Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. This entry introduces the pages of DawgNation.com to future 5-star RB Richard Young. Remember that name. 

There’s the rational reader out there who will assess early in this post that Richard Young is a prospect from the Class of 2023. They will surmise his grade level is just too far away for a prospect to capture their attention.

Don’t be that reader today. That DawgNation reader will miss an introduction to a young man that captures not just your interest, but your full attention.

Check this anchor relay leg out. Goodness. Just a freshman.

Young’s resume up to this point stands out. This is the sort of prospect that brings to mind what the Chubbs, Gurleys, Michels, Swifts and Whites must have looked like during their freshman year.

Let’s just be very conservative here and say Young projects to be just as highly rated as any of those guys, if not even more so.

There’s a squat that’s already well north of 415 pounds. Check the 5-foot-11.75 and 190-pound frame. Do not gloss over a 3.57 grade-point average in the classroom.

The Lehigh Senior High School (Lehigh, Fla.) freshman is already well put together for a guy who still has three more seasons left of high school.

Check him out these days in his makeshift garage weight room.

The Lehigh Senior High (Lehigh Acres, Fla.) freshman has 17 major college offers at last count. Those will include Auburn, Florida, FSU, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, Penn State and Wisconsin plus one more from an “RBU” school.

How fast is he? If that one clip from his abbreviated 2020 track season isn’t enough, check out this clip from when he was in the seventh grade.

It has more than 1.6 million views. Deservedly so.

That “RBU” offer he picked up this week came from UGA.

“That Georgia offer is my biggest one right now,” Young told DawgNation.

What does it mean?

“Amazing,” he said. “Huge. Just joy. Just joy followed by happiness and more joy about this offer.”

He has done some research.

“It means a lot,” he said of the Georgia offer. “I’ve been seeing NFL Draft picks and every first round and I know that’s like a ‘RBU’ school and I know you can get the ball a lot. I feel like you just got to go up there and visit and see how everything goes.”

When the recruiting world opens up again, he’ll look to go check out Alabama and Georgia first with his unofficial visits. The Young family has roots in Alabama, too.

Did you know the weekly DawgNation.com “Before the Hedges” program is now available as an Apple podcast? Click to check it out and download. 

Richard Young is the 2023 RB prospect that you will want to read about today. Especially about how he feels about Georgia. (Richard Young/Courtesy photo)/Dawgnation)

Richard Young: How he feels about his Georgia Bulldog offer

It was the year in which he tallied up 854 yards on 7.7 yards per carry in 2019. He scored six rushing touchdowns, but wasn’t the full-time starter. He scored six times off the ground.

Check out the first play from his freshman tape.

That first clip has him pile-driving a runner while he’s on defense. He actually started his first varsity game as an OLB on defense. That is not even his best defensive highlight. There’s one from last fall where he drove a hard-charing runner three yards back after he initiated contact.

The second play is a runaway carry. It flashes his great top-end speed. The third clip will offer another rare glimmer. Young takes a kickoff he fields around the 12-yard line across the hashes from sideline-to-sideline along an impressive kickoff return score.

He probably ran 145 yards on that play. It was a chance for him to get outside his mindset of running through anyone in his way. Even despite all of that great speed.

“I just love the sport, man,” Young said. “I just like to take my anger out. That’s the place where I take my anger out. On that field. That’s also the place where I know can help me take care of my momma one day. That’s why I do this sport.”

Those grades matter more than that yards per carry average. Young loves to read and wants to be study engineering in college.

Richard Young started the first game of his freshman year at outside linebacker for Lehigh Senior High against Miami power Booker T. Washington in 2019. (Richard Young/Courtesy photo)/Dawgnation)

“It is just in my mindset that education comes first before anything,” Young said. “I just know that I have got to be on point when that. I’ve got to prove that in the classroom every day.”

Young shared why considers the offer from Georgia running backs coach Dell McGee to be his “biggest” so far.

“He’s been watching my film since February and he has just been loving it,” Young said. “He said he loved every second of that tape and everything I do.”

“It is just a great opportunity for him to already tell me that. He’s just told me now to always keep working hard and just keep pushing.”

What went through his mind when he got that Georgia offer?

“A hundred things,” Young said. “I was just blessed. Just crazy blessed to have an offer. Because I have offers from other SEC schools like South Carolina and stuff but this one just like meant more to me. When I got that offer from Georgia, it was like a blessing to me. A serious blessing.”

Young breaks down his running style as a cross between Ezekiel Elliott and former Georgia star Sony Michel.

“I’ve seen a lot of running backs that have gone first round from Georgia,” he said. “I’ve seen Sony Michel, Todd Gurley and just a lot and I look up to them. It just motivates me to keep looking at a school like Georgia and to just keep looking and looking.”

He’ll look to make his college decision down the road. He’s thinking his senior year right now.

Richard Young is the Class of 2023 RB offer for Georgia that you already need to read about today. (Richard Young/Courtesy photo)/Dawgnation)

Coach’s Corner: The “wow” Richard Young scouting glance

Everything we’ve reported here so far will make for a credible story. Elite back. Gets Georgia offer. It clearly already matters to him here.

But then a conversation with Lehigh head coach Jamar Chaney elevates things even further.

Chaney played for FSU from 1988-1991. After his football career, he went into the catering business. His major client base was a bunch of pharmaceutical representatives.

