Why LT Overton is out for Alabama football vs Georgia SEC championship

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Alabama football has a hole to fill at its bandit defensive end position against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

LT Overton, Alabama‘s senior defensive end, was ruled out for the SEC championship according to the Crimson Tide’s first availability report Wednesday, Dec. 3.

In his SEC championship press conference, DeBoer said Overton will be out due to “illnesses, medical issues” along with defensive lineman Kelby Collins.

In 12 games, Overton has 35 tackles along with career highs in both tackles-for-loss (6) and sacks (4).

Georgia coach Kirby Smart said he has “a lot of respect” for Overton and has known him for a long time.

“For us, it will be next man up,” Smart said. “That’s what you do as coaches, you try and prepare for who’s going to be there. It’s not something where we know how they are going to change things because he’s not going to be there. They got other good players. They got depth just like we do.”

Jordan Renaud is expected to take the bulk of Overton’s snaps off the edge along with wolf outside linebacker Qua Russaw could get reps.

“We’ve rotated a lot across the board on our team, defensively in particular,” DeBoer said. “And so the guys that have rotated with LT. And, fortunately, Qua Russaw also, when you talk about the edge position, he’s played the last few games, and so well get more reps for him. Yhonzae (Pierre), we’ll continue to ramp us his load. We got guys that played a lot of snaps that will continue to just play the role that they’ve been playing, maybe a few more snaps that they will get.”

Alabama kicks off against Georgia at 3 p.m. CT Saturday, Dec. 6 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The SEC championship will be broadcast on ABC.

Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: LT Overton injury update for Alabama vs Georgia SEC championship

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