Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep has the latest with 5-star DL Williams Nwaneri. He ranks as the nation’s No. No. 1 DL and the No. 3 overall prospect for 2024 on the 247Sports Composite ratings. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the nation’s No. 1 DL and the No. 1 overall recruit.
Williams Nwaneri has made his college decision. He will play in the SEC for Missouri.
He said it came down to five visits with the school and the relationships that he built with the coaches on that staff.
The 5-star DL just announced his decision over an ESPN live stream from his school on Monday afternoon. The 6-foot-6, 265-pound DL has been a major priority for the ‘Dawgs in this cycle to help restock their defensive front with elite talent.
Georgia is expected to lose up to four of its veteran defensive linemen after the 2023 season with the likes of Warren Brinson, Zion Logue, Nazir Stackhouse and Tramel Walthour all eligible to head to the NFL next year.
While the ‘Dawgs have a pair of All-American targets already committed to the nation’s top-ranked class, the addition of Nwaneri would have been significant. The 5-star from Lee’s Summit North High School in the Kansas City Metro area is a special talent that projects to be an impact DE early on in his college career.
The All-American DL had the ability to come in and earn playing time immediately even at a school like Georgia. He could have made a Mykel Williams type of impact as a freshman. That’s the rare blend of agility, length, size speed, power, technique and tenacity he brings to the position.
Check out his junior film below.
He’s ranked as the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect by On3.com. His composite average rankings for both 247Sports and On3 place him as the nation’s No. 3 overall prospect. Nwaneri had formed a strong bond with Georgia OLBs coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe and gave Georgia an official visit in June and he came back for an unofficial visit in the last week of July prior to the dead period.
Nwaneri also has family in the Atlanta area, but it was not enough to overtake the home state Tigers in what has been seen as a recruitment puzzle enhanced by a significant NIL package. Mizzou takes the win here over strong interest from Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee.
He released a final group of five finalists that also included Oregon back on August 3.
Williams Nwaneri to Missouri: What this all means
Missouri came into the decision with the nation’s No. 60 overall recruiting class for this cycle with 11 commits. The highest-rated pledge in the class for 247Sports was the nation’s No. 226 overall prospect in Florida CB Cameron Keys.
Keys was the only 4-star prospect in the class. The decision by Nwaneri still wasn’t enough to move the Tigers into the nation’s top 50 classes at this point.
In contrast, the Bulldogs have 18 players in their 2024 class rated higher than Keys for 247Sports.
As of now, Nwaneri stands to be the highest-rated prospect on the 247Sports ratings the Tigers have signed since WR Dorial-Green Beckham in 2012. He would then become only the fifth prospect with the coveted 5-star ranking the Tigers have signed in the modern college recruiting ranking era.
The last one came back in the 2022 cycle with 5-star WR Luther Burden.
Georgia now has a couple of other high-value DL targets that have yet to make their college choices known.
The Bulldogs still own a pair of top 125 overall commits for their future DL room in Jordan Thomas and Justin Greene at No. 100 and No. 106, respectively.
With the class filling up fast heading into the summer, the Bulldogs had zeroed in on three major remaining DL targets for 2024 in 4-star California DL Aydin Breland, 4-star Florida DL LJ McCray and Nwaneri.
Breland ranks as a 5-star and as the nation’s No. 6 DL for the On3 Industry Ranking. He’s the nation’s No. 26 overall prospect on the isolated On3 scale.
247Sports has Breland as its No. 2 DL and the No. 6 overall recruit. That’s the pure 247 ranking. The 247Sports Composite lists the Mater Dei standout as the No. 5 DL and at No. 34 overall.
The 6-foot-7, 270-pound McCray ranks as the nation’s No. 19 DL and at No. 128 overall on the 247Sports Composite. He’s the No. 9 DL and the No. 48 national recruit for the On3 Industry Ranking. He plays for Mainland High in Daytona Beach.
Those two talented DLs are expected to take their recruitments deeper into their senior seasons.
Nwaneri had been the No. 1 remaining target for the class on the weekly DawgNation “Before the Hedges” top targets rankings. Those rankings come out each week at 8 p.m. on the weekly streaming program across all the DawgNation channels.
It must be noted that the Nwaneri decision is non-binding and will not become official until the early signing period in December. However, there is an interesting law on the books in Missouri that allows prospects that sign a financial agreement with an in-state school to be eligible to begin receiving NIL payments on Sept. 1 of their senior year.
That decision could prove to be a windfall for the Missouri football program given that 5-star WR Ryan Wingo has also yet to make his college decision. If the Tigers are able to add both Nwaneri and Wingo to their class in the first year of that new policy, the impact would be significant.
Per the 247Sports Team Composite rankings, Missouri had the lowest-rated class in the SEC this cycle prior to the Nwaneri decision. The Tigers had the nation’s No. 32 overall class in 2023. They signed the nation’s No. 18 overall class in 2022.
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