He probably want admit it right now, while he's getting ready for surgery, but I got a feeling it's going to be good for him and for the team as a whole.

Truthfully, the talk now is that he wasn't back to his ol self from highschool. I'd really heard no one talking much about him in camp...all I'm hearing is praise over Cook, he appears to be a demon of a RB with lightning speed.
Let's face it, it was a log-jam anyway...with Holyfield looking good behind Swift and Herrien is underrated IMO. Cook is going to make an impact. He's been overshadowed but he'll be an all-purpose guy that is gonna create a lot of talk.
White needed to take a year to get healthy....completely healthy. He'll be forgotten for a while, with Cook and Swift coming back next year after great seasons and then the kid from La coming in next year as yet another star recruit. But if he can get healthy and stay healthy, this year of separation will be good for all parties involved. Get healthy, fully heal and get his speed back...it can happen.

Thoughts?

According to what the rumors are White may not have been in the mix for meaningful playing time at RB. You can only play so many.

The guy I expect to really step up this year is Holyfield.

Agree with you but sure do hate it for him. HE will find out what HE is made of ...

I'm not sure I can call an ACL tear a blessing of any kind. Either for the team or the player. It completely sucks for the guy. And even if he was 4th or 5th on the chart at RB, don't discount how important special teams are. Kirby had him there for a reason, and it was a damn good reason. Last year ST was a HUGE area of improvement for the team. Go back and watch the 2nd half of the Rose Bowl. We had Okl backed up inside the 15 on every kickoff - and the reason is our coverage on special teams, and that was because we had so many great athletes who weren't in the two deep at their positions on kick coverage. So how Zamir's injury affects our punt coverage this season remains to be seen.

It also remains to be seen how well he'll be able to recover from two ACLs in less than a year. Our Sports Medicine staff is as good a staff as is out there, but this is no small setback. You can't help but remember Keith Marshall. Remember, he was a higher rated recruit than Gurley, but was never the same after he tore his ACL. I think at the very least this will ensure that we only see two years of Zamir. He'll play in 2019, but likely won't be back to his old self until 2020, then he'll almost certainly declare for the 2021 draft.

Bottom line is I hope the best for the guy, hope he recovers as best he possibly can, and we can see him full speed as soon as possible.

Red Dawg.....yeah, 'blessing' probably wasn't a good word to use. lol
I think most thought that Cook was definitely going to be a RS....but he seems to be really turning heads and might end up being what the old timers used to call a 'scat back'. He's small and fast and shifty. Herrien is underrated IMO. He just hasn't had enough carries to really get the attention that the others have gotten. I got a feeling though that is about to change. I think we'll fine.

As others have said, not sure blessing is a good word but I will say this, I do believe kids try to rush back too soon with bad knee injuries. I am old enough to remember when a kid had ACL injuries their career was pretty much over. Doctors and technology have come a long way, kids can play again but I do believe they have to really do more research on rehab-and this is not taking a shot at UGA staff in any way-they gave him full go to start fall camp. BUT, I do believe that when you have such a significant injury to one knee, the other knee takes a lot more of the strain (even though you are not trying to put such stress on the good knee). So I think they might need to do a lot more testing on the "good" knee after the injury to make sure they can keep the strain off that knee as well. Slow the process down and make sure all is good. These kids are world class athletes and especially the pro guys know they must be on the field make the $$, but I think HS and college kids need to slow down-just my two cents, I am no expert.

For right now, I think we have the depth to sustain this injury, however if another back goes down, we are thin. I do look for EH and BH to both step up and I look for Cook to take Swifts role from last year, taking a few carries but used more out of the slot catching the ball.