*Jalen Carter, Georgia Football News: Draft Scout Player News

01/09/23 - DT *Jalen Carter, Jr/2023, Georgia

Jalen Carter admitted to being a little awestruck Saturday. Not necessarily about the big game that he and the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs are getting ready to play in. Just being in California was blowing his mind a little bit. "First time ever," said Carter, an All-American defensive lineman from Florida. "Seeing the palm trees and the hills and mountains with snow on them, that's my first time seeing snow like that. It's the farthest I've been from home." Don't mistake Carter's wide-eyed gaze at the picturesque landscape as distraction. He's fully focused on the task at hand in the College Football Playoff Championship game Monday, which is to slow No. 3 TCU's prolific offense. That didn't go so well the last time Georgia played, when the Bulldogs gave up 467 yards and 41 points to No. 4 Ohio State in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and left Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 31 with a victory by the skin of their teeth.

Carter himself didn't have the greatest of games. He finished with one tackle and one pass breakup. He spent most of the night chasing quarterback C.J. Stroud and not catching him. Finally, the Bulldogs got it done when they had to. They limited the Buckeyes to three fourth-quarter points for the comeback victory in their national semifinal. "I'd say the defense started out a little rough," Carter said during Georgia's media day at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Saturday morning. "They hit us with some explosive plays coming out. We just had to get everything together and get back connected and do what we worked on. Connection, resiliency, toughness, you know, our traits." Carter and the Bulldogs will have to play even better to slow quarterback Max Duggan and Horned Frogs. It's not that they're better than Ohio State, it's just that they're different. - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Jr/2023