“Who would you rank as the coaches most important to UGA’s success?”
A DawgsCentral user posting under the name PiousMonken posed that question to me in the spring of 2023, and I quickly realized that a good answer would require quite a bit of consideration.
When thinking about the question, I kept coming back to an old football cliche, "It's not the X's and the O's, but the Jimmys and the Joes that make the difference." I found myself considering the players who suit up on Saturdays. Good gameplans and great play calls are key to the success of any college football program, but they are usually only as good as the personnel executing them. With that in mind, I decided to broaden the scope of the rankings beyond members of the coaching staff.
It sparked a series of longform articles called 23 For 2023. The premise was simple- Profile the 23 people who were most important to Georgia’s success on the gridiron in 2023. To create such a list, one must make value judgments on what on and off-field assets are most important to a modern college football program.
It focused on players and coaches within the UGA program. Collectively, the series served as a giant preview for the season ahead. It became a favorite of subscribers, and it forced me to ask questions that I hadn’t before.
This year, I am bringing the list back once again. Naturally, it will be called 24 for 2024.
With his former mentor now manning a microphone on ESPN, Kirby Smart is college football’s most accomplished coach. In 2024, Smart will have to navigate significant staff turnover and seismic changes within the sport itself. Georgia came up short of a third straight national championship in 2023, but winning it all this season would give the Bulldogs three titles in four years. That achievement would cement the program as a modern dynasty.
Whether or not Georgia can reach that lofty pedestal, and how they go about trying to do it, will be largely influenced by the roles these 24 individuals play.
Today we continue the rankings with #22. The first few entries in this series will not be paywalled, but as we get further down the list it will become a subscriber’s only feature. Let’s get after it…
24 For 2024 - #22 Benjamn Yurosek
There are two types of transfer portal additions in modern college football.
The first are those borne out of necessity. Numbers are often thinned by early draft entries or players exiting through the portal, and the program has to find enough depth to endure a college football season.
Sometimes a position has the proper numbers, but the staff knows it has a position that is in need of a talent upgrade. At Georgia, almost any player who is transferring out is doing so because they don’t see a path to the field.
Anyone with good info on the UGA program could have told you that the Bulldogs were likely to add some experienced receivers this past offseason. Kirby Smart signed three portal wideouts. Yes, the Bulldogs needed to fill numbers that had dwindled due to graduations and underclassmen transfers, but they also lacked big bodies with the size and length of a prototypical outside receiver.
Almost everything that happens in college football’s transfer portal happens because of the first reason, but occasionally there is another- The player is too good to pass up.
That was the case at the tight-end position for Georgia this offseason.
We all knew that Brock Bowers was going to be heading to the NFL after the 2023 season, but TE coach Todd Hartley has spent the last few years stacking blue-chip recruits behind Bowers. It seemed like Brock’s exit from the program would be an opportunity for talented players who had waited their turn to step into the spotlight.
• 4* Oscar Delp, 6’4” 245 lbs - #2 TE Class of 2022
• 4* Pearce Spurlin, 6’7” 230 lbs - #2 TE Class of 2023
• 4* Lawson Luckie, 6’3” 230 lbs - #8 TE Class of 2023
• 4* Jaden Reddell, 6’4” 235 lbs - #5 TE Class of 2024
• 3* Colton Heinrich, 6’3” 230 lbs - #40 TE Class of 2024
Nobody would look at that list of names and see an obvious need that UGA would want to fill from the portal, but that changed when Stanford TE Benjamin Yurosek came available. A grad transfer with three years of starting experience, Yurosek was widely regarded as one of the nation’s top returning TE’s. Yurosek took some recruiting visits this winter before announcing he would play his final year of college football at UGA. Suddenly, the West Coast kid out of Bakersfield, CA was bound for the Classic City.
