This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 4-star North Atlanta EDGE senior Chase Linton. He ranks as the nation’s No. 17 EDGE and the No. 179 overall prospect for 2025 on the 247Sports Composite. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the No. 10 EDGE and at No. 107 overall.
Chase Linton decided to make his college decision on the day his late grandfather Norris Arnold Sr. was born.
It was a gesture to honor a gentleman who loved his family. He also loved sports.
Linton told DawgNation this week that Arnold would always agree with everything he said. The feeling here is he’s looking down this afternoon and quite happy with this commitment decision.
He would’ve agreed with Georgia, Georgia Tech or Rutgers today. But he’d have been over the moon to see his daughter’s youngest child decide to play close to home in the Peach State.
The nation’s No. 4 EDGE (247Sports) committed to a Georgia football program responsible for adding a second act to his recruiting process. That decision was already sewed up with a June commitment to Rutgers, but that’s just when the Dawgs got involved.
This verbal commitment from Linton boosts Georgia football up to 26 commitments for the 2025 cycle. The decision also pushes Georgia past Ohio State for the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class on the 247Sports Composite.
The 4-star is now also poised to become the first Power 4 football scholarship signee in the 20-plus year history of the North Atlanta football program.
He’s also the third EDGE prospect for assistant coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe’s room in this class. That Georgia staffer’s approach is one of many reasons why Linton chose the Bulldogs today.
“Their culture and their family atmosphere,” Linton said while breaking down why he’s a Dawg today. “It is a big school. Like when you go over there and you think they are going to talk about football football football. That’s not how they are. They are about developing you as a man. I really respect that.”
Both Linton and his mother are big Uzo-Diribe fans.
“He’s a real genuine guy,” Chase Linton said. “I love the way he communicates with my Mom. Not too much. But just enough. Family communication is important to me and I appreciate that he notices that and acts on it.”
Linton said after his ceremony he got an uplifting text from Uzo-Diribe that mattered to his final decision. When he played his last football game for North Atlanta last Friday, he was down.
The first message on his phone was from his future position coach at UGA. That mattered here.
Chase Linton: The first really cool thing to know about his decision
His mother Keeva Linton played a key role in his decision. She helped with the family spreadsheet which had all the pros and cons for each program.
“Strength of coaching staff,” she said. “NIL. Successful seasons. Dorms. Meals. Experience. Overall visit rating on a scale of one to five. All these little things we mapped out.”
She gave her little editorials about the weather being less desirable in one spot compared to others. Or where he would eat the best food. Especially since she knows Linton will need to pack about 25-35 pounds in college to best prep his body for an NFL opportunity.
The input was given, but it was up to him to weigh her feedback.
She “kinda didn’t” want to know his decision today. But she “kinda did” and really trusted him at the same time.
“I kind of wanted to experience the reveal like everybody else, but I go back and forth several times a day about what was better,” she said.
The unbelievable part here is she is directly responsible for his Georgia offer. That’s because the day Chase first worked out for UGA at a megac amp in Athens, he didn’t really want to go.
He was lollygagging. Maybe even trying to oversleep. That was odd because he had always been her early riser and self-starter.
The reason, he said, was because they had to leave for their Rutgers official later that day.
“We were kind of squeezing it all in and Chase was just miserable about it,” she said. “He didn’t want to go.”
Keeva Linton felt like he was uneasy about the workout. What if he wasn’t good enough?
Linton looked at it another way. He didn’t want that trip to interfere with his first official visit to Rutgers.
There was a little bit of teenager attitude given, she felt. It seemed like he was stressed out.
“You know, I guess I was a little intimidated by Georgia,” he said this week.
But he worked out at the camp with other schools watching.
“Just go do it,” she said.
Linton did it. Boy did he do it.
“He goes and he blows it out,” she said. “Before it is even over, I don’t know what the drill was. Some 40-yard dash. Something outside and I missed it.”
Linton ran his 40s outside. Those were big.
“I ran it and everybody was like freaking out about the 40 time,” he said. “They were like ‘Run it again’ so I did.”
He’s not sure but believes he smoked them in the high 4.5 to 4.6 range. The first time he did it, he thought he did okay. Everyone watching him run felt he did better than that.
The second time he ran, he hated it. He tripped coming out of his start. It was terrible, he thought.
“They were like ‘Oh my gosh’ and ‘You ran faster’ than the first time,” he said.
The third time wasn’t a good run but he’d done enough. When Linton came inside, he had to tell his mother.
“Mom, I did so good,” Chase Linton said.
“I was like ‘Now see and you didn’t even want to come’ and the next thing I know they are lining up to do position drills,” his mother said.
His mother was on the phone with one of his high school coaches.
“Then Kirby Smart comes indoors and does a beeline to Chase and taps him on the shoulder,” she said. “I was like ‘Holy Smoke, that’s Kirby Smart’ and ‘Is that Chase?’ and I’m looking at him and thinking is that Chase? It looked like his shoes, but I was like ‘No that can’t be Chase he’s talking to’ and it was. I don’t know what he said. I asked Chase a couple of hours later and he didn’t know. He just said it was Kirby Smart and he blacked out.”
Linton still doesn’t know. He knows Smart asked him about his North Atlanta and where it was. Smart said he knew it was pretty close to The Lovett School.
“That’s about all I still remember about that,” Chase Linton said.
The Lintons had to leave the camp early for Rutgers. If they didn’t have to leave early, they might have gotten that UGA offer later that day.
Linton earned the offer with what he showed UGA at that camp he didn’t want to go to.
When they were in the car leaving Athens, Linton apologized for his behavior.
“I was like ‘See. You’ve just got to listen to your Momma’ and you’ll be alright,” his mother said. “But the one thing Chase is good at is he is very mature and good at apologizing and owning up to it when he is wrong.”
The rest is history.
“It’s a good thing we went,” she said. “Because that was the beginning of our relationship with Georgia. Which has been pretty phenomenal.”
Both Chase and his mother feel like that was a pivotal moment in his recruitment. If his mother doesn’t insist they go camp at UGA that day, what does his recruiting story look like today?
“I’m probably still committed to Rutgers,” Chase Linton said this week.
What Georgia football is getting in Chase Linton
Linton is very much an old soul. That starts with his ritual before every game. He told DawgNation earlier this season that he has to listen to “Can You Stand The Rain” by New Edition every Friday night.
That’s unique for an upper-echelon football talent in 2024. But he said his mother Keeva put him onto “really good music” like that.
That has stuck around like the No. 85 jersey he’s worn during his football career.
When you ask Keeva Linton what makes her the proudest of her son, it sounds like she is just reading off a script with a made-for-TV moment.
“The thing I love about sports is you can watch any sports contest,” she said. “You can watch somebody’s dream come true. The buzzer beater. Whatever. What makes me the proudest about Chase is he has the courage and the discipline to chase his dream.”
When he finished his junior year, Linton just had offers to play for a few Sun Belt programs. When he put on 20 pounds this winter, it upgraded the level of programs that were now interested in recruiting him.
“It is a silly dream to think you can play high-level D-1 football,” his mother said. “Anybody on the street will tell you that. You’ve got to be ready for after football. You’ve got to have to be thinking about your Plan B. He just has pursued his dream relentlessly for years and I am super proud he has the courage to do that because a lot of people do not.”
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
