Fan-favorite Georgia skill position threat a game-time decision vs Auburn in Week 5
Georgia’s fan-favorite receiving threat Ladd McConkey has been deemed a game-time decision for the Bulldogs’ Week 5 matchup with Auburn football on September 30 at Jordan-Hare Stadium according to DawgNation’s Mike Griffith.
“Back injuries are difficult to project, meaning McConkey will likely travel to Auburn barring a setback — teams can bring 74 players to games this season — but he will still be a game-time decision,” Griffith wrote. Kirby Smart was optimistic while discussing McConkey’s recovery from a back injury that has kept him out of UGA’s first month of the season.
“He’s looked really good,” Smart said to reporters September 27, having watched film of the September 26 practice and communicated with his player. “It’s been a walk before you run, run before you sprint, and then sprint and get contact. We’re in stages of that. It’s one of those things that we don’t know what’s gonna cause it to frustrate or bother him, and he has to trust it. He’s coming back, and he’s getting faster each day in terms of ramping up. And then conditioning is a factor as well, because we expect it to be hot and he hasn’t played a lot, so there may be a role for him in what he does.”
Ladd McConkey had his ‘breakout game’ against Auburn football in 2021
As DawgNation’s Connor Riley put it, McConkey’s first career 100+-yard game against Auburn football on October 9, 2021 — a Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry game best remembered by the AU receiving corps’s struggles — during Georgia’s first 21st-century championship season served as the coming-out party for the Chatsworth native.
“Ladd McConkey torched the Auburn secondary the last time he visited Jordan-Hare Stadium,” Riley prefaced before saying, “He finished with 5 receptions for a career-high 135 yards and a touchdown in the 34-10 win over the rival Tigers. The game functioned as his breakout game.”
If he returns to the field for Smart and Co.’s first trip back to the Plains with championship hardware, McConkey figures to be one of the biggest challenges Ron Roberts’s defense must face in the passing game.