24 For 2024 - #20 Dominic Lovett

"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 #20. 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 - #20 Dominic Lovett

UGA rarely takes transfers.

There are a few reasons why…

1) The Bulldogs recruiting has been as good as any team in the nation since Kirby Smart arrived. Georgia has signed 8 straight classes ranked in the top three nationally, which has stocked every position room with blue-chip talent.

2) Georgia’s staff has been excellent when it comes to evaluating high-school prospects. UGA signs a lot of four and five-star prospects, but it also has a tremendous hit rate on lower ranked players. Over 25% of the three-star recruits that Georgia has brought in under Smart have been drafted by the NFL, which is over five times the national average. If UGA is signing a player who isn’t highly rated then it usually means they know something that the recruiting services don’t. Even when Georgia loses a highly publicized recruitment, it usually doesn’t miss out on filling its needs at the position.

3) Georgia develops its talent as well as any program in college football. The process of building a pipeline of recruited talent isn’t static. When players show up they are nurtured by teams of nutritionists, strength coaches and football experts. The UGA machine takes players who are already very good and makes them stronger, faster, and technically sound. Sometimes Georgia takes a player who is good at one position, and turns them into a productive player at a totally different spot. They might have to gain 40 pounds first, but UGA’s staff has done the homework to know whether that prospect’s frame can put on that type of weight without sacrificing too much speed. If a weaknesses exists in a player’s game it is minimized. Georgia recruits some prospects who they expect to contribute early. They recruit others who will go through a long period of change prior to ever taking the field. Either way, there is usually a plan. If a player is in UGA’s system then it’s because the staff believes it can turn that player into a significant contributor one day.

4) UGA won back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022, and it hasn’t lost a regular season game since 2020. That said, winning comes at a price. If you want to play for Georgia then you have to work harder than you would at most places. Practices are more physical. Coaches are more demanding. So are teammates. Every coach and player at every college program wants to win, but very few are willing to suffer to do it. If you want to play for Georgia you have to be willing to suffer a little bit.

5) Georgia’s general recruiting proposition is based around everything above… The Dawgs develop NFL talent. When you amass lots of NFL talent at the college level then you compete for championships every year. After those championships are played for, guys go and get paid. In the NIL world, a lot of players are looking to maximize their current market value instead of maximizing their future earning potential. Georgia pays its proven stars well, but only after they’re proven. The Dawgs are never the highest bidder for any player, and that includes ones who enter the portal. Kids who enter the transfer portal after a successful season are often moving up from a contender. They often do so because they missed out on big NIL bucks as recruits. The NFL might be in their future, but more often than not they want to get paid immediately. Finding a player who is using a productive season as a springboard is normal. Finding one who wants better development and a chance to compete for championships more than they want the biggest dollar amount isn’t normal.

UGA’s Talent Acquisition Strategy at WR

After Georgia’s 2021 national title, the Bulldogs chose not to bring any players in through the portal. Smart bet on the guys he had on his roster, and it paid off in a 15-0 season. It made a pretty significant statement when the Bulldogs brought Dominic Lovett and Rara Thomas into their WR room the following offseason. It made an even bigger statement when the Bulldogs brought 3 more portal WR’s into the program this past offseason (London Humphreys, Michael Jackson III and Colbie Young).

Wideout is the one position on the roster where UGA has been unable to consistently hit home-runs with its high-school recruiting. A big reason why is the high percentage of top WR’s who are looking for the biggest NIL deal they can find. Georgia sells its development on the trail much more than any immediate earnings a player might acquire, but it also doesn’t prioritize spending on WR’s. Smart’s program has been built on the line of scrimmage, and an elite front seven propelled UGA to its 2021 national title. The hardest thing to find in football is big bodies that can move. There are only a few real difference makers on the defensive line in any given class, and history has shown that those players rarely transfer once they pick a college. When Georgia takes big swings with NIL at the high-school level, it usually does it along the line of scrimmage.

