Earnest Greene to miss Kentucky game as Kirby Smart provides update on his status

“Earnest continues to work, rehab to get better and strengthen and really get stamina, endurance,” Smart said. “He’s working hard to get back. Don’t know the timeline on that yet.”

If Greene does not play against Kentucky, he will have missed three of Georgia’s five games. He left the other two contests due to the back injury that sidelined him.

“The plan is to play the best guy that gives us the best chance to win,” Smart said when asked about Hughley and Gaston. “That’s the decision we have to make at every position. And right now, that’s those two guys. They are battling. They’re both growing and getting better. Both relatively young players, very different players. And then when Earnest is ready or when he’s completely healthy and able to come back, he’ll be back to compete with those guys and get back to playing for us.”

The Bulldogs did run for 227 yards against Alabama last week and the Bulldogs have clearly improved year over year as a rushing team.

But Smart still believes there are ways for Georgia to improve when it comes to pass blocking.

“We still have some areas to improve on in terms of pass protection, consistency, but I’m proud of what they’re doing,” Smart said. “I mean, if you’d have told me we would play with two freshmen in these games, then I would have thought that there would have been more struggles on the offensive line. But we still have ways to go, and I think the group is tied together and the run game’s tied together better at this point.”

Georgia’s game against Kentucky this week is set for a noon ET start on ABC. The SEC will put out an availability report on Thursday, Friday and 90 minutes before the start of Saturday’s game.

Georgia football injury report