With the exception of Heinrich, all of the players listed above were national recruits who could have gone to almost any program in the country. This spring, the program announced that Spurlin would be forced to retire from football due to a congenital heart condition. Spurlin was a promising player who flashed a lot of potential when he saw the field in 2023. His absence in the room meant UGA would have one less body. Even with the loss of Spurlin, the Bulldogs had the experienced Delp and the ascendant Luckie to pair with blue-chip 2024 recruit Jaden Reddell.
Delp was originally viewed as a receiving TE, but he has put on muscle every year and turned himself into an excellent inline blocker. Luckie was one of the breakout players of Georgia’s 2023 spring practices, and his explosiveness after the catch made an immediate impression. An injury in last year’s fall camp slowed his rise, but he improved as a blocker last fall and appears ready to contribute on a regular basis in 2024.
With Bowers now gone, many are predicting a breakout year for the WR position at Georgia. While I don’t think a TE is going to be Georgia’s #1 receiving option in 2024, I do think it’d be a mistake to assume that the Dawgs will abandon their roots.
Most UGA fans understand that the Bulldogs have a TE on the field on almost every play. What some might be overlooking is the fact that 12 Personnel sets (2 TE’s) have become a staple of Georgia’s offense.
Most people envision smash mouth football when they hear two tight-end sets brought up, but the Bulldogs have been extremely effective passing the ball out of them. The 2022 team created headaches for opposing secondaries by working Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington into man-to-man situations versus linebackers and safeties.
Most people envision smash mouth football when they hear two tight-end sets brought up, but the Bulldogs have been extremely effective passing the ball out of them. The 2022 team created headaches for opposing secondaries by working Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington into man-to-man situations versus linebackers and safeties.
So, what is Yurosek doing in Athens?
Yurosek’s commitment to UGA raised my eyebrows for a moment, but I must admit that I gave the former Stanford TE very little thought as the Bulldogs moved through the offseason. When spring practice was over, I began talking to more sources about the specifics of the 2024 team. One thing became very clear during those conversations… Georgia brought Benjamin Yurosek to Athens to be a major piece of its offense.
Delp is a very different player now than he was back in 2022 when he joined Georgia. He has added 25-30 pounds since he enrolled in Athens, and it has turned him into a strong inline blocker. Oscar filled in admirably in the passing game when Bowers was out of the lineup in 2023, but he is a bit stiffer through the hips and is probably going to be most effective running routes up the seams and into the flat. With Bowers, the Bulldogs had a TE who could run a full route tree to every level of the field.
It goes without saying that there is no replacing Brock Bowers. He was an extremely unique player who could hold up as a blocker in the SEC while also racking up an average of 8.5 yards after the catch per reception during his career. The ability that Brock had once the ball was in his hands created incredible value for Georgia. If the Bulldogs flipped Bowers the ball in the flat on 1st & 10 then the average result was going to put them into 2nd & 1. Delp is not likely to do that.
Yurosek stood out when healthy at Stanford despite having inconsistent QB play and few other high-end skill players around him. A big reason why is his ability to create his own yardage. At 6’4” and 243 pounds, Yurosek is actually a bit taller than Bowers and about a dozen pounds heavier. He and Delp are almost identically sized on paper, but Yurosek is a more dynamic runner.
Yurosek battled injuries in 2023, and they ended his season just halfway through the year. Back in 2021, he led Stanford pass catchers with 653 YDS and was second on the team with 42 catches. Yurosek’s average of 15.5 YDS per catch was also the highest on the 2021 Stanford roster.
In 2022, his per reception average slid down to 9.1 yards, but he actually pulled down more passes. His 49 receptions were second on the team, but Yurosek had just 445 yards to show for it. He battled through a knee injury between the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and the rehab stretched into fall camp. He was held out of spring practice and wasn’t seen in full pads until only a couple weeks prior to the season. It seemed to rob him of some of his explosiveness after the catch, but his decreased yards per catch could also be contributed to Stanford using him underneath more in 2022. The Average Depth of Target (ADOT) was 9.3 yards downfield when Yurosek was thrown to in 2021, but that ADOT fell to just 6.5 YDS past the line of scrimmage the next year.
