This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 5-star DL Elijah Griffin. He ranks as the nation’s No. 1 DL and the No. 4 overall prospect for 2025 on the 247Sports Composite. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the No. 1 DL and at No. 6 overall.
Elijah Griffin will take an official visit to UGA for the Mississippi State game next month for his birthday weekend.
Griffin has opted to spend that big day on his long-awaited official to Athens. The Dawgs remain one of his three finalists along with Miami and Southern Cal.
Here’s the 5-star question: Is there a chance he follows through on some recent recruiting analyst conjecture that he might commit on that same birthday weekend?
The 5-star DL from Pooler said on Friday evening that is still up in the air.
“No, sir,” he said. “I haven’t fully decided if that’s what I want to do. That’s just a date that I had set in mind and you know just go from there.”
Is that possible?
“Um,” he said. “Its always a possibility. Always a possibility.”
As he said that, he broke out a showman’s smirk. We won’t know until next month whether he was busting out the kind of acting chops that Morgan Freeman or Denzel Washington would be proud of.
But he did leave the possibility open for that time frame or at some point shortly thereafter.
What DawgNation can say with informed clarity is it does seem unlikely for Griffin to extend his process all the way to the first day of an even earlier early signing period which begins on December 4.
This process is wearing on him. It feels like he won’t wait until December to make his first college commitment.
What’s his current thinking about the Dawgs?
“It is ultimately a great program,” he said. “Every time I go up there I have a blast whether it is with coach [Tray] Scott or individually with the players. We all have a great relationship because it all started in the eighth grade. I’ve been up there so many times it is just like second nature if that makes sense.”
Griffin says he still has an official group of three finalists. That’s even though he wore a pair of Oregon gloves last Friday in GHSA Private Class 3A-A No. 1 Savannah Christian’s 28-7 win at Fellowship Christian.
“USC, Miami and Georgia,” he said. “They all have a fair shot at me.. So you know I’m just praying about it. Asking God to guide me through it because this is a hard and a very long process. So just trying to make the right decision.”
Griffin has already seen the Dawgs play live once this fall. He was in the Mercedes-Benz stadium section reserved for UGA recruits for the season opener against Clemson.
“I thought Clemson was about to put on a show but I guess they just gave up and they couldn’t handle it anymore,” he said. “That [UGA] defense stopped Clemson’s offense. Clemson’s got to get it together.”
The nation’s No. 1 DL prospect said his UGA official on the Oct. 12th weekend was the only visit he has planned at this time.
“Maybe eventually hit a USC game or a Miami game for sure,” he said. “But it will probably be like later on like maybe November or something like that. Who knows? I’m not sure yet.”
If he did eventually choose UGA out of that final three, what might be the biggest reason why?
“Ultimately just relationships and my heart,” he said. “Just following my heart and making sure if I come there I could get a good education and just focusing on getting out of there in three years, go to the NFL and dominate.”
How much will NIL be a factor for Elijah Griffin?
The 6-foot-5, 285-pound senior at Savannah Christian is the No. 1 player in Georgia in the 2025 class. He’s also the highest-rated undecided recruit in the cycle.
Griffin will get a significant NIL package with one of those three schools. Let’s realize the obvious there.
With an in-state 5-star like Fellowship Christian’s Josh Petty drawing a reported $800,000-plus annual incentive from Georgia Tech, it is not out of bounds to project Griffin could command seven figures annually.
The 5-star is seen as a much more advanced player that would be ready to contribute at least in a rotational status at any program in the country, including the loaded roster at UGA. The Dawgs stand to lose anywhere between three and six defensive linemen after this season depending on NFL Draft projections.
How does he wrap his head around the NIL aspect of his recruiting? Is that a big factor?
“It is not really a factor,” he said. “I’m not really chasing the money at the end of the day. Obviously, college football is now a business. So you have got to look into it for that aspect. But that’s not really what I am chasing. I’m chasing a great education and, you know, a school that I love.”
Griffin said he hears from UGA daily, but there’s no set pattern. He’s now in the stretch run of his recruiting process and hears from basically the entire staff now.
“I talk to them mostly like every day,” he said. “Coach [Tray] Scott, Coach Coop (recruiting director David Cooper], [defensive line assistant] Coach [Dayton] Leblanc, Coach [Kirby] Smart. I talk to them all the time.”
What’s that communication like with Smart?
“He just talks to me about how life is going,” Griffin said. “How my family is doing. Just the basics. Whether that is not football at all, if that makes sense. You know he’s just a down-to-earth guy. He’s never changed throughout this whole time meeting him since eighth grade. He’s always been so genuine.”
There’s a lot of factors to consider in this recruitment, but probably none more so than the fact the in-state Bulldogs were Griffin’s first offer. Scott gave him that offer in September of 2020.
That’s when he was about a month into the eighth grade. That’s a long time for the Dawgs to have built a relationship with Griffin and his family.
RELATED: Why Elijah Griffin will never forget the day he was offered by UGA
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
