Georgia football kicks Brenton Cox to the transfer portal
The Georgia football team opened 2019 fall drills by thinning the roster, saying farewell to outside linebacker Brenton Cox.
Georgia football welcomed the 2019 football team back to work by dismissing outside linebacker Brenton Cox. Fox 5 Sports described Cox’s departure as a mutual decision.
Cox got his first career start in the Sugar Bowl, registering six tackles in the Dawg’s loss to Texas. He then got his first career arrest, registering a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge an hour before Georgia opened spring practice. It was a team effort, with Robert Beal Jr also being arrested.
After Beal’s and Cox’s arrest, Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart said, “We’re going to do a great job of moving forward to get these guys in the right place to make the right decisions.”
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It appears Beal made it to the right place. Cox only made it to the transfer portal.
Five-star departures
Cox, a five-star member of Georgia football’s vaunted 2018 recruiting class, brought tremendous potential to the Bulldog program. It wasn’t long before public signs of a riff between Cox and his teammates appeared, however. In particular, shoves between senior D’Andre Walker and Cox during last season’s Middle Tennessee game raised early questions.
“We had kind of a bust on defense, we didn’t close as we should have, and they gashed a pretty good run,” said captain Jonathan Ledbetter. “They did it two to three times, and the same individual was not closing,”
Ojulari ascending
Whether Cox’s dismissal and quick entry into the transfer portal had anything to do with outside linebackers Azeez Ojulari’s strong finish to the season, and the effectiveness of incoming freshman Nolan Smith and junior college transfer Jermaine Jonson is a topic for speculation. It had become clear, however, that the trio of newcomers and veteran outside linebackers Walter Grant, Adam Anderson and Robert Beal had impressed defensive coordinator Dan Lanning, and Cox had not.
Cox is the third elite talent off the number one rated 2018 Bulldog recruiting class to leave the Georgia football program, joining Justin Fields and Luke Ford as former Dawgs.
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Georgia football’s five-star advantage
The Bulldog roster still holds 20 of the 24 five-star talents in the SEC’s Eastern Division, and there’s still plenty of talent at outside linebacker. Monty Rice told Connor Riley of Dawgnation, “We have a bunch of different dudes that can do a bunch of different things.”
The Dawgs are fine, but fine won’t feed the Bulldog nation, not any more.