Dominick Blaylock, a rare breed of Bulldog

PAT’s Weekly Stat (you likely won’t see anywhere else—and probably for good reason): Looking over the stat sheet following Georgia’s 55-0 rout of Arkansas State, several things jumped out at me—most notably, Dominick Blaylock’s 100-yard receiving performance (4 receptions for 112 yards, and a touchdown), considering it was the Bulldogs’ first individual 100-yard receiving game in over a year (Mecole Hardman, 6-103-1 vs. South Carolina last season).

But, what’s more, Blaylock’s 100-yard receiving outing was the first by a Georgia freshman since Reggie Davis (2-134-1) six years ago against North Texas in 2013.

Looking to find Blaylock’s place in the annals of Georgia football, so to speak, I identified each 100-yard receiving game by a Bulldog freshman beginning in 1945, or the season after UGA’s wartime teams of 1943 and 1944, which consisted primarily of freshmen. Although there was a period of approximately 20 years when freshmen were ineligible to play varsity football—and roughly the same number of seasons that the Bulldogs didn’t have a 100-yard receiving performance regardless of class—I was a bit surprised that Georgia’s first 100-yard receiving outing by a freshman wasn’t until 1988, and not by a true freshman until 1990.

(Freshman player and season, followed by whether player was a true/redshirt freshman, and the number of 100-yard receiving games by player that particular campaign):

What makes Blaylock’s feat even more of a rarity is that his 100-yard receiving game resulted in only Georgia’s third game of the season.

Considering only true freshmen playing in the year they signed, the “quickest” a Bulldog newcomer attained 100 yards receiving in a single contest according to Georgia’s game number that season: