Georgia Football: Sony Michel deserved his Rose Bowl moment

Coming out of the shadows:

October 10th 2015 is a day that a lot of Georgia fans will not forget, for all the wrong reasons. That was the day that Nick Chubb suffered a horrific knee injury at Tennessee. Nobody who saw that moment will ever forget it.

As bad as that moment was, it was what gave Sony Michel his chance. While he likely hurt to see his good friend laid low by an injury, Michel had the opportunity to show what he could do. And he succeeded. He became a 1000 yard rusher in his own right that year and he did so in convincing fashion.

For the first time, you heard people talking about Michel as they should do. That he was a legitimiate top running back prospect who could do it all. There was no more talk about how ‘he was a good backup’ to Chubb. No, for the first time, fans and the media started to realize that he could be a star in his own right. When Kirby Smart came in after that year, fans were rightly excited by the prospect of having two legit starting backs for the first time.

The 2016 season did not go how either Michel of Chubb would have imagined. In what was supposed to be their swansong at Georgia before they went to the NFL, the Dawgs kind of sucked. Georgia went 7-5 in the regular season in Kirby Smarts first year. A porous offensive line saw both Chubb and Michel struggle to excel. Their first full season of sharing carries together as a tandem fell flat.