Kirby Smart casts doubt on injury status for key Georgia starter

Georgia football has thankfully survived the offseason without any significant injuries. However, starting punter Brett Thorson did suffer a significant knee injury during the SEC Championship game last season, and according to Kirby Smart his status for Saturday’s game against Marshall is still up in the air.

"I don't know if he (Thorson) is going to be kicking in this game, that hasn't been decided yet."

Starter Brett Thorson may miss week one matchup vs Marshall

Thorson is the best punter that Georgia has had in quite some time. In fact, the AP named Thorson to their Preseason All-America First Team just last week. Everyone knew Thorson was coming off a significant injury when the All-America teams were released, so college football experts apparently aren’t concerned about how he’ll do once he finally returns.

It goes without saying how important having a good punter is. A good punter like Thorson can have a huge impact on a game because he can save Georgia when they’re struggling to move the ball by flipping the field and giving UGA’s defense a chance to string stops together. So missing Thorson for any amount of time this season isn’t great.

The good news for Georgia is that they won’t need Thorson to beat Marshall or Austin Peay in their first two games of the season. So if their is any question about his health, it would be wise for Georgia to keep him sidelined and wait until he is healthy again.

Smart later added that Thorson is kicking the ball during practice, he just hasn’t participated in any live portions of their practices. This shows that Thorson should be back to full health very soon, if not by their first game this weekend. But the smart choice might be to keep Thorson sidelined this weekend and bring him back next week against Austin Peay. This will give Thorson one more week to get fully healthy before getting one game under his belt before Georgia’s SEC season begins at Tennessee week three.