Mason Meadows says he was taken aback when head coach Scott Stricklin first approached him about redshirting what was supposed to be his freshman season with the Bulldogs.

This wasn’t what he had in mind.

No, Meadows signed with Georgia having every intention of competing for the starting job at catcher. To be told he’d have to wait, well, those weren’t the words he wanted to hear.

“I was a little upset at first, not being to go out and play while seeing my buddies out there,” Meadows said. “At first, I was skeptical because you’re always taught to believe in yourself. But I sat back, was able to take it all in and realize that the coaches knew the best.”

One year later, it appears to have been the right call.

When Georgia opens its season Friday against Georgia Southern (6 p.m.), thanks to the work he put in while redshirting, the graduate of Pope High is expected to be behind the plate as the Bulldogs’ starting catcher.

“We redshirted him last year but he’s the type of kid who if you tell him he can’t do something, he’s going to do it,” Stricklin said. “We challenged Mason, we told him he was going to redshirt and we told him we will see what kind of year you can have. We told him he could waste year or he could work 365 days ahead of us and we can see what you can do. Mason took that challenge and he won the job.”

Meadows said it helped that he had some company.

Fellow freshman Riley King was also asked to redshirt, and Meadows said the duo made a pact to not let their situation become a negative in the development of their respective careers.

“We kind of looked at each other and said we can be victims or we can be warriors about the whole situation,” Meadows said. “So, the day we got the news about the redshirt we got together and told each other that we were going work hard and get the most out of the year.”

The hard work paid off.

At 6-foot-1 and 221 pounds, Meadows earned the nod over sophomore Austin Biggar, who started 44 times for the Bulldogs a season ago.

“He was just more consistent, day in and day out, he was more consistent at everything,” Stricklin said of Meadows, who during his senior season at Pope batted a team-best .413 with four home runs and 43 RBI.

That consistency has so far applied to the defensive part of his game as well.

Meadows brings a confident demeanor to the field, which comes as no surprise considering he was a three-year starter at quarterback, two for Johnson Ferry Christian before transferring to Pope for his senior season.

He feels being a quarterback and catcher actually go hand in hand. Lessons learned playing one, in many instances, can apply to the other.

“I think being a catcher you have to be a leader back there,” Meadows said. “You have to be the rock of the team and that’s the only position that can see the entire field, so I think me being a quarterback, I always had to know everybody’s position and not just mine, so that helped out a lot.”