On the other hand, WR’s are a dime a dozen. The Bulldogs signed 3-star wideouts in back-to-back classes when it brought in Ladd McConkey in 2020 and AD Mitchell in 2021. Mitchell eventually transferred to Texas, but both players were picked in the first two rounds of the most recent NFL Draft. You can find value further down in a class, and recent evidence points to the idea that UGA believes it can also find value in the portal.

The most impressive thing about Georgia’s back-to-back championship seasons is that it was missing its #1 wideouts for most of the time. George Pickens was never fully healthy for UGA in 2021, and AD Mitchell only played 3 games at full speed in 2022. The Dawgs have shown they can build pass catching depth, but they have still yet to have a 1000 yard receiver in the Smart era. Lots of schools like to use that against UGA on the recruiting trail, and it’s another reason why the Bulldogs have found themselves with 5 transfer wideouts on their 2024 roster.

Could the Loss of Bowers & McConkey lead to Lovett breaking out?

If you’ve followed my work for awhile, then you’re probably familiar with Yards Per Route Run. It’s a simple stat- Yards receiving divided by the number of routes a player has run. When applied to WR’s who receive regular playing time, YRR is an extremely effective measuring stick. Historically speaking, 2.00 YRR is the benchmark for high level receiver play.

Brock Bowers, Rara Thomas, Ladd McConkey and Dominic Lovett were among the 19 SEC pass catchers who had 50+ targets and 1.99 Yards Per Route Run in the 2022 season. In 2023, McConkey (3.26 YRR) and Bowers (2.65 YRR) again easily cleared that mark.

Both players missed at least 4 games, but they were also the targets who UGA’s passing offense ran through on passing downs. McConkey played in 9 games for Georgia, but he was on a snap count in some of them due to back issues. His YRR numbers are likely inflated by the fact that UGA looked to maximize his snaps by using him when they could. He had 37 TGT’s and 30 REC’s for 483 yards last season, but they came on just 148 receiving snaps. Bowers took 271 receiving snaps. Despite only playing in 10 games, that number was the second most on the team.

Thomas struggled adjusting from Mississippi State’s Air Raid offense to UGA’s pro style concepts early in 2023, but he was beginning to come alive before suffering a foot injury late in the season. He recorded a 1.72 YRR, but he only saw 35 targets over 11 games and never really got into a groove.

Lovett led UGA with 315 receiving snaps, and his 70 targets was just 1 shy of the team high that Bowers recorded. His 614 yards on 53 receptions led to him having a respectable 1.95 YRR, but that was almost a full yard lower than the 2.94 YRR that he recorded as the #1 WR in Missouri’s 2022 offense. That season, he was one of only 3 SEC receivers with more than 2.50 YRR

So, why the regression? There were times early in the year where Lovett and Beck didn’t seem to be totally on the same page, but that changed as the season went on. The truth is that Bowers and McConkey took up a lot of the vertical space in the 2023 UGA offense. Lovett’s average depth of target in 2022 was 11.8 yards downfield, but that slipped to 6.2 yards at Georgia last season. With that in mind, Lovett’s 11.6 yards per catch looks a bit more healthy. On average, he gained 5.4 yards after the catch per reception.

With Bowers and McConkey gone, the question we must ask is what Lovett can be for UGA in 2024. Like McConkey, he has experience both inside and outside. In 2021 at Missouri he took 77.6% of his snaps on the boundary. In 2022, he took nearly 84% of them in the slot. That year, Lovett had 45 catches for 746 YDS when lined up in the slot. That led to an eye popping 3.16 YRR as an inside receiver.

Those numbers point in a direction that says Georgia is probably correct to use Lovett in the slot. He took 83.5% of his snaps there in 2023, and it appears he will once again be the starter at slot for UGA in 2024. Where he lines up doesn’t need to change, but where he goes next probably should. Lovett averaged 16.6 yards a catch as an inside WR in that 2022 season at Mizzou, but he did it with an ADOT of 12.6 yards.

