What are we missing from Trent Thompson’s departure from Georgia?
By John Buhler
Georgia Bulldogs defensive tackle Trent Thompson has left the program for medical reasons. What triggered the former top recruit’s departure from Georgia?
The Georgia Bulldogs football program had itself a little bit of a scary situation on Thursday, Feb. 23. Junior defensive tackle Trent Thompson has withdrawn from classes during the spring semester after dealing with a medical issue that morning.
Thompson was admitted to Athens Regional Hospital after he was found wandering in the middle road near Joe Frank Harris Commons on South Campus in the early hours of Thursday morning. He told the police that he had take “two Oxies“, slang for OxyContin, a powerful and addictive painkiller.
Thompson will spend the rest of spring semester in his native Albany. He may return to Athens for the fall semester and the upcoming football season, but is there something we’re not getting from Thompson’s swift departure from the Georgia program?
The crown jewel of the 2015 recruiting class, Thompson began to show flashes of dominance during his 2016 sophomore campaign. Many believed 2017 would be the year Thompson would begin to unleash all of his potential up front in the Georgia defensive line.
However, it seems that a lot of things have changed for Thompson in a matter of months. After Georgia’s win over the TCU Horned Frogs in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Thompson elected to have shoulder surgery in the offseason. It’s only been two months since Thompson went under the knife, so there is reason to believe he is still recovering.
The other component to understand is Thompson’s position coach and primary recruiter to Georgia, Tracy Rocker is no longer with the program. Rocker was an SEC legend at defensive tackle for the Auburn Tigers, winning both the Lombardi Award and the Outland Trophy.
Thompson and Rocker were very close. Rocker was one of two coaches retained from Mark Richt’s staff when Kirby Smart was hired as head coach in January of 2016. The other coach was linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer, who had worked with Smart on Nick Saban’s staff with the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Days after National Signing Day, Rocker abruptly left the program for reasons that have not yet been clarified. Rocker was replaced by Tray Scott, formerly of the North Carolina Tar Heels and briefly with the Ole Miss Rebels.
What we’re not getting is the compounding nature of these wholesale changes for Thompson. Still recovering from shoulder surgery has certainly limited what he can do physically in Georgia’s offseason program. Losing a mentor in the blink of an eye can rattle even the most mentally tough protegé. Add in that Georgia has to win under Smart in 2017 and you can really feel the pressure Thompson might be under.
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Athens is not the easiest college town to sort out one’s issues. There’s a lot of stuff going on and it can be distracting for 20-year-olds to get it right. Let’s hope a brief hiatus from the Georgia program will bring a fresh perspective for Thompson on how he wants to finish out his final two years of collegiate eligibility. Here’s to a speedy recovery and all the best to him and his family down in Albany.