Malaki Starks Reveals He Played 2023 Season With Injury for Georgia

Brooks Austin | Apr 9, 2024

wOct 28, 2023; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Georgia Bulldogs defensive back Malaki Starks (24) / Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

Georgia will kickoff their G-Day scrimmage on Saturday without Malaki Starks. He met with the media Tuesday to talk his injury and what it's been like missing time.

The University of Georgia is set to kick off its annual G-Day intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday afternoon. It'll be the first true unveiling of the 2024 Georgia roster, apart from their All-American safety in Malaki Starks. Starks underwent shoulder surgery following the Florida State contest and has been out the majority of the spring.

Starks has cemented himself as one of the best safeties in all of college football, and is entering what most presume to be his final season with the Bulldogs — Starks will become draft-eligible at the end of the 2024 season. He spoke with the media on Tuesday and discussed his time away from practice and what he's learned from his injury.

Starks on missing spring practice:
"Yeah. I mean, it's tough. I haven't been out for this long since I started playing football. So just for me to sit out and not be able to do stuff. I mean, I just started doing indy not too long ago. So I'm able to get back into a little bit, but I guess it's a blessing in disguise. It's teaching me how to how to lead from a different perspective and how to be there for younger guys. And also an older guys, you know, you know, we got a very mixed group between old guys, the young guys in a DB room. So it's kind of just teaching me how to get to everybody on how to connect with certain people."

Starks revealed that he played the season with the shoulder injury that required surgery back in January following the Florida State contest:
"Um, I'd say it's tough because I tweaked it during fall camp. And then I want to say, third or fourth game in to the season, I kind of felt it and it just wasn't how I supposed to be. And then I figured out before the Bama game that I had to get surgery. And I decided to wait until after FSU. I got that done. And I've been I mean, probably most of all, I'm doing all the end, I just can't have any contact. So I'm doing drills and everything that doesn't involve hitting, I'm doing."

It was important for to Starks to hold off the surgery until after the bowl game, he wanted to play one last game with last year's roster:
"I think there was a few things that played into it one, the guys that I played with last year, I won't get to play with them again this year, or ever, probably unless we get on the same team when we get to the next level. You know that connection that we build that bond that we had on that team was was special and to job wasn't finished, you know, a lot of people have opted out which there's nothing wrong with that. But there was still a game to play and just because it wasn't the game we wanted to play or whatever the case may be. I just wasn't going to sit out and treat it like it wasn't nothing."

Other Georgia News:

• Will Georgia Have a 1,000-yard Rusher in 2024?
• Georgia Football Practice Notes From Day 2 of Spring Ball
• Has Wide Receiver Ladd McConkey Done Enough to Become a First-Round Selection in the 2024 NFL Draft?

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