News has come out of Athens that freshman Georgia Bulldogs running back Lovasea Carroll has been making a position switch to play cornerback, per Chip Towers of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Carroll is a 4-star recruit out of IMG Academy in Florida. He stands at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds and committed to UGA as the 247Sports Composite No. 6 running back recruit in the 2021 class.
“It’s experimental,” said Georgia head coach Kirby Smart after the team’s second full spring practice this Thursday. “We recruited him as a running back. We’re really deep at the running-back position. He’s probably going to be a factor on special teams because he’s really fast.”
The Bulldogs might need to make some of these experimental moves after getting blindsided and losing almost its entire defensive backfield. Tyson Campbell, DJ Daniel and Eric Stokes all decided to enter the 2021 NFL Draft as juniors. Safety Richard LeCounte is entering as a senior and former Georgia defensive back Tyrique Stevenson transferred to Miami this offseason. Needless to say there is a big void to fill on the Georgia defense that Carroll could impact positively.
“I’ve had running backs I’ve recruited at other places I was who said, ‘Man, I wish I’d played corner because of how much those guys were getting paid and how many of them were getting paid in the NFL,” Smart said. “The shelf-life of a corner is much longer than a (running) back, and there are a lot more corners in the NFL than there are (running) backs. So, you look at the case of those three guys that worked out yesterday, LC comes in with a lot of the same length and speed parameters. He has a lot of the same qualities that those guys have. What he doesn’t have is experience.”
Hopefully this spring will be enough experience for Carroll, as his athleticism and talent aren’t what are at question here. Carroll essentially has no experience playing as a defensive back but the Georgia recruiting staff saw something in his athleticism that could potentially end up paying dividends for the Dawgs’ secondary this season.
“I would not say that it’s permanent,” Smart said, making this very clear. “I would say it’s a spring experiment, and we’ll go from there.”
It will be interesting to see how this situation with Carroll and the whole Georgia secondary plays out as the 2021 season gets closer.