Trying to pin down what stood out most about Nakobe Dean during his time at Georgia isn’t easy.
Maybe it’s that 3.5 grade point average as a mechanical engineering major. Or winning the Butkus Award for nation’s top linebacker as a junior during the Bulldogs’ run to the national title.
Then there’s being voted by 85 percent of his teammates as one of three captains on last year’s team.
That take charge mindset was on display on the biggest of stages.
Second quarter of the national championship game vs. Alabama. Georgia trailed by a field goal.
Alabama quarterback Bryce Young threw over the middle to tight end Cameron Latu on second-and-goal. The pass was incomplete, which mattered little to Dean. He lit into fellow inside linebacker Channing Tindall on the field, getting in his face after the two nearly tangled up on the play.
“I was supposed to be the hold player,” Tindall said. “In that game, our hold player was supposed to be like a QB spy as well, but if it was a crosser, I was supposed to play crosser too. So that play I was indecisive. Nakobe saw me being indecisive in my call and he just held me accountable. It was my mistake.”
Dean explained it this way: “It was just a little kind of miscommunication. A little bit of a bad read with it. He went the wrong way. You know emotions high? You’re on the goal line, national championship. We ended up holding them to a field goal. It’s just knowing our guys. If we didn’t have that connection, if we weren’t so close, I wouldn’t have been able to do that to him. He understood. He knew what we had to do to fix it.”
On the very next play, Tindall got free off the edge on a delayed rush and ran down and sacked Young, forcing a field goal in what became a 33-18 Bulldogs win.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart called the play where Dean got on Tindall “the poster child for leadership because Nakobe was not a kid who said a lot.”
Dean’s words when he raised his voice were impactful. Smart said at a speaking engagement last week at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Augusta that players put down Dean’s name as one of 3 captain picks on 110 of 130 ballots.
“It was very obvious he was an elite leader,” Smart said. “He went on the field that night and was not going to be denied. If it took jumping on Channing’s butt then he was going to do it because he was going to hold Channing accountable for doing his job.”
More than seven weeks after the Bulldogs’ first national championship in 41 years, Tindall was back in Indianapolis recounting the sequence at the NFL combine when Dean joined a group of reporters a couple of minutes later talking to Tindall and posed as a media member.
“Hey, I’ve got a question. Are you, Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker best of friends?” Dean asked Tindall.
“Yes,” Tindall said.
“Go Dawgs!” Dean said
“Go Dawgs!” Tindall repeated.
Dean, Tindall and Quay Walker—Georgia’s trio of inside linebackers last season—are all rated inside the top 80 of the best 150 players by former scout Daniel Jeremiah of the NFL Network: No. 17 Dean, No. 29 Walker and No. 76 Tindall. ESPN’s Jason Reid lists Dean No. 1 at inside linebacker, Walker No. 3 and Tindall No. 4 heading into the NFL draft that begins Thursday night.
“I feel like I can do it all,” Tindall said. “Rush off the edge, good with the run fits and coverage. My passion shows for the game when I’m out there, just the energy I provide.”
Gotta give @GeorgiaFootball coaching staff credit (see below). They nailed it on Channing Tindall, who ran 4.47 (third-fastest LB) and had 42.0 VJ (tied for highest among all positions) at Combine. GMs looking to upgrade team speed are targeting @Kingschan_ in Round 2. https://t.co/OuqV7Jhlqq
Dean made 72 tackles and Walker and Tindall had 67 each last season, trailing only safety Lewis Cine’s 73.
“Playing with those three guys, the trio that we had, that’s something we’ll always remember, take full pride in and something that we’ll truly miss,” Walker said.
Said Dean: “We were definitely close being in the same linebacker room, but definitely this past offseason, I feel like the team as a whole became more connected from different skull sessions. We started hanging out with each other outside. I feel like we weren’t just teammates, we were friends. That made it better for all of us.”
Tindall never started a game at Georgia, but his 5 ½ sacks last year were fourth on the team. Dean rang up 6 and Walker had 1 1/2.
“Me and Nakobe we’re brothers,” Tindall said. “Me and Nakobe and Quay.”
Dean said that bonds tightened among the inside linebackers as the team went through offseason workouts last year.
“It kind of brought us close to each other,” Dean said. “We kind of put it on ourselves to be the vocal leaders of the team, the leaders period of the team directly or indirectly. We put it on ourselves and with that we all kind of came together as one.”
Don’t know when I’ll be able to get all 3 of these guys in the same place again!! pic.twitter.com/Ii11OYjYwH
The 5-foot-11, 229-pound Dean was a five-star signee out of Horn Lake, Miss., in the 2019 recruiting class who played as a backup his first season and then led the team with 71 tackles in 2020.
The 6-3 ½, 241-pound Walker from Crisp County and the 6-1 ½ 230-pound Tindall from Columbia, S.C., came in together in the 2018 signing class—the No. 31 and 103 prospects national by the 247Sports Composite–and bided their time. Walker didn’t become a full-time starter until last season and Tindall had all 12 of his career sacks in a backup role.
“To get on the field in that room, you had to be on it,” Smart said at UGA’s Pro Day after the first day of spring practices. “It raised the standard, it raised the bar. That’s kind of what we’re missing now. We don’t have the depth to where we can compete. Some guys have just inherited jobs. In that linebacker room you didn’t inherit anything. You had to work. Monty (Rice) set that standard for a lot guys in that room. He set a standard of excellence. Monty learned that from Roquan (Smith). So it gets passed down.”