The decreased ADOT was in some ways a compliment to Yurosek’s skillset. Back in 2022, Bowers and Yurosek had a unique thing in common. They were both seeing significant amounts of targets on screens or behind the line of scrimmage. Bowers averaged 8.7 yards after the catch on 18 catches off screens. Yurosek was right behind him with 8.5 YAC/rec on 13 screen passes.
There were only two other TE’s in the country who had 13+ targets on screens that season. One was South Carolina’s dynamic Swiss Army knife of a player, Jaheim Bell. The other was Mackey Award finalist Michael Mayer. We are talking about unique, highly skilled TE’s here. Like Bowers, Yurosek was also used as a rusher at Stanford. He had 11 carries last year before the season ending injury. He averaged 4.8 YPA on those rushes, but he did force a few missed tackles and 64.1% of his yardage came after contact. The implication would be that he didn’t get great blocking help. In 2022, Yurosek had just one carry, an end-around for 50 yards off the right side.
What’s interesting for UGA’s purposes is that Yurosek is probably a better blocker than most realize. He was targeted 65 times in that 2022 season, but only 30 of those targets (46.2%) came out of the slot. Bowers saw 50 of his 82 targets (61.2%) come as a stand-up receiver. Working out of the slot should be an advantage for a TE with fluid hips and the ability to run in and out-breaking routes. It allows them to get upfield faster and with less resistance, and it opens up a more varied route tree.
For all his skills, Yurosek played 64.3% of his snaps as an inline TE in 2022, and that number bumped up to 67.8% in 2023. Stanford’s porous offensive line is likely a big reason why he played with his hand in the dirt so often. In many ways, he became an H-Back at times. He just happened to be an H-Back with some of the best receiving skills of any TE in college football.
Georgia has had the luxury of running a lot of deeper passing routes with its TE’s in recent years. Sometimes those were delayed releases, and at other moments they came off play-action fakes that helped freeze opposing linebackers. The Cardinal’s weaknesses up front often forced Yurosek to stay in the box to help chip pass rushers and provide extra blocking numbers in the run game.
When he did go out for a pass, Yurosek was dealing with extremely limited play from the QB position. Stanford passers had just 11 passing TD’s last year while throwing 10 INT’s. Looking at where his targets came in 2023, it seems like Yurosek was asked to run mostly underneath routes over the middle as his career wore on at Stanford. I went back and pulled tape from each year of Yurosek’s college career, and it was wild to see the amount of throws where he would be wide open downfield and the QB would just miss him. I am guessing that Stanford’s coaches grew tired of trying to run things their players couldn’t execute, and stopped sending him downfield as much.
Back in 2021, Yurosek was on a team with slightly better pieces around him. It freed him up to do more things downfield. He worked depths of 10-19 yards with consistency, and he caught 14 passes in that range while averaging over 23 YDS per catch on those receptions. What’s really intriguing is that 2021 Yurosek had 9 yards of YAC per reception on those intermediate routes in the same season where he averaged 10.9 yards of YAC/rec on throws behind the line of scrimmage. In plain terms, he created separation from defenders downfield but also read blocking and forced missed tackles in space on the perimeter.
Yurosek has been stuck in a system that needed him to play around the line of scrimmage. Because of that, he’s had a limited number of downfield opportunities. In his career, he has been targeted only 14 times on throws of 20+ yards.
Despite the limited sample, he has an impressive track record of pulling in contested catches. In his career, he has caught 5 of 7 contested catch opportunities on throws of 20+ yards downfield. He almost never lined up out wide at Stanford, but there were 3 times in his career where he was thrown a deep ball outside the numbers. All of those came on the left boundary, and he caught all three of them. Two of those were contested. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Georgia try to use Yurosek on the boundaries some in 2024.
