Thursday was an exciting day for the University of Georgia football team as four of their top leaders each announced their decision on declaring for the draft or staying at Georgia. Nick Chubb, Sony Michel, Davin Bellamy and Lorenzo Carter all announced they would return for their senior season. This announcement was a surprise as most expected this type of decision to occur after bowl games end and sometime before the deadline to declare on January 18th. It was a pleasant surprise for Bulldog fans to get on a cold Thursday afternoon.

Here are what the four leaders had to say:

Nick Chubb:

“I talked to Coach Smart about it. He’s the first person I talked to. He told me in his position when he was here, that he had an okay team. He could have left his junior year. I think he said that he couldn’t pass up his senior year and that’s the best decision he made to come back. I felt the same way. I made the best decision for me,” Chubb said. “It lets the fans know we are here and we’re not just going to leave for other reasons. We’re here, and we love it here, we are so thankful, and we were five points away from being a completely different team. This offseason, we feel like we can get it done and improve every day and hopefully get those five points back that we needed.”

Sony Michel:

“It sat on my heart for about two weeks strong, and sometimes you gotta make that decision that’s in your heart and that’s not on your mind. You can’t go with everything else that’s going on around you, and sometimes people try to listen, and that’s when you make the decision to your mind, and I felt like it was the right decision for me to stay. There is so much going for me here at the University of Georgia, and I want to enjoy it and finish strong here,” Sony said.

Davin Bellamy:

“The NFL is going to be there, but these are the times that you’ll never forget. I talked to a lot of older guy, Leonard[Floyd], Jordan [Jenkin], Chris Mayes, Toby and got advice from all those guys. They were just saying the same thing. These are times you never forget, and I want to come back. 7-5 is not how I wanted to finish, and that’s not Georgia football to me and of course to anyone. So I know speaking for these other guys, that’s one main reason they wanted to come back. Because you don’t want to leave with a bad taste in your mouth like that,” Bellamy said.

Lorenzo Carter:

“I thought about it, but really all I was thinking about was coming back and being with my brother, my teammates and the young guys. Like Bell said the defensive line, they’re young. They’re filled with young guys from freshmen to sophomores and sprinkle them little juniors in there. But seeing their growth from day one when they stepped on campus to now is awing, and I just want to be apart of something great. I’ve won four state championships in high school, and I wanted a ring before I left college. I feel like we can really make that happen,” Carter said. “There’s a lot of unfinished business, and I feel like we have a lot more things to do as a group and even personally. Me, Bell, Sony and Chubb, we all want to come back, and we all want to lead this team and do great things.”