How Georgia football gets creative to utilize 'super freak' Brock Bowers in dynamic offense

After questions about what Brock Bowers might do for an encore to follow his fabulous first college season — he hobnobbed with Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young in Atlantic City while picking up a national freshman of the year award and his parents put up a cardboard Brock in their living room in Napa, Calif., from an NIL deal with a financial institution — Bowers had a relatively quiet first couple of games this season.

Then he exploded again.

“Brock is like a ticking time bomb,” center Sedrick Van-Pran Granger said. “You never know when he’s going off. You just have to be prepared for him as his teammate.”

And if you are a defense trying to stop him. Bowers can do damage lined up all over the field as South Carolina found out Saturday.

There he is outside as a receiver running right and taking a reverse for a 5-yard touchdown. Here he is lined up wide on the left side running a fade route that he grabs with two hands after twisting and turning while staying in bounds in the end zone for a 6-yard score. Now check him out lined up with his hand in the dirt next to right tackle and then watch him go into a wide-open middle of the field, make the grab before stepping inside one defender who falls trying to make a low tackle and carom off him and step inside another player before running for a 78-yard touchdown.

“He’s special,” quarterback Stetson Bennett said. “You get the ball is his hands and for some reason people just bounce off of him.

The ESPN camera captured offensive coordinator Todd Monken high-fiving tight ends coach Todd Hartley in the coaches’ box after Bowers’ third touchdown of the game in a 48-7 rout of South Carolina.

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“He is without a doubt a phenomenal damn football player,” said Randy McMichael, the former Georgia All-SEC tight end who spent 11 seasons in the NFL. “It was cool as hell to watch a tight end run a reverse but nothing he does on a football field surprises me, man. He’s one of the best Dawgs I’ve ever seen play regardless of position.”

Bowers isn’t eligible for the NFL draft until 2024 so he will have a chance to dent the record book even more. He has 15 touchdown receptions and will crack the program’s top 10 with his next. The record is 30 by Terrence Edwards from 1999-2002.

Bowers would have a minimum of 23 games to go — and given how good Georgia is it will probably be more — to become the school’s all-time TD catch leader.

“It’s really surreal,” said DeAnna Bowers, Brock’s mother. “Even last year when me and my husband were being parents and watching this all unfold, it really took us a couple of months to process that all that happened.”

What happened, of course, was Bowers made All-American teams after setting a UGA record with 13 touchdown catches and a program-record for a tight end of 882 receiving yards on 56 catches, which tied for most ever at the school for a freshman.

McMichael sees him as a mix between NFL star Travis Kelce with running with the ball and navigating traffic and his athleticism and ability to high-point a ball for a catch reminds him of Tony Gonzalez, a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

“I think Brock Bowers will definitely be a top 10 pick,” McMichael said.

Bowers looked the part on the 78-yard touchdown against South Carolina just like he did on a 77-yard touchdown at Georgia Tech last year.

Coach Kirby Smart said he didn’t know that Bowers put up 5 catches for 121 yards in the game, but “I knew he looked fast running down the field.”

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Put a stopwatch on it and he went 8.31 seconds over the 61 yards after the catch while evading defenders.

Bowers gives the nod to the Georgia Tech touchdown.

“I don’t know if I felt as fast,” he said of the Saturday long score.

DeAnna saw that speed on the first play of his junior season at Napa High when he returned a kickoff for a touchdown.

His sister Brianna who played softball at Sacramento State also can tear it up on the basepaths.

Brock’s parents are accomplished former college athletes at Utah State—Warren was a three-time All-Big West football center and DeAnna was an All-American pitcher, throwing a pair of no-hitters and 40 shutouts.

“We joke that Warren will beat me at 10 yards and I’ve got him at 40,” DeAnna said.

Bowers was fine the first two games being just another playmaker in an offense where the ball is being spread around all over including to fellow tight end Darnell Washington.

“We’re out there winning games and just out there playing so it’s fun,” he said last week. “It’s all good.”

He didn’t need to score 30 points on his basketball team growing up either.

“He would dish it off to one of his good friends who would routinely score 3-pointers,” his mother said. “Monken has so many toys to play with which is so fun to watch.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football tight end Brock Bowers used in many ways in offense