Georgia football is still missing their star transfer running back Josh McCray. The former Illinois running back has been missing throughout all of Georgia’s fall camp with an undisclosed illness, but it’s clear this illness is pretty bad if it’s keeping him out for this long.
The main concern with McCray being out for this long is that he may not be fully ready to go by the time the season begins even if he is healthy. But according to Kirby Smart on Tuesday, McCray is not falling behind the rest of the running backs even with this illness.
"Yeah, I don't know that he's behind," Smart shared via 247sports.com. "I think the biggest thing is just getting him in shape, caught up to speed, reps, volume, pick-ups, words, all those things. And he continues to push to get where he needs to."
Josh McCray’s illness isn’t holding him back
Even though this was a positive update from Smart, he didn’t sound 100 percent confident in McCray being fully ready to go by the time the season begins. Smart agreed with many Georgia fans that it’s going to be difficult for McCray to be in game shape by Aug. 30 after missing all of this time with an illness.
But according to Smart, McCray is doing everything he can to not let this slow him down. McCray is doing as much as he can right now to keep up to speed on everything taking place at fall camp, that way when he is healthy again he is ready to show why he should be the No. 2 running back behind Nate Frazier.
Georgia’s running back room has plenty of options even without McCray as a redshirt freshman has been raising eyebrows, but it goes without saying that UGA’s running back room and offense as a whole will be better with McCray fully healthy. And according to Smart, it doesn’t sound like he is too far off from being healthy again.