If you watched Carson Beck in 2023 then you know one of the things he excels at is throwing the ball up the seams. Lovett is at his best lined up inside, and the two could form a formidable pair on intermediate throws over the middle of the field. Lovett’s YAC numbers seem to go up the further downfield he runs his routes. He caught 9 passes on 14 targets of 10-19 yards over the middle. He turned those receptions into 222 yards, which was helped by the 10.3 yards after the catch that he averaged after those catches. That is a super productive 24.7 yards per catch, which makes sense for a speedy WR who can create separation. It is something UGA should look to use to its advantage in 2024. In short, send #6 downfield and good things happen.

At times this offseason, I’ve wondered what it might have looked like if Georgia had used Lovett that way at the end of 2023. The UGA passing game struggled through the SEC Championship with an injured McConkey and a hobbled Bowers facing a secondary full of future pros. Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint and Dillon Bell also struggled to create separation throughout much of the game. When you go back and rewatch the tape of that SEC title game loss, it is Lovett who is often breaking open somewhere on the field as the ball is delivered to a well covered Bowers or McConkey.

Lovett creates separation frequently and put up strong numbers at Mizzou despite middling quarterback play. He was a major part of Georgia’s screen game last season, with 22 of his 70 targets coming behind the line of scrimmage. That should continue this year, but Lovett will look to improve on the 6.3 yards per catch he had on receptions behind the line. The rising senior had just 5 missed tackles forced last year. Sources have said that he’s spent time bulking up his lower half this offseason in the hopes of fighting through contact better and creating more yards after the catch.

There is no replacing Brock Bowers, but there is a chance for Georgia to replace both him and McConkey in the aggregate. When looking for matchup problems on the UGA roster, Lovett stands out. He had 13 REC’s on 16 TGT’s against man coverage last year and all 4 of his TD’s came in man-to-man situations despite the fact he only averaged 3.0 yards of YAC per catch versus man. On the other side of the coin, Lovett produced 8.3 YDS of YAC/rec versus zone coverage last year. This speaks to the fact that he can burn man coverage downfield for big plays and find holes to sit down in when facing zone. He is a total package.

Lovett will have plenty of other weapons around him, and the combo of Rara Thomas and Colbie Young on the outside should keep teams from shading coverage towards the middle of the field. That would be major for the Bulldogs. Lovett’s play will be a big factor in determining if the Bulldogs have enough firepower to win a third title in four years, but it could also have a ripple effect on UGA’s talent acquisition strategy at the position moving forward.

At the moment, it looks like UGA can manage its WR position without recruiting high-school wideouts at an elite level. Lovett left Missouri after being its #1 option, but felt scorned by the amount of NIL money and attention that the program had funneled towards freshman 5-star Luther Burden. By coming to Georgia, he made a decision to compete for bigger prizes at a better program. The Bulldogs gave Lovett just 6 less targets last season than he had at Mizzou in 2022, but he also played in 2 more games.

Georgia sold Lovett on being a feature WR for a title team and further developing him for the NFL. That development is happening. Lovett’s blocking improved greatly throughout 2023, and his body has gone through another transformation this offseason. That said, he wasn’t always featured last year. He often disappeared for long stretches despite seeing the most receiving snaps on the team.

In the end, quality is more important than quantity. McConkey was drafted 34rd overall despite having less than 150 receiving snaps last season. Lovett can be a productive high volume target who lives off of little chunks, but it feels like the NFL loves to see its future draft picks showing they can create separation on vertical routes. Georgia’s WR recruiting at all levels could be well served if it showcases Lovett in a way that leads to him having a good year statistically. It could also be well served by having him turn into a highly drafted player. Whether true or not, Georgia would not be helped by the perception that Lovett’s future was hurt by leaving Mizzou for Georgia. If the Dawgs don’t want to be involved in NIL bidding wars at the high-school level, then it needs its portal wideouts to be success stories.

Bowers and the targets he demanded is now a thing of the past. The Bulldogs also have a future first-round QB under center in Beck. This feels like the time where a Georgia wideout could finally put up big numbers in big moments. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lovett ends up being the guy who does it.