Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. This entry chronicles a recent Pearce Spurlin III catch from over the weekend at an Under Armour regional prospect camp. Spurlin is a 2023 Georgia tight end commitment. 

The Under Armour regionals try to trot out the nation’s top talent from every pocket of the country. The typical recruiting calendar allows those camps to serve as the first big stage for a prospect like Georgia commitment Pearce Spurlin III to show up and show out.

Spurlin showed up last weekend in South Florida. And he certainly showed out.

The video here is worth a whole lot of Spurlin’s words about it all. There will be exactly 265 words to follow about it.

Let’s go to the video first:

What did Spurlin have to say about that one-handed snare?

“I saw that he was lined up outside leverage and I knew I had to move him a little bit,” Spurlin said. “I knew I had to kind of move him a little bit. That was my initial release. I was kind of questioning which way I wanted to go. I was thinking if I wanted to take an inside release at the top of my route but then I was like I am going to take an inside release.”

“I wanted to make my route look good and if I threw him through as I did. I knew it would’ve looked better. So that’s just like I did. I did an initial inside release to stutter and then I got that outside step and then I threw him through and he ended up holding me.”

For those that deem running routes and making catches to be rather elementary, think again. Spurlin wasn’t finished breaking down his process on that one rep.

“I was like ‘Shoot he’s holding me’ and I was just thinking this can’t happen. Because you only get three or four reps at those types of camps and you have to make them worth it. I was like I really hope this ball comes close to me because I can still catch it. He was draped all over me and I had to get him off of me and I saw the ball and I just kind of stuck my hand out. I don’t really even remember the whole thing. I remember getting up and everyone was yelling and somebody stuck a camera in my face. I kind of remember it. I remember it hitting my hands but I just stuck my hand out and just caught it.”

Then he got up. Spurlin saw the camera and looked at it. He never even looked at his defender.

“It was cool,” he said. “I kind of got up with a little bit of swag looking at the camera. Looking at everybody. Everybody was going crazy. It was something I will never forget for sure.”

This Recruit247 edit from Hayes Fawcett commemorated Spurlin’s commitment to UGA last fall. (Pearce Spurlin III/Instagram)/Dawgnation)

A good little backstory on Pearce Spurlin III

Spurlin comes from a multi-generation Georgia family. He was measured at 6 feet, 6 inches and 212 pounds at that Under Armour All-American regional camp. That was a good stab for him there given that it was the same hand in which he broke the scaphoid bone in his wrist at the end of his 2020 season.

We can go ahead and chalk that surgery up as a success and that thought as the understatement of the day.

It ended his sophomore year early. He missed the last three games, but still had 46 catches for 606 yards and five TDs. That was in seven games.

“I went up for a ball and fell down and came down on my hand,” he said. “It fractured my scaphoid bone and I ended up getting surgery. My recovery was only like three weeks. It was a good surgery. I was only out for like three weeks and could start playing basketball.”

That’s a link to a fortuitous part of his adolescence. This author can remember breaking his arm twice during the formative years of elementary school. That time in a cast forced his teachers to implore a natural lefty to learn how to write with his opposite hand.

Spurlin has a story like that. Sorta. He’s had the odd fractured finger or hand or wrist coming up. When he did, he kept playing ball. Or at least catching it.

That’s why is now adept at the art of a one-handed catch. Even with a defender draped over him.

“I really learned how to catch with one hand in middle school,” he said. “I consistently kept breaking something like my hand, my fingers or something. I had to learn how to play. I always had a cast on and I had to learn how to play with a cast on. I would just make one-handed catches.”

That catch is impressive, but it still won’t be the best he’s made.

“You go look at my freshman highlight reel,” he said.  “The first play. That’s probably my greatest catch ever. I caught a one-handed ball in the end zone over two All-State linebackers versus Kell in the first game of my freshman year. That was my greatest catch ever.”

He’s not wrong. It is actually the second catch here in the clip below.

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Pearce Spurlin III: Alpha recruiter and his love for basketball

Let’s start with something intriguing here. Is there any way another school could flip him away from Georgia?

That’s not likely. Not even if Jeff Bezos was coming with the sales pitch. The one tiny sliver of a chance would have to do with basketball.

What if a Duke offered him in both sports? That’s what a few schools have been picking up on with his process.

“I love basketball and anybody that is close to me knows that,” Spurlin said. “Basketball is like my favorite thing in the world. So schools found that out and ran with it. My highlight and stats don’t lie. They speak for themselves.”

This will be the second series of viral highlights to share that Spurlin has authored of late. That’s despite being sick and under the weather for most of his sophomore basketball season. He was one of the leaders in the state of Florida in double-doubles this past season.

Spurlin averaged 20 points and nine rebounds this past season playing the power forward spot for South Walton High. He might be a natural small forward as he gets a little older.

Georgia knows all about this, too. There is already a plan in place.

“That is very much appealing to me,” Spurlin said of playing both sports. “Coach Todd Hartley came to me when he found out that other schools like Florida State and Penn State and South Carolina were starting to talk to me about basketball. He came with the option that ‘you know you could play both here’ and ‘we’d love that’ and ‘Georgia basketball would love that’ and we’ve been working on getting on the phone with Coach [Tom] Crean but he’s just really busy right now.”

“That would be a basketball in the offseason-type deal. I”m not going to lie. I’d really like that.”

Spurlin’s status as a UGA commit shouldn’t be cast in too much doubt. He’s trying to position himself as a Richard LeCounte III-level recruiter for his class. He’s been talking to a lot of top prospects in the 2023 cycle since they were all in middle school.

He knows who can play and who can not.

“I will be the best recruiting recruit Georgia has ever had,” he told DawgNation recently.

He’s looking for guys who love Georgia. Not what Georgia can do for them for three years on their way to the NFL.

“We need people who love Georgia as I do,” Spurlin said. “We need guys who love the school and not the name.”

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SENTELL’S INTEL

(the recent reads on DawgNation.com)