While Georgia has suffered the loss of several defensive standouts from last season’s SEC Championship roster this offseason, if there’s one unit on the defense that the Bulldog coaching staff feels confident about heading into fall camp, it’s the secondary.

With the return of All-SEC First-Team Defensive players Deandre Baker and JR Reed, as voted by the league’s media at SEC Media Days 2018, the unit returns two of the better defensive backs in the entire conference. Outside of those two standouts, the Bulldogs signed five-star CB Tyson Campbell, four-star CB Divaad Wilson and four-star Chris Smith last recruiting cycle.

While those freshmen could all see playing time come the fall, Georgia also return two former touted recruits that have yet to make a major impact on the field in Athens. During Mel Tucker’s Saturday media availability in Athens, the UGA defensive coordinator was asked about both Deangelo Gibbs and Richard LeCounte and what they could potentially bring to the defense this season.

Gibbs, a four-star safety and the #4 overall safety in the 247 Sports Composite ranking for the class of 2017. In 2017, he played in some games early, but did not travel with the team for the College Football Playoff due to a medical issue, and was enrolled at Georgia during the spring. Kirby Smart confirmed at SEC Media Days that Gibbs is back on the roster for the 2018 season.

“He’s playing in the middle spot, our star spot, he’s also looking at safety” said Tucker, “The expectation is to go out there and do what you’re asked to do, give great effort, be coachable, and work to get better every day; and that’s the expectation of all of our players.”

LeCounte, a 5-star safety and the #2 ranked safety in the 2017 class, was Kirby Smart’s first commit as Georgia’s head coach. LeCounte saw some playing time in 2017 as a freshman but never quite lived up to his lofty recruiting ranking.

“Richard has a much better grasp of the defensive scheme. At this point, it’s about the details. Really, the devil is in the details in our defense” Tucker added. “He’s been more disciplined at what we’ve asked him to do. He asks really good questions. He spent a lot of time in the offseason studying and I’ve seen his overall maturity level improve. We’ll see how far he goes in camp but I think the arrow is up with him.”