UGASports is counting down the days until the Bulldogs’ 2024 season opener. For each day in our countdown, we will reveal our opinion of the best player in Georgia history to wear that particular jersey number.

With 45 days before kickoff, we select Boss Bailey as the best Georgia player to wear No. 45.

Hometown: Folkston, Georgia (Charlton County HS)

Height/Weight: 6-4, 229

Lettered: 1998-1999, 2001-2002

Stats: 266 tackles, 7.5 sacks, 15.5 other tackles for loss, 11 passes broken up, 2 interceptions, and 3 blocked field goals in 47 games/35 starts (33 at SAM linebacker, 2 at WILL linebacker) in four seasons.

Career: The youngest in a trio of Bailey brothers to play for Georgia during the 1990s-2000s, Rodney Antonio Bailey, or simply “Boss,” signed with UGA in 1998 out of single-A Charlton County. After seeing time as a reserve defender and on special teams as a true freshman, Bailey started at SAM linebacker as a sophomore. He then suffered a season-ending knee injury on the opening kickoff of the 2000 season and was granted a medical redshirt. Bailey responded over the next two seasons as one of Georgia’s top defenders of the era. After earning All-SEC honors as a fourth-year junior, he was elected permanent overall team captain of the 2002 squad, or the first Georgia team to win the SEC title in 20 years. Totaling a team-high 114 tackles that season, Bailey was a unanimous first-team All-SEC honoree and was selected first-team All-American by both the AFCA and Walter Camp. Also, in 2002, after not having blocked a kick his entire UGA career, Bailey, who had a 46-inch vertical leap, blocked a school single-season record three field goals in just a seven-game span. He was a semifinalist for the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker. Selected by the Detroit Lions early in the second round, Bailey was the No. 34 overall pick of the 2003 NFL Draft.

#45 Honorable Mention: LB- Keith Harris (1972-1974); HB- Bob Clemens (1952-1954); LB- Greg Bright (1994-1997); G- Hugh “Puss” Whelchel (1919-1922)

Boss Bailey's field goal-blocking barrage of 2002 began with a big block against Tennessee in Athens: