The next great UGA running back: Sophomore Nick Chubb quickly, quietly rises to Bulldogs star

ATHENS - Nick Chubb, the workhorse running back, readily admits it now.

The guy who nearly single-handedly carried the Georgia offense on his broad shoulders when his team needed him the most last year sure felt all those carries.

The 38 rushes in a Bulldog rout at Missouri followed by another 30 a week later in Little Rock to beat Arkansas came with a price. What did you think, he was some sort of Superman?

"I was tired a lot," Chubb said. "I won't show it, but yeah, I get tired."

He's tired on this night also. Georgia just went two hours roundtrip to the Atlanta Falcons' indoor practice facility because of stormy weather.

He hardly looks spent when Georgia calls on him.

Chubb's eight straight games of topping 100 yards rushing for a total of 1,323 yards was capped by a brilliant 266 yards and two touchdowns on 33 carries against Louisville in the bowl game in Charlotte, N.C.

It set the stage for what's next.

The sophomore is a preseason All-American, among the top favorites for the Heisman Trophy.

It's thrust him into being the face of the program already and he won't even turn 20 until four days before the College Football Playoff semifinals.

LaVelle Chubb sees her son featured on a UGA football billboard in Roswell when she makes the drive from the family's home in Rockmart to Atlanta's Buckhead, where she works in the business office of a pain management center. She turns on the radio and they are talking about Nick.

"It's just like, 'Wow, that is my baby,'" she says with a laugh.

"I'm a familiar face around here now," Nick Chubb said. "Everyone notices me everywhere I go. That's good and bad. Life is treating me good. I can't complain at all."

Chubb was just a talented newcomer a year ago out of Cedartown High in northwest Georgia at a position where established star Todd Gurley was there along with Keith Marshall and fellow freshman Sony Michel, who was a bit more hyped as a recruit than Chubb.

Then Florida assistant coach Joker Phillips made a point to tell Cedartown assistant Mike Worthington, who took Chubb to camps and recruiting visits, how stocked Georgia was at the position. Some folks in Cedartown chimed in that they couldn't believe he would go to Georgia given the running backs already there.

"I wanted to come in and compete," Chubb said. "Todd and Keith were already here and they were like two superstars of Georgia. Coming in with a five-star Sony Michel, I like competition. I was ready for it."

Gurley was having quite the season and Chubb showed promise, getting 31 carries in his first five games , bouncing off tackles against Clemson in the opener.

Then everything changed when Gurley was suspended for taking money for autographs. By the time the season ended, Chubb had rushed for 1,547 yards and 14 touchdowns.

"The thing that really jumped out to all of us on the offensive staff after that Missouri game (when) he had 38 and I think he caught maybe five balls or something," tight ends coach John Lilly said. "You're worried about how's he going to be next week in practice and on Monday he was out there full speed. He's a special guy in that regard."

Said Marshall: "He's a testament to hard work because he worked himself into that form. Everybody saw how much better he got every game."

"I knew he was ready," Chubb's mother said. "I said, 'Were you a little nervous?' He said, yeah, he was a little nervous. I never doubted he could do it."

She watched the Missouri game at home, thinking "somebody needs to get him some oxygen."

Early start

LaVelle Chubb raised Nick and three of his siblings in a single-parent home in her hometown of Cedartown where they moved from Cave Springs after her divorce from Nick's father.

"He was always determined," she said. "I remember one night in the third or fourth grade, he was very tired, came home and went to sleep. He woke up about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. Got up, ate a bowl of cereal, did his homework and went to bed. ... I was like, 'Can you do it at school in the morning?' 'No, I'm going to do it now.'"

Chubb showed an "uncanny maturity," back home at Cedartown with his consistent approach on and off the field, according to Worthington, the assistant football coach and head track coach.

"He did not want to let us down as coaches," Worthington said.

That translated at the SEC level when Georgia needed him most. Chubb is the hardest to tackle in all of college football, according to Pro Football Focus's data.

Try to bring down the guy with this kind of lower body strength. He won state weightlifiting titles with a 395-pound powerclean and can squat 655.

"I knew the kid was pretty good," Georgia coach Mark Richt said. "I didn't realize the kind of stamina that he had. I thought he would be mentally and physically tough because of the program he came out of. But to carry the ball as many times as he did more by need rather than by design, he was able to handle it. He was able to stay pretty healthy throughout."

It's a more vocal Chubb around the program this year. Much more.

"It took him a year to really open up amongst the team," senior tight end Jay Rome said.

