HOOVER, Ala. -- Georgia's football team is getting a major piece of its defense back for fall camp.
Coach Kirby Smart announced Tuesday that top defensive tackle Trenton Thompson, who is coming off shoulder surgery, will be "full go" when the Bulldogs begin preseason camp in the coming weeks.
"He should be ready to go," Smart said. "He's doing everything now that we've asked, and he's gone and worked out really hard. His conditioning has been really good, his weight's been really good. I'm expecting him to be full go."
The 6-foot-4, 295-pound Thompson withdrew from Georgia for the spring semester after dealing with what the school called a "significant" medical issue that led to him being taken by police to an Athens hospital in February.
The school said in a statement that Thompson had "an adverse reaction to medications prescribed specifically for his medical condition" when he was found walking on a campus road by university police and taken to Athens Regional Medical Center.
Thompson led the team with 9½ tackles for loss last season and was tied for the team lead with five sacks. He was third on the team with 56 tackles.
Smart also made sophomore Mecole Hardman's move to wide receiver official. The former ESPN 300 recruit arrived to Georgia as a defensive back but played sparingly in 11 games in 2016. This spring, he worked mostly at wide receiver but did take reps at defensive back to help with depth issues.
Hardman, who was ranked as the No. 2 athlete in the 2016 recruiting class, will be used in the slot and the return game, Smart said. The coach added that, with limited numbers in the secondary, especially with just two scholarship cornerbacks this spring, it was a tough decision to move Hardman to offense full time.
The Bulldogs benefit from returning four starters in the secondary and signing seven defensive backs in their last class, but there is still concern about relying on so much youth in the secondary this fall.
"When you make that move, you're making that move to make the offense better but you're also betting on the incoming freshmen to help us in the two-deep at defensive back," Smart said.