ATHENS — We knew at some point Georgia was going to learn what it had in its tight end room after Brock Bowers. Most thought that day wouldn’t come until the 2024 season, with Bowers off to the NFL by that point in time.

Instead, Georgia is going to learn this season what it has in Todd Hartley’s tight end room. Bowers is expected to miss the next four to six weeks following ankle surgery on Monday. The school announced the surgery on Monday.

Bowers left Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt in the second quarter. From the moment he stepped on campus as a freshman, Bowers has been the team’s leading receiver. He led Georgia in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns in each of the past two seasons and was well on his way to doing it again in 2023. To date, he’s got 41 receptions, 567 yards and 4 touchdowns.

More so than just his statistical output, Bowers has a unique gravity about him that opens everything else up for the rest of the offense.

“You can’t just key him because when you play zone defense, you don’t know who has him. When you play man defense, you can’t cover him,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said following Georgia’s win over Kentucky. “So there’s illusions, you know? There’s a rocket motion, and one guy has the receiver. The receiver goes across the field, and now that defensive back that had the receiver, he has Brock. But he didn’t know he had Brock before the motion occurred. So there’s bumping going on. There’s all kinds of action going across the field, and it’s a nightmare because if you put your eyes in the backfield and you think you’ve got to stop the run, 19′s behind you. And I’m sure teams wanted to stop 19 that could, but we’ve got other answers.”

In the tight end room, first up in replacing Bowers will be Oscar Delp. The sophomore tight end has had a front-row seat in watching Bowers work the past two seasons.

That should help him with the enormous shoes he’s about to try and fill.

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