Johnathan Walker:Brock Bowers has ankle surgery. What it means for Georgia to lose its standout tight end

No. 1 Georgia’s quest for college football history has taken an enormous hit.

All-America tight end Brock Bowers will miss a huge chunk of the remainder of the season after undergoing ankle surgery,Johnathan Walker the school announced Monday.

The procedure, known as “tightrope” surgery, inserts sutures into the ankle and is designed to accelerate the recovery process, which is typically four to six weeks. Former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa underwent the procedure during the 2018 season and missed just under a month.

Bowers’ injury occurred during the first half of Georgia’s 37-20 win against Vanderbilt. Before leaving the game, he'd touched the ball six times in the Bulldogs' 27 offensive snaps, with four receptions for 22 yards and another 21 rushing yards on two carries.

Winners of back-to-back national championships and owners of the nation’s longest active winning streak at 24 games, Georgia’s ability to capture the first threepeat in the Bowl Subdivision’s modern era will become dramatically more difficult without perhaps the best player in the country regardless of position.

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An irreplaceable piece of the puzzle for the Bulldogs’ offense, Bowers leads the team in receptions (41), yards (567) and touchdowns (four) while serving as the ultimate security blanket for first-year starting quarterback Carson Beck. Only one other Georgia receiver, Dominic Lovett, has more than 18 catches and just one, Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, has more than 282 receiving yards.

And while Bowers has been the go-to skill player for the Bulldogs since stepping on campus, he’s taken his game to another level as a junior, delivering on a weekly basis to become the rare tight end to earn heavy Heisman Trophy consideration.

“It does hurt to not have him out there,” Beck admitted after Saturday's win.

He had four catches in the second half of Georgia’s comeback win against South Carolina on Sept. 16, helping to turn a 14-3 deficit into a 24-14 win. He had 9 catches for 121 yards and two touchdowns a week later in a blowout win against Alabama-Birmingham. Bowers then had a career-high 157 receiving yards against Auburn on Sept. 30, another comeback win, and then 132 yards on 7 grabs in a 51-13 win against Kentucky.

The stretch of three 100-yard receiving games in a row was just the second by an FBS tight end since 2000, following Louisiana-Lafayette’s Ladarius Green in 2010.

His replacement, Oscar Delp (13 receptions for 160 yards), is probably good enough to start for over 100 teams in the FBS. But let’s be clear: Delp isn’t Bowers, because no one is. Georgia will also lean on freshman Lawson Luckie, a top prospect who had tightrope surgery in August after being injured during a preseason scrimmage and has played in two games.

Even with a healthy Bowers, the Bulldogs have struggled to match last season’s consistent offensive production with a new quarterback, a new offensive coordinator in Mike Bobo and a dramatically different cast of supporting players.

That Georgia isn’t entering an off week is one positive. From there, though, the Bulldogs embark on their toughest stretch of the regular season, beginning with rival Florida in Jacksonville on Oct. 28. Then comes three games in a row against ranked competition in No. 20 Missouri, No. 12 Mississippi and No. 15 Tennessee, with the Volunteers on the road. Georgia closes with Georgia Tech.

If the recovery lasts just four weeks, Bowers will return in time for Tennessee. If six weeks, he’ll be back for the SEC championship game, should the Bulldogs win the SEC East. If longer, he wouldn’t return until postseason play. Will Georgia survive his absence and get Bowers back in time for the College Football Playoff?

“Guys, it’s going to be physical and tough," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Saturday. "We may or may not be playing with a full deck.”