There are two things that make QB’s comfortable. The first is YAC. We have already established that Yurosek has shown he can chew up extra yardage after the catch when he gets the ball. The second thing QB’s love is feeling like a receiver is never covered.
2024 Georgia struggled against Alabama because it was without Rara Thomas and it didn’t have other big targets to pull down 50/50 balls. Yurosek’s size makes him part of that solution. He comes to UGA with a career Contested Catch Rate of 56.3%. He’s pulled down 18 contested receptions on 32 targets. That’s a good number, and it’s informative on a certain level, but that doesn’t even begin to tell the real story of his catch radius. He makes spinning catches over his head, pulls in one-handed catches with a defender on his other shoulder, and snags the ball in a hole in the zone between three defenders. There are a lot of plays in his career that should have gone for long yardage. Oftentimes, a bad throw turned 3-5 yards of separation into a catch where he had to jump for the ball or come to a stop and wait for it.
**Bowers finished his UGA career with a Contested Catch Rate of 59% (23 catches on 39 contested targets)**
How Yurosek could be used in Georgia’s offense
Brock Bowers was the most dynamic receiving TE in college football throughout his career in Athens. Despite that, we saw him do plenty of dirty work in the run game. Tight-ends often get classified as a “Y-TE” or an “F-TE.” The Y is a stand-up receiving TE, and the F is a blocking TE who is asked to function like an extra blocker. A true F is basically modern football’s version of a fullback.
Analyzing Georgia in recent years has taught us that the boxes aren’t drawn quite so neatly in the Bulldogs’ offense. Bowers was a phenomenal receiving TE who was asked to block the backside of many a run play. Darnell Washington had the blocking skills of an extra offensive tackle, but we saw him line up out wide at times as the solo receiver on his side of the play.
Looking at the tape of both players, I think Delp is a bit better run blocker than Yurosek, but I believe the Stanford transfer will be better in the trenches than most people expect. As for pass blocking, neither player has been asked to block snap to whistle a ton in their careers, but Yurosek ran a good number of delayed routes where he helped chip a pass rusher before going out for a pass. His feet are a bit more natural than Delp’s when dealing with an edge rusher, but I don’t think that is what he came to Athens to do.
Yurosek is a luxury for Georgia, and that is precisely what makes him so interesting to consider. Is he a fantastic receiving tight-end? Yes, but lining him up next to the offensive tackle, and motioning him as an H-Back should not be abandoned. UGA loves to run Levels Concepts (multiple players running out routes towards the sideline at different depths on the same side of the field) while rolling their QB right. The Bulldogs made a lot of easy first downs in 2022 when they flipped the ball out to an uncovered Darnell Washington in the flat. Yurosek’s usage in presnap motion at Stanford was intriguing. He often got outside leverage on a defender off orbit motions. That can be deployed in the flat at Georgia.
The advantage of the 2 TE sets that UGA runs out of 12 Personnel is that they are incredibly versatile. With athletic receivers liked Yurosek and Delp, defenses are stuck with poor choices. If they stay with lighter/faster defensive backs then the two TE’s could road grade them and bust big runs. If the defense decides to go heavy, then UGA can ask Yurosek and Delp to simply slip past them on a play-action pass as the LB is breaking down to take on what they expect to be a block.
Stanford also used Yurosek off motion as a run blocker. He would slide from one side of the formation to the other to try and seal off one side of the formation from a crashing edge defender. The Cardinal ran some beautiful fakes off of that action, and Yurosek would blow past a linebacker on a Wheel Route towards the sideline. Georgia should be able to run these same types of fakes if they deploy him properly. The diagram I made below is an example of the type of motions I’m referring to. 
As you can see, the same motions can be used in pass and run situations. For a player working out of the backfield, the motion options are extremely varied. He can be isolated on almost any back seven defender that the offense wants to test. The possibilities get even greater when you remember that Yurosek has shown he can be an effective ball carrier too. Yurosek can run a pre-snap orbit motion into an end-around. The next drive, he can fake that end-around and continue out for a pass. It can become dizzying for LB’s to deal with. Especially when he has the speed to make defenders pay dearly for any hesitation.
