Georgia inside linebacker Xavian Sorey plans to enter transfer portal

The veteran linebacker is looking for a fresh start after serving as a backup in 2023.

Xavian Sorey arrived at Georgia as a former five-star prospect, but, three years later, the linebacker was never able to crack the starting lineup. In 2023, Sorey saw a pair of true freshmen, CJ Allen and Raylen Wilson, rotate in with the defense in place of an injured Jamon Dumas-Johnson. On Thursday, 247Sports confirmed that Sorey had entered the transfer portal, the 10th scholarship player from Georgia to do so since Monday, when the portal officially opened.

This season, Sorey played in 11 games, making 19 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a sack against Auburn, and a pass breakup against Kentucky. He led Georgia with six tackles in the win over UAB. In three seasons at Georgia, Sorey played in 27 games in a reserve and special teams role, making 24 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, a sack, an interception, a pass breakup, and a fumble recovery.

Smart explained during spring practice that he knew Sorey would take some time to develop given the position he played in high school.

“He’s a kid that everyone else that you recruit at that position, they played that position in high school. Smael played, Pop played. This kid played at a really small school until he went to IMG, and then at IMG he had a foot injury and lined up at the end of the line and he had never stepped back and keyed,” Smart said on April 8. “I’ve got enough football awareness and football experience that kids that do that, it takes them a little while. Channing [Tindall] went through that a little bit where you don’t play at the second level a lot and you’ve got to key and diagnose.

Sorey arrived in Athens ranked as the nation’s No. 20 overall prospect, No. 1 outside linebacker, and No. 6 overall recruit in Florida per the industry-generated 247Sports Composite. Georgia has three linebackers verbally committed for the 2024 class in five-star Justin Williams and four-stars Chris Cole and Kristopher Jones.

Georgia linebacker EJ Lightsey enters transfer portal

Another Dawgs’ departure this offseason.

Georgia is down a linebacker on the roster as redshirt freshman EJ Lightsey officially entered the transfer portal on Monday. Lightsey did not see the field in 2023 after playing in four games as a true freshman in 2022, making three tackles. He is the ninth scholarship player from Georgia to enter the transfer portal this week.

In February 2022, Lightsey endured a very scary situation when he was shot multiple times in his hometown of Fitzgerald, Georgia. Lightsey was taken to the hospital in serious but stable condition after being shot multiple times in the February incident.

“EJ Lightsey has come up and seen us, I know with his coaches, a couple times,” Kirby Smart said that spring, before Lightsey arrived with the summer enrollees. “He had a really unfortunate incident where he was kind of an innocent bystander and got hit by a stray bullet — several of them,” Smart said. “He was actually very lucky that it wasn’t worse. According to Ron [Courson, Georgia’s longtime director of sports medicine], it was an inch from probably getting in his heart. He’s just a tremendous kid from going down and recruiting him. Everybody in the community talks about him.”