Georgia linebacker Jake Ganus will be the first to admit that the last few months of his life have been quite hectic. As a standout linebacker at UAB in 2014, Ganus recorded 16.5 tackles for a loss, good for 23rd in the entire country, but he and his teammates had their futures forever altered when the program was shut down after the regular season to fiscal concerns.

Last season was Jake Ganus' first playing inside linebacker.

A number of teams came calling for his services, but Ganus decided to play his final year of eligibility in Athens.

It all happened rather quickly, too.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Ganus said. “I mean, it’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, a lot of ups lately, but I couldn’t be happier to be here. I’m just blessed with this opportunity and I’m trying to make the most of it.”

Less than four months after receiving news from UAB that his career as a Blazer was over, Ganus found himself in a live scrimmage last Saturday in an SEC stadium.

It wasn’t something that was easy to wrap his head around.

“These guys have done a great job of welcoming me and taking me in from the academic staff to the athletic staff. Ever since I’ve gotten here I’ve felt like it was home,” he said. “So after the scrimmage, playing in Sanford Stadium, between the hedges, it was a little more surreal.”

The Chelsea, Ala. native turned in quite the performance in that scrimmage. He racked up a team-high 10 tackles, a tackle for a loss, a sack, broke up a pass, and had an interception which he returned for 28 yards.

He compiled those numbers while working with the second-team defense and against the second-team offense, but he doesn’t feel as if that caveat takes away from what he was able to accomplish last Saturday.

“I think Georgia’s second teamers are as good as anyone’s second teamers,” Ganus responded when asked about his work with UGA’s second defense. “ I don’t look at it like that. I get out there and I just try to make plays no matter who I’m against.”

Having played and performed well against SEC teams and other Power-Five conference teams while at UAB, Ganus feels that he and his former teammates can compete with just about anyone.

But he isn’t hesitant to admit that playing at UGA and in the SEC is a different experience.

“I think there is a difference,” Ganus said when asked if he had noticed a difference between the talent at UGA and UAB. “I think there is a difference in depth. I think there’s players at UAB that could play anywhere in the country. You can see that from where they’ve landed, but I think overall, just the speed, size, strength, it is different. That’s why Georgia is in the SEC and why they compete every year in the SEC. Because they have the players and talent and speed to do that.”

Ganus, who says he played inside linebacker last season for the first time in his career, isn’t just challenged with adjusting to a new level of competition this Spring. He’s trying to learn Jeremy Pruitt’s defensive playbook.

Still, the 6-foot-2, 225 pound defender feels that his experience at the college level is helping him a great deal when it comes to picking up a new scheme.

“I’ve played three years of college football so I feel like I’ve got a lot of the concepts of the game down. But it is different,” he said. “Coach Pruitt, he knows what he’s doing. He knows defense. He knows offense. So I’m really just trying to learn that, get in there, and make my way.”

Even as a senior, Ganus still considers himself “raw” as a linebacker and says that Mike Ekeler has taken him a long way already in terms of his technique and fundamentals at the position.

His plan going forward is to keep taking the coaching and trying to be the best player he can be. Everything else is beyond his control.

“I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing,” Ganus said. “I’m going to leave that up to the coaches. I completely trust them with that. I’m just going to keep working hard. Keep making plays and learning the defense and trying to focus on what I can do. Hopefully that will take care of itself.”

