s an ankle […]
The Georgia Bulldogs opened the season on the right foot, beating the Marshall Thundering Herd 45-7. However, injuries did rear their ugly head for Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs. That, notably, included offensive tackle Juan Gaston, who went down with an apparent ankle injury.
After the game, Smart addressed Gaston’s injury, confirming it’s an ankle injury. However, for the time being, it’s still unclear just how severe that injury is going to be.
“Don’t know much,” Kirby Smart said. “We took him to an MRI. It looks like an ankle. We don’t know if it’s a high ankle or not, in terms of that’s being checked out right now.”
Juan Gaston came to Georgia as a four-star recruit in the Class of 2025 from Westlake in South Fulton, Georgia. He was the 62-ranked recruit overall in that recruiting cycle and the fourth-ranked interior offensive lineman in that recruiting cycle.
Expectations are high for Juan Gaston nationally too. He earned On3 Preseason True Freshman All-American Team going into the year. Even the video game world took notice of him. He’d be one the Top 50 freshmen ranked in the EA Sports College Football 26 video game with an 80 overall ranking.
That youth is something that permeates this year’s Georgia team. For many, a lack of experience could be looked at as a negative. However, Kirby Smart does see positives in it for the Bulldogs.
“Energy. Enthusiasm. Non-complacency. That’s not to label old teams as that, but you don’t have that problem with young teams,” Smart said before the season.
“Relentless effort, connection, rewarding a teammate, hand on a helmet, body language. It’s more than just how you play. It’s what you do between the snaps… I don’t know if it was lacking in previous years. I just know that we want it, [it’s] more rewarding. We’ve always had some form of it, but it’s the analogy of small campfires. We can have all these little small campfires, or you can have a burning inferno. We want a burning inferno. We want all of these campfires to come together and be 11 burning fires — not a couple of burning bushes over here.”
It was the first quarter when Juan Gaston went down with his ankle issue. That came after he earned a start in the game. In the process, he became the first true freshman Georgia offensive lineman to start in a season opener since 2017.
While playing right guard, he got rolled up on during a zone read play for Gunner Stockton. Juan Gaston was able to walk off the field under his own power. However, he would not come back into the game.
Georgia is set to take on Austin Peay next week, an FCS program that earned a win over FBS Middle Tennessee State in Week 1. After that, Smart will want his team healthy to dive into SEC play with a road trip to Tennessee.
Category: General Sports
