Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings at least four days a week. This play sheet offers up a conversation with major UGA target Lewis Cine about his upcoming official this weekend against Tennessee.
Lewis Cine has his hands on both reins of his recruiting process. Certainly.
The nation’s No. 3 safety for 2019 on the 247Sports Composite will make his fourth official visit this weekend to UGA. It also marks his third trip to Athens.
He will take all of his officials. That last one will be to Florida on the first weekend of October.
Look for him to shut it all down about two days after that trip to Gainesville. Give or take.
His plan was to take his five officials came first. No matter what. Cine said he steels himself against impulsive recruiting decisions like that.
His mindset: Business decisions > Emotional decisions.
Cine comes from humble beginnings in Haiti. He wears the No. 16 in tribute to his mother Beatrice Seide.
She’s still in Haiti. He dreams to play in the NFL, but that will be so he can help her move to join him in the United States. That’s why business decisions win that tug-of-war in his mind over impulses.
He will be joined this weekend just by his father Andre Cine.
The unofficial visits mean a lot to Lewis Cine
What does this visit mean to him? Not really all that much. He even said that. He prefers to do his recruiting investigations on his unofficial visits.
“I think unofficials are very important,” Cine said. “There is one reason why: A lot of coaches do throw that red carpet out on officials. They go ‘Man, we have to wow him’ but in reality, if I come to an unofficial and the same energy that was in the official is not matching then something is up. So I make sure I go to unofficials to scout it out and really put my hands into things and really observe things.”
“Because I think those things are important. They are important also to see how the team is, how coaches act around each other, how coaches act around the players because those things are important. Because in that environment I’m going to have to entrust a coach and a coaching staff with me living there and being coached under them for like three to four years.”
He was able to deliver a polished answer like that while also catching a nearby sneeze.
In the midst of a phone interview, he made sure to share a “Bless you” to someone nearby on his end of the line.
That situation, like many with him, is uncommon. They do not happen every day while covering elite prospects.
The 6-foot-3, 190-pound senior views himself as a true intimidator on the field. Kirby Smart wants his players to impose their will on the opponent and break them physically.
Cine, as evident by his 24 tackles in his first game this year, clearly does that.
He erupts to the hole so violently in the open field that he inadvertently injured one of his teammates this year while flying to the ball.
He seriously did that? The Boston native sincerely regrets it, but yeah he did that.
“I’m just a guy that loves being around the ball,” Cine said. “Regardless. Special teams. Defense. Whatever it is. I love being around the ball. [The team that signs him] will be getting a pure playmaker.”
It sounds like this visit will allow for a fun trip with his father and a chance to view Georgia’s red carpet treatment. He’s been on officials to marquee programs like Michigan, Texas and Penn State so he knows what to look for.
What does he like best about UGA?
“I think it is overall the whole environment,” Cine said. “The whole Georgia environment. They have a lot of culture. Everyone is friendly down there.”
There likely will not be any grilling of the UGA coaches this weekend. He’s already held those sessions.
Lewis Cine already asked UGA his “tough questions.”
Cine told DawgNation he knows a lot about the potential fit in Athens. The biggest questions have been addressed. Facilities? Check. Personality mesh with the coaching staff? Dorms?
Done and done.
“I would say as more as I go there it just keeps getting better,” Cine told DawgNation.
He will seek out the academic advisors this weekend and sort out the nuances of potentially enrolling early. The nation’s No. 59 overall prospect (247Sports composite) will also learn about the business school. Cine wants to study business in college. He loves the educational opportunities that are also apparent for him at Michigan, Penn State and Texas
There’s a frugality to his day-to-day spending that equates well to a young man in college.
He has already looked the Georgia coaches in the eye and delivered some “tough questions.”
The main thrust came when he pointed out UGA is a school for running backs. Not safeties or defensive backs. (Deandre Baker, Tyson Campbell, Richard LeCounte III and J.R. Reed and working on that.)
He wanted to know why he should consider Georgia from defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and coach Kirby Smart.
