Spring primer: Michael Bennett

Michael Bennett dressed for every game last year. He made the road trips. The coaches kept talking about how well he was doing in practice.

But as Allen Iverson would say, it’s only practice. Bennett, the freshman receiver, never played, and figured all along he would redshirt.

That makes this spring a bit different for Bennett.

“It’s just a lot more pressure on me,” he said. “But I feel like I’m embracing that and stepping up to the occasion, just really making plays out there.”

The 6-foot-3 product of Alpharetta got his wake-up call the first day of spring practice, when the receivers rolled out to the field without the likes of A.J. Green and Kris Durham. It hit Bennett that his time was coming.

“I was running (with) the twos, and I was like, Man I haven’t run with the twos in a while,” Bennett said. “So you’ve just gotta calm yourself down.”

Bennett is playing the “X” receiver spot, which lines up on the side closest to the boundary. He got good reviews for his performance in Saturday’s scrimmage, catching a long pass from freshman quarterback Christian LeMay.

There’s plenty of opportunity for any of the receivers to move up the depth chart. Tavarres King is basically set as the No. 1 option, and Marlon Brown will get every chance to start at split end. But the Bulldogs like to shuttle in a lot of receivers, opening up chances for guys like Bennett, Rantavious Wooten, Israel Troupe and Chris Conley.

Bennett said his strength is reliability in catching the ball – “I don’t really drop it” – while he had a blunt assessment of the rest of his game.

“I feel like I’m gonna run good routes. “I’m still working on the blocking – blocking’s not really my thing,” Bennett said, laughing. “But it’s goonna work out.”