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 report on what 5-star WR Jadon Haselwood said on Tuesday afternoon just hours before he backed off his commitment to Georgia.
ELLENWOOD, Ga. — DawgNation traveled to Cedar Grove High School on Tuesday to visit with Jadon Haselwood.
The event that was to come later that evening now makes it seem like a very interesting visit.
It was last interview as a public UGA commitment. At least for now. The nation’s No. 1 prospect is now the top undecided target for the Bulldogs going forward.
He has to be. Haselwood is the highest-rated receiver on the 247Sports Composite rankings since Dorial Green-Beckham and Stefon Diggs in 2012.
When I left his high school on Tuesday afternoon, I honestly didn’t know what to think. Press play on the embedded featured video above. It will offer some answers.
Those are his answers. Some may ring hollow now. Others now make more sense. Especially if they were published a few hours prior to that de-commitment.
There’s this one. It really sends the mind on a go route.
DawgNation: What keeps you committed to Georgia right now?
Jadon Haselwood: “That’s being home. It is a family. That’s it. It is really it.”
If that quote alone is taken into context, then that will give DawgNation hope about the chances of a re-commitment from Haselwood. The Bulldogs lost a 5-star commitment last year in Adam Anderson. He de-committed and flipped to LSU but still wound up back in the class of 2018.
That said, the visit in its entirety left me thinking about how hard college recruiting and all these great decisions can weigh on a young mind.
They can feel good about one thing and then {Poof} here comes another thought train entirely. If we remember when we were all that age, it was not the sort of thing that inspired 5-star headlines and countless social interactions on Twitter.
It was not news. It was normal for all of us to change our minds in another direction.
That was part of growing up. Part of being a developing person where the world can leave an instant impression before one knows how to let internal emotions based on external circumstances dictate action.
That’s a shoot-from-the-hip way to understand all of this. But it is not exact. No character sketch is. Haselwood has an artistic mind that is reflected in his choice of body art. He values his family and those that remain true in his inner circle.
This is not a flighty kid. No matter how many quick Tweets that chirp up that paint him that way. When I speak to a very good friend of his, we agree that Haselwood is a very old soul that lives in a 5-star prospect’s body.
What Jadon Haselwood said which stood out on Tuesday
The lure of Miami is strong for him. There are also many talented receivers in the Georgia offense that might be featured at other programs, but maybe not the one in Athens right now.
He said two things that really caught the ear. They stand on different ends of the recruiting spectrum.
- He was asked if he was glad he made his commitment back in March of 2017. Did that take some of the pressure off his process? His reply: “I feel like it would be the same,” he said. “Nothing really changed. I’m still getting recruited hard by everybody.”
- What did he feel like on that Tennessee visit? He said: “It is always smiles when I am at UGA. Smiling. Every time. People don’t really see me smile until somebody snaps a picture or something and they will see me laughing.”
Read between those lines. It might help you understand this high-profile decision a little better.
What could make his attachment to UGA even stronger? Check out that video above. Haselwood did mention he’d like to see the Bulldog offense take more shots downfield with a less conservative approach at times.
My take here is that the contrast between those three statements say a lot about where Haselwood is right now with his recruiting decision.
Jadon Haselwood on Miami
Haselwood will visit Miami this weekend for the FSU game. It will be his second official visit. The first was to Oklahoma in the spring.
He has clear family ties to Oklahoma and that plus the way their offense operates will always make that school a contender going forward.
Yet the visit set for this weekend is to Miami. I would expect he will take his official to Auburn shortly thereafter.
“I’m just ready to see some football,” Haselwood said prior to his de-commitment on Tuesday. “I’ve never been to a game in Miami. So that is going to be exciting.”
He does see himself taking all five of his officials. Georgia will get one of those. So will Auburn. That will make four along with the Sooners and the Hurricanes. The fifth one? That’s up in the air right now.
“Still trying to figure the fifth one out,” he said. “I’m still trying to see about LSU. That’s probably the only one. Or Ohio State.”
He will also enroll early. That is still the plan.
Haselwood also made it clear that he hasn’t really been anywhere in August and September on visits.
“I haven’t really been anywhere really,” he said. “Actually. I’ve been having a lot of schoolwork. I’m just trying to stay on track and weigh it all out.”
What were Jadon Haselwood’s impressions of the UGA visit?
He shared a few of those which will not appear in the above video.
“It was exciting,” Haselwood said. “The crowd is always going to be loud the whole game. You watch them make some plays and see how hype everybody gets.”
Haselwood had a thumbs-up review of every new amenity for a recruit in the new lounge and the west end zone upgrades.
“It is great,” he said. “It is not even a long walk [to the lounge] as you just walk right up the steps.”
The Georgia staff pulled Haselwood out of the crowd and gave him personal attention standing in the end zone. Haselwood had his head on a swivel. He was making sure he didn’t get hit by a stray Bulldog in pads warming up.
“They usually just tell me the game plan like before the game,” Haselwood said. “They will tell me what they have been working on all week and how they will apply that to the game.”
When asked about what he hoped to see from Georgia this year, he said over the summer that he wants to see Georgia throw the ball more. To open it up more. He also wanted to see if his good friend Justin Fields earn some playing time.
What did he think about all of that on Tuesday?
He said that the Bulldogs were doing what they said what they were going to do. Fields was playing. Haselwood saw him run for touchdowns.
“They have been throwing it like they say they were [going to] so that’s really it,” he said.
But then there was his reply to this: Where’s that feeling at with Georgia right now?
“It can go higher I feel,” Haselwood said. “I don’t know why I feel that way but I just feel it.”
So what can Georgia do?
“Just stop playing a little conservative,” Haselwood said. “Like you know how you will run it and pass it and then run it and pass it instead of taking shots when you can but it is still a good program.”
A post-script to the big news Jadon Haselwood dropped
He’s at least a twice-in-a-decade receiver coming out of the high school ranks. Diggs went on to great things in college and as a professional. Green-Beckham has not. He’s a free agent after some missteps at Missouri and on the professional level.
I think that’s an important thing to look at going forward.
Did he get his degree? Did he allow his playing opportunities to also pave the way for a career he can sustain when the air goes out of the ball in terms of his career?
I think those are all worthy talking points, but I want to take the epilogue to this post in a different direction.
I will reinforce that with a story that should remind many that these guys are still kids. Highly-publicized young men at best.
That moment is illustrated best by what Georgia freshman quarterback Justin Fields said to Haselwood when he jogged out to meet him in pre game prior to facing Tennessee on Saturday.
“He came up to me before the game and ya’ll are going to laugh when I say this,” Haselwood said. “He said ‘Has anybody ever told you that you were ugly’ and I just busted out laughing.”
Boys will be boys. That’s the commitment that no high school football player seems to ever back away from.