So Cine asked this straight up: “How are you guys going to develop me in this defense and actually put me in the league?”
Smart question. He will not play the same position as Nick Chubb or Sony Michel or Todd Gurley or Roquan Smith or Lorenzo Carter or Leonard Floyd, to name a few.
“They really hit me with their resume of the guys they have coached and put in the league,” Cine said. “Those were some ‘straight dog DBs’ but those guys were from Alabama.”
Georgia countered with a few player parallels. Landon Collins. Clinton “Ha-Ha” Dix.
“They said that I can be built and big as Collins but also have the speed of Ha-Ha,” Cine said.
He found those answers to his liking. He’s enjoyed both of his trips to UGA so far. Cine was at G-Day and then came back for the West End Zone upgrade “reveal” on July 28.
“I would say that as more as I go there it just keeps getting better,” he said.
RELATED: Want to see what the real-time visitor’s list looks like for the Tennessee game?
What does Rian “Trouble” Davis have to do with Lewis Cine?
Rian Davis, the nation’s No. 5 LB for 2019, has already chosen Georgia. He did so back on July 29 in the immediate recruiting ripples which followed that $65 million West End zone “reveal” staged by UGA.
He told DawgNation he would come back for a game visit. It would be on the occasion of the official for Cine.
Those two know each other. Davis, the Under Armour All-American from Central Florida with that unique nickname, was on the same official visit to Texas with Cine.
They linked back up for the “reveal” weekend in Athens.
“Trouble” now plans to make sure that Cine didn’t have any of that on his UGA official. It also means something to Cine that Davis wants to play with him.
“Of course, that’s a great feeling,” Cine said. “Because I know. He knows what I can do and I know what he can do. That dude has a motor and he’s a guy that I actually see myself playing with or would want to play with.”
Deion Sanders also coaches him at Trinity Christian. That’s some elite level DB-training. It was a reason why he moved from Boston to just outside the Dallas Metro area for his senior year. He wanted to prove his game and polish it in the crucible of Texas high school football.
“Prime Time” has shared his opinion with Cine on the Georgia program.
“When I talk to him he just says Georgia is really recruiting at a very very high level and that they are soon to be what Alabama is,” Cine said when recalling the conversation.
Check the film below. Cine has 16 tackles, 1 blocked field goal and 1 interception in his last game versus Melissa. He also had those 26 tackles in the season opener, too. He now has 51 tackles so far this year and has also already blocked two field goals in 2018.
What is going on with the Nakobe Dean official visit?
Nakobe Dean was supposed to take his official visit to UGA on the Vanderbilt weekend. That changed. For a few very good reasons.
Dean is no longer taking that official to UGA that weekend. He will be in College Station to see Texas A&M with his second official visit instead.
Will UGA get an official visit? What about LSU?
It all stems from the fact that Georgia requested a later official visit from Dean that was not going to intersect with a game weekend. But that will be a very fluid situation.
There are many potential schedule conflicts there depending on how far his Horn Lake team advanced along the 6A bracket in the Mississippi High School Athletic Association state playoffs.
DawgNation has learned that Nakobe Dean will also take another official visit to Auburn on Nov. 17 for the Liberty game. It appears the Tigers have a different approach for official visits on game weekends, including non-conference ones.
New 2018 film out for 4-star OLB commit Jermaine Johnson
Jermaine Johnson is on that visitor’s list for the Tennessee game. The 6-foot-6, 255-pounder rates as the nation’s No. 2 overall junior college prospect for the 2018 class.
The Independence Community College standout has 3.5 sacks and 22 tackles so far through three games for the Netflix-famous Pirates. That program stars in the latest incarnations of the splendid “Last Chance U” series from that streaming service.
He is a big part of the future in Athens as an edge “Wolfpack” defender for assistant coach Dan Lanning. The Minnesota native lists 4.51 speed in the 40-yard dash on his Hudl highlight page. As it stands, he is set to become the first Minnesota native to become a scholarship player for the Bulldogs.
Johnson has an early film out regarding his 2018 exploits. It is embedded below.
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