When the economy took a downturn, he took to coaching. But he still knows his way around the kitchen.

When it comes time for a pregame meal, his players know Chaney can cook with his eyes closed.

“When I try to order it from anywhere else, my kids get mad,” he said. “My kids are like ‘Coach can you cook it the next time’ with our pregame meal. I just love it. I’m not no big-time coach, man. I’m a servant here. Helping these kids. Helping kids. That’s what I do.”

When he shares what he sees out of Young, it is impactful. Especially for a man who played at FSU with future NFL Hall of Famers like Deion Sanders and Derrick Brooks. He also lists former FSU All-American and Super Bowl champion Leroy Butler as a former teammate, too.

“I’ve seen a lot of athletes and played around a lot of elite players over the years,” Chaney said. “You see a lot of different mindsets. Playing with Deion Sanders and Derrick Brooks and you know Brad Johnson. People with not only the athletic ability but a mindset which was really second to none. The crazy part is that I see those same types of traits in this kid.”

“Out of all the players I have played against and coached against and seen, you see maybe kids that are bigger and faster and stronger and maybe even more athletically talented that Richard Young, but they don’t have the mindset. This kid’s mindset, I don’t know where he got it from, but somebody has been coaching this kid up through the years or something. This kid has a damn laser sharp focus. It may only be rivaled by a guy like a Deion Sanders or a Leroy Butler or a Derrick Brooks that I have seen. This kid is going toward that same direction.”

He realizes the measure of what he just said.

“I do want to knock on wood,” James Chaney said. “Those are some lofty guys I just mentioned but this kid is just mentally focused in and wants to do everything correct and do it over and over again for his brand. He wants to do that at 15 years old, too.”

Young was a Day 1 starter on the varsity. It didn’t keep him from roaming up and down the sidelines on the freshman team and junior varsity games. He would put his arm around classmates and root them on.

Chaney has known Young since his Pop Warner days. He played on the same teams and leagues with his own son. Nothing much has changed.

“He wants to do everything right and the greatest of great things here is he wants to be a good guy,” Chaney said. “He wants to be a great teammate. That’s probably the biggest checkmark I will give him.”

He already has one great Young story. It was from the second or third game of the season. Lehigh was struggling  on the way to a 4-6 season.

There was a point in the game in which Young carried the ball maybe five times in a row.

“So we took him out,” Chaney said. “Then the guy basically, this freshman kid, is demanding to get back in the game. Not disrespectfully. Not anything like that. I say demanding but it wasn’t that. It was like he was wanting back in the game like his life depended on it. Not like a normal kid with ‘Coach let me get back in the game man’ and ‘let me back in’ with that. It wasn’t argumentative. It was more watery-eyed. He was passionate about it. Every time I think about it, it gives me chill bumps.”

“I am like ‘Man, this kid here really wants it’ every time I think of that.”

It adds to the narrative.

“This kid is dead-eye serious about being the best football player he can possibly be,” Chaney said. “We tell him the weight room is going to keep him healthy and on the field as he grows up. He’s taking that fully to his heart and right now he’s just 15, but he’s already doing a whole lot of stuff right.”

Richard Young played both ways for Lehigh Senior High School as a freshman. He never wanted to leave the field. (Richard Young/Courtesy photo)/Dawgnation)

A village is helping Richard Young to be great

Young lives in the Fort Myers area of Florida. Chaney relays his school community will quality for 100 percent free lunch.

“That’s the part of being a high school coach at a Title I school,” he said. “The kind of kids I get at my school there may be five or six Richard Youngs in the halls. The frustrating part of it is only one of them is going to go down that road Richard Young is going down right now.”

It is because of a man he only knows as “Pork Chop.”

“If you ever see him, then you will know why,” Chaney said. “Ever since Pop Warner, he’s been around. That guy is Richard’s uncle. He stepped into his life. Man, that guy is one of the greatest human beings that I have ever met. ‘Pork Chop’ has taken Richard and his other brothers and sisters in. He’s taken those kids under his wing, put his life on hold and basically raised those kids. Helping their mother and stuff. Getting them into sports. Richard is very lucky to have that family structure like that.”

That should be seen as Young’s biggest blessing. Not the wheels. Not the biceps or those weights.

“The four or five other Richards at our school could be exactly like that,” Chaney said. “They are just not fortunate to have a ‘Pork Chop’ in their lives, too. They don’t have the parental support and background and or the mentality or the mindset. That’s the difference and that’s the fine line in why a kid like Richard is having the success that he has and those others are not.”

“Pork Chop” used to play football for Lehigh Senior High School, too. When he speaks, the young freshman with a viral 1.6 million view highlight takes in every word.

“That kid has seen he can be great,” Chaney said. “There’s someone he loves telling him he can be great and then he puts all the effort and action he has into it to fulfill those hopes and dreams and the belief that someone who really cares about him has in mind for him.”

Chaney coached a RB (4-star Chris Curry) who signed with LSU in 2018. He had Army All-American Quashon Fuller in the 2019 class, too. Fuller signed with FSU, but did flirt with Georgia a bit in that cycle.

“This kid and his path and his notoriety and what he is going to go through with recruiting attention and buzz is going to be 10 times what Quashon and Chris Curry went through,” Chaney said.

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