Kirby Smart updates Arik Gilbert’s status and expectations for the season
By Keith Farner
Published:
Kirby Smart has a talented group of tight ends, and one of the players with an intriguing story is Arik Gilbert, the LSU transfer who has already flashed with the Bulldogs.
Smart spoke at SEC Media Days on Wednesday from Atlanta, and shared an update on Gilbert, who is a Marietta, Georgia native, and is working on several areas of his personal development.
“I expect him to give us an A-effort every day. When you give an A-grade effort and you’ve got the talent that he has, it’s a great combination. He’s a tremendous athlete. He’s had to do some extra conditioning. He’s a little heavy for the spring. He’s worked really hard on bringing that down. He had a really good year academically, which was a big hurdle, he had to focus on his academics upon coming to us from LSU and we expect him to do that.”
Gilbert played well in the spring game, especially in the red zone where he proved to be a matchup problem for the defense.
“He got a great opportunity this spring,” Smart said. “People forget Darnell (Washington) and Brock (Bowers) were both out, so the opportunity he got, he seized that opportunity to grow and develop. He will have to continue to do that to be a major contributor for us and he’s bought into that and being a team player. There’s a lot more to being a tight end than just catching the ball and he’s bought into that.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
