How Does UK Stop “absolute freak” Brock Bowers?

Georgia Athletics Photo

Georgia junior Brock Bowers has to be the nation’s most unique tight end and probably the best overall NFL tight end prospect in the nation.

He had 56 catches for 882 yards and one touchdown in 2021 when Georgia won the national title. He had 63 catches for 942 yards and three scores in 2022 when Georgia won the title again. This season the 6-4, 240-pound Georgia star has 30 catches in five games for 413 yards and one score.

His longest catch in 2021 was 89 yards. Last season it was 78 yards. So far this season it has been “only” 41 yards.

He’s coming off his best two games this season. He had nine catches for 121 yards against UAB on Sept. 23 and came back with eight catches for 157 yards against Auburn last week.

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops called him an “absolute freak” during his press conference Monday.

“And I mean that in the most complimentary way. What an incredible player. He’s selfless. You could tell he’s a complete player. He plays well without the football. He plays well with the football. He’s a team guy. You could tell that’s a great guy to work around right there,” Stoops said.

“He steps up when they need him to but you know (he’s a) very unique player. I had the opportunity to be at Arizona when Gronk (Rob Gronkowski) was there and you know they’re just different players. Both unbelievably great and talented, just different, this guy’s something I haven’t seen before.”

Georgia coach Kirby Smart said blocking is the “most underrated” part of Bowers’ game.

“Just turn off the catches and go watch this dude block. Because he tries to — he tries to put them in the ground. He has an extreme amount of power in his core, in his — and he centers,” Smart said.  “He gets his feet on people and runs his feet and he’s a really powerful weapon as a blocker, too.”

So how does Kentucky slow down Bowers and keep him from dominating Saturday night’s game?

“He made back-to-back one-handed catches the other day (against Auburn). They had him covered pretty good, so I don’t think we could put any more than two on him at any one point in time,” Stoops said.

“I think Brock is going to get his. He’s going to make plays. It’s kind of like going up against Michael Jordan or someone like that — you know they’re going to get theirs. But, we have to compete at a high level. We have to be on point with our coverage. We have to compete at a high level, we have to win our fair share of one-on-one as well.

“He’s going to make some plays, but we have to make ours when we have coverage, when we have a one-on-one, when we have a contested play with him we have to win our fair share as well.”