Georgia football: 30 greatest players of the Mark Richt era
By John Buhler
- SEC Champion (2002)
- First-Team All-American (2002)
- First-Team All-SEC (2002)
- Second-Team All-SEC (2001)
Though his older brother Champ Bailey is a lock to make both the College Football and Pro Football Hall of Fame, let’s not forget how impactful of a player linebacker Boss Bailey was in the early part of the Mark Richt era in Athens.
Like his older brother, Bailey committed to the G out of Charlton County High School is South Georgia. He played his first two years at Georgia for Richt’s predecessor Jim Donnan. While he did carve out a starting role in Donnan’s defense in 2000, Bailey would see his best years of ball under Richt when their two paths crossed in 2001.
Bailey was Second-Team All-SEC as a junior in 2001, playing in 11 games for the Dawgs. However, it would be his senior season in Athens that made Bailey a UGA legend. He would be named First-Team All-SEC, as well as First-Team All-American in some publications.
More importantly, Georgia would win the SEC for the first time since the league expanded to 12 teams with the additions of Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992. That year would also feature Bailey’s signature play in Dawgs uniform.
Georgia had beaten the rival Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville the year prior in the famous Hobnail Boot Game. When the Vols came down to Athens, Bailey and wide receiver Reggie Brown came to play.
Brown would block a Volunteers punt that resulted in a Georgia touchdown. Even more impressive, Bailey was able to block a Tennessee field goal in dramatic fashion. He must have been four feet in the air when he ruined Tennessee’s shot at three points. Georgia would finish 7-1 in SEC play that season after a strong win over rival Tennessee.
Bailey was a huge part of the defense that guided Georgia to a 2002 SEC Championship. He would be a finalist for Butkus and Lombardi Awards that season. This all aided in Bailey’s climb up NFL Draft boards, as he would be taken No. 34 overall by the Detroit Lions in the 2003 NFL Draft.
Bailey spent his first five NFL seasons in Detroit and the 2008 NFL season playing alongside his older brother with the Denver Broncos before retiring. Though a solid NFL player, Bailey will be best remembered as one of the leaders of the 2002 Georgia defense that catapulted the team to an SEC crown.