Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart addressed the media for the first time of spring football Tuesday afternoon, where he updated everyone on the team.
That press conference included announcing that Darnell Washington would be out for the spring with a lower leg injury.
While it’s never great to get news like that, it does give true freshman Oscar Delp an ample opportunity.
Georgia football tight end Oscar Delp needs to jump at the playing time opportunity while he can.
Washington joins Brock Bowers on the list of players out for the spring, so Delp has a wide-open lane to playing time and potentially a break-out season. He doesn’t have near as much competition to worry about this spring as he did. We expected him to impress, but now it just got that much easier.
Delp needs to stay healthy, show off what he can do, and get some serious playing time for G-Day. There is still Arik Gilbert, but the roster lists him as a receiver.
Coming out of high school, Delp already got comparisons to Bowers, and now we get to see if the speculation is true.
According to his 247Sports profile, Delp runs a 4.66 40-yard dash. He is quick like Bowers and has more receiver tendencies than big tight ends like Washington. However, Georgia showed us all they like those kinds of tight ends.
The biggest question will be whether or not Delp can handle the blocking that comes with being a Georgia tight end. He will have plenty of time to work on it this spring and into the summer, but that will be something to watch.
Delp will compete with the other two scholarship tight ends, Brett Seither and Ryland Goede. This injury to Washington will allow these three guys to step up and earn some more time on the field. Goede and Seithe took redshirts, so they’ve been around enough to know the ropes.
However, Delp has the talent that should beat them, but they know the playbook, so they could also take advantage of this situation.
It stinks to see Washington sidelined this spring because he worked through an ankle injury last year, and once he came back, it was Bowers’ show. He needed a strong spring, but now it’ll be about getting healthy. As for Delp, take the opportunity and run with it because this could be what helps him get on the field early and create a monstrous and versatile tight end duo.