The blocking work Yurosek did over the last few years was part of what made him dangerous. It helped put defenses into conflict, and heavy/tight personnel sets were deeply ingrained in Stanford’s offensive identity under David Shaw. What’s tantalizing is the snaps Yurosek put on tape where he gets downfield quickly. There was a snap against Notre Dame a couple years ago where he lined up next to the offensive tackle and took off upfield before cutting on a deep slant. He left the Notre Dame safety in the dust and then outran two other Fighting Irish defenders to the far pylon of the end zone for a 49-yard touchdown.
That type of skillset could bring UGA’s 12 Personnel sets back to the level of effectiveness we saw in 2022. UGA can play out of tight formations with these TE’s and pound the ball on the ground. What’s intriguing to think about is the hurry-up potential. Georgia can hit a pass play out of a spread 12 Personnel formation, and then immediately go into a condensed set like the diagram below.
Back in 2021, Stanford had a 3rd ranked Oregon team in a close game in Palo Alto. The Cardinal got the ball back down 24-17 with a little over a minute to go. At that point, it was imperative that Stanford do anything it could to hit chunk pass plays and get in the end zone. Yurosek was moved out to the slot in four-wide and five-wide formations. He made two key catches on a TD drive that forced overtime. Looking at Yurosek’s body of work, it was clear that there were times that Stanford considered him their most reliable pass catcher.
The problem for Yurosek was that he was never on a team that won more than 3 games in a season. He was often a focal point of the opposing defense’s gameplan. He managed to be productive anyways, but the versatility he possesses probably hasn’t been put on full display. There are routes on tape where he beats an opponent’s #1 CB off the line of scrimmage and gets behind them on a deep ball. He has the size and skills to do the dirty work in the run game. I also believe he can work out wide in the red zone and high point the football on a Fade Route like an X-Receiver. Nobody will replace Bowers in a one for one scenario, but Yurosek’s comfort playing as an inline TE makes him schematically versatile in ways similar to Bowers.
Those skills make him a possible every down player for Georgia. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sees a lot of snaps in 2024 as the only UGA TE on the field. That’s not intended to write off Delp. Either could be the best choice depending on the opposition and the play call. There is no bad way to use Yurosek’s talent, but he is now surrounded by dynamic skill players that also demand attention. He is a chess piece that Bobo and the rest of Georgia’s offensive staff can get creative with. I expect him to be particularly effective in the Red Zone and on 3rd & 3 to 3rd & 7 type situations. We know Beck is comfortable throwing up the hash marks. He also excels at quick game throws inbetween holes in a zone defense. At the absolute least, Yurosek will be a security blanket in those areas. He has the talent to be used in many other ways though.
As the season wears on, Yurosek could represent a breaking point of sorts for opposing defenses. Can an opponent control Etienne and the other RB’s without putting extra numbers in the box? Maybe. Can an opponent’s defensive backs handle Lovett, Bell, Thomas, Young, Evans, Smith and all the other receivers? Maybe. Can they hold all of that force back and still get away with an extra defender playing Yurosek in man coverage? I don’t know. Can that extra defender hold up against him in both run and pass scenarios if UGA goes hurry-up? It feels unlikely.
UGA’s 2024 offense already felt like a pick your poison proposition for opposing coordinators. After doing a deep dive into Yurosek, it feels like there’s another prong to the Georgia attack. Football is about matchups, and Yurosek is a walking matchup problem. I don’t know if Yurosek will make big plays every week. I am not sure if he will rack up eye popping numbers either. What I do know is that games will come where he represents the piece that causes the dam to break. He’s another thing that defenses will have to take away, and taking him away is going to lead to water working its way through the cracks somewhere else.
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