"I feel like I kind of have to just because of the position I'm in," Chubb said still more than two weeks before the season opener. "We haven't found that quarterback yet, but I think when we find him, he'll be the one that I think will have to speak up."

Chubb says he wasn't so much shy, he just didn't know that many on the team. All that has changed.

He's a household name already, but he's still getting to know other well-known names that came before him in the program.

"What's his name came by?" Chubb said. "Reporter. Big time. No. 47. Linebacker. Pollack."

That would be three-time All-American David Pollack, now an analyst for ESPN. Chubb fumbled the pronunciation of the name Stinchcomb when he said that one of the brothers, Matt or Jon, spoke to the team.

Everybody knows Chubb's game by now. Especially opponents who are trying to tackle him. Even if they may not exactly get his name quite right just yet.

Here's Missouri cornerback Kenya Dennis at SEC Media Days:

"We actually didn't know a lot about Chubbs when we played Georgia that game," Dennis said. "That doesn't mean we took it light or anything like that. Chubbs came in and he played a good game on us. That was a good game that Chubbs had. We did everything we could to stop him. He's a great player. I just feel like he had a good game."

Herschel Walker, the living Georgia legend, sat down with Chubb in the spring for a video shoot. Just like he did with Knowshon Moreno before the Sugar Bowl at the end of the 2007 season.

Sons of Cedartown

Chubb has met Sam Hunt, the country music star who also calls Cedartown home.

"I think he's probably a lot bigger," Chubb said.

Hunt played on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" earlier this month, but Chubb may be more popular.

"They're both big and they're both good kids," Worthington said. "I know Sam well. He's a great guy, too. The thing about it is Polk County has a big Georgia fan base."

Worthington remembers his wife going to pick something up at the same time as Chubb's first start at Missouri. There was hardly a car on the road.

Chubb could hit the talk show circuit himself if he ends up winning the Heisman Trophy.

Vegas gives Chubb 12-1 odds to do that, tied for fourth best in the nation, according to Bovada.

Gurley looked headed for New York for the Heisman ceremony last year before the four-game suspension.

"I know with Todd with his situation, he had the Heisman won, in my opinion," Chubb said. "You've got to learn from that. Don't do anything you don't need to be doing."

The portrait of Chubb is almost too good to be true.

Stud football player. Good student. Work ethic is off the charts.

"I don't really believe in cloning, but I'd make an exception for Nick Chubb," Richt said in the spring.

What does he like to do for fun? Hit the clubs? No.

"Sleep," Chubb said.

He sleeps six or seven hours a night, "but I like to nap throughout the day."

The power runner is a power napper.

"I try to get two," he said.

He hangs out with Michel and likes to bowl.

He's no Earl Anthony on the lanes.

"My best is like 134," he said.

The lineage

The family game seems to be football.

His father Henry Chubb played at Valdosta State, half brother Henry II at Troy and Georgia Southern, and brother Zach preceded him at Cedartown as an option quarterback before playing cornerback at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Nick played flag football at age 5 and then tackle football and eventually at Cedartown High.

He always had confidence he could make plays at Georgia.

"Always in my head I thought I could, even though people said I played in a wack conference and I didn't play anybody," Chubb said. "I didn't pay no attention. I knew what I was capable of doing."

Worthington, the coach at Cedartown, wasn't surprised that Chubb could handle all those carries at Georgia. After all, he said Chubb must have toted the ball 30 times in the first half alone against rival Rockmart as a junior while also playing defense in a game he finished with 363 yards and four touchdowns in a rout.

The 5-foot-10, 227-pound Chubb says he's slimmed down even though his weight is about the same. His body fat now is 8 percent, down from 14 last season.

"I think I can be a better player, not just because of myself, but what's around us here. We're going to have a great quarterback whoever it is, and our line is very experienced. ... It's going to be a great team effort."

Rushing for 2000 yards seems within reach if Georgia needs him to carry the offense again.

"Nick has proved he's a man, a full-grown man when it comes to that," Richt said.

Then again, Chubb can envision more backs lightening his workload.

"I don't know if he can run the ball a whole lot better than he's been running it," Richt said. "But the things we've been trying to focus on for him is the route running, ball catching, pass protection that can make a back even more complete. If he can become really good at that as well, he'll be a better back for it."

Center Hunger Long doesn't see Chubb slowing down.

"No matter what day it is, no matter if it's storming ... no matter what, when he puts on his helmet, he's ready to work." Long said, "He's going to be the hardest worker out on the field every time."