Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep has the latest with 4-star OT Daniel Calhoun. The Walton High School (Marietta, Ga.) senior ranks as the nation’s No. 6 OT and the No. 98 overall prospect for 2024 on the 247Sports Composite ratings. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the nation’s No. 7 OT and the No. 116 overall recruit.
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Alabama tried. Auburn tried. Texas and Tennessee really tried. Miami even tried. All of those power programs rolled up their sleeves to garner the commitment today from 4-star Walton High offensive tackle Daniel Calhoun.
Their efforts were noble and pronounced. The thing is that they were all a few years too late. Kirby Smart got Georgia in the door very way early on this one.
That’s something to bear in mind at this moment after Calhoun has shared his college football commitment decision. The top 100 overall prospect out of Walton High School is a ‘Dawg today.
That’s due to the fact that Smart told him could be a ‘Dawg if he wanted to approximately four years ago. It came when he got a call from Sean O’Sullivan. That was his former head coach when he was at Centennial. O’Sullivan deserves a large measure of appreciation for his role in shaping Calhoun into the player he is today.
O’Sullivan called his father when Daniel was in the summer between graduating middle school and his first year of high school football in the fall of 2020.
“I was at work one time and Coach O’Sullivan gave me a call,” Vincent Calhoun said. “Kirby had told him he had an offer from the University of Georgia. That brought tears to my eyes. Even now. That right there. I was real proud. That was a moment then as a Dad when I was real proud. I was like my son is going to be alright. He’s going to be alright.”
College football has radically changed since then in the NIL and transfer portal era. Yet this recruiting win for the ‘Dawgs today can be traced back to some good old-fashioned early evaluation and relationship building.
The early involvement was big here, his father said.
“My kids the way they have been raised that love that you show them first is big,” Vincent Calhoun said. “Georgia was the first [school] to show him that they were interested. I think that is a special place. That is a special hold you have got to have. Especially being that young. He had not even played high school football yet.”
That is what is on the mind of Calhoun’s father as he makes his commitment today. It goes all the way back to the times he coached him growing up when Daniel would get so frustrated by the game that the “snot bubbles” that come for every young player on the grind would come out.
Calhoun said that moment mattered a great deal as well, but that the moment he knew he was going to be a ‘Dawg was after watching the ‘Dawgs win their second consecutive national title.
“Most definitely that was it,” Daniel Calhoun said. “They had just won it all back-to-back. I definitely wanted to be a part of that. Definitely wanted to be a part of more of that.”
It is a great day for the Calhoun family. Their phones have been active all morning.
“What makes me the proudest is how he has taken all of this in,” his father Vincent Calhoun said. “He’s not nervous. He says ‘I’m good, Dad’ and he’s got goals in mind. He wants to win state this year and then he wants to really start training to get ready to go to college.”
Calhoun made that decision on his own. The Calhoun family then chose to support his decision in whatever that was going to be.
“I picked Georgia because development is really key for me,” he said. “My goal is to try to make it to the NFL. Really development is key for me. Also the players and the coaches there. Our relationships are very close.”
Check out his 2023 spring game and his junior year highlight reels below.
Daniel Calhoun is a ‘Dawg: What this means for Georgia football
He becomes the 23rd public commitment in a class that still ranks No. 1 nationally on the 247Sports Composite for this cycle.
Calhoun is part of an important retooling of the Georgia offensive line in the 2024 cycle. Line coach Stacy Searels knows he could lose anywhere from four staters to six members of his room in total after the 2023 season.
That’s why Calhoun’s decision here matters on the surface level.
It just goes deeper than that. Calhoun becomes the fourth offensive line prospect to choose UGA in this cycle and he’s the highest-rated of the lot.
He’s also a homegrown recruit having played football at Centennial High and now Walton High School in the Metro Atlanta area.
Calhoun becomes the ninth in-state recruit in the 23-man class and the 13th future ‘Dawg for the offensive side of the ball. He is also now the 10th-highest-rated commitment in the current Georgia class.
Check the calendar real quick.
American just celebrated its birthday and not only do the ‘Dawgs have 23 commitments but they also have 10 pledges ranked among the nation’s top 100 overall recruits. The latter is a good data point for any class when looking back in February. Not basically halftime of this year’s cycle with seven more months to sign elite prospects.
The Walton High rising senior is also the fifth prospect rated among the nation’s top 100 overall recruits that will line up on the offensive side of the ball in Athens. That’s an important counterbalance to this year’s class given how overwhelmingly well the ‘Dawgs have recruited the defensive side of the ball over the last two cycles for future rosters.
The ‘Dawgs have two Elite 11 QB prospects in this class with 5-star Dylan Raiola and 4-star Ryan Puglisi. That level of talent on that side of the ball does lend itself to acquiring a stout group of personal protectors and playmakers to build around them for years to come.
The other thing to note here is just the size of Calhoun and what he will mean to the offensive lines of the future in Athens. Calhoun is a massive young man that could play either at tackle or guard during his time in college. His best long-term move might be at guard.
He’s north of that 6-foot-6 mark on the growth chart and right now he’s probably no better than the third-tallest member of Georgia’s four offensive line commits at this time.
That’s a big dude. Heading off to play in a very big room of big humans. Check out a few photos of Calhoun in Athens below. The one of him next to some of the top OLs on the 2022 back-to-back national championship team is pretty telling.
Coaching points: Walton’s Daniel Brunner breaks down Daniel Calhoun
The first thing to note here is that Calhoun is a worker. That comes from a work ethic and a sense of achievement from having two older brothers go off to play college football at Minnesota and Wake Forest, respectively.
Look for him to man the left tackle spot this fall for a Walton program that should have one of the top five teams in Georgia’s largest classification this fall. He will also play extensively on the defensive line and has been training for the last few months to prepare his body for that.
He’s at 356 pounds now, but he should see another peak to his game once the strength and conditioning staff in Athens chisels him toward an optimal 330 to 335 pounds.
He’s committed to it. Calhoun maintained a nutrition watch during the last two months to ensure he was tracking what he was eating and making sure he didn’t swell up to 370 pounds after five official visits and countless steak dinners in June.
“I told him when he came over here that my job wasn’t to make sure he can go play college football,” Walton coach Daniel Brunner said. “I told him he could already go play at the biggest levels of college football that he possibly can. My job is to make sure when you get there in December and January that you are ready to roll. You can go compete. The worst thing I can do is get him up there and he’s not in the right kind of shape.”
Brunner has been excited by two things he has seen so far from Calhoun.
“He works his ass off,” Brunner said back in June. “For a kid that size. He hasn’t stepped out of one drill since he’s been here. We’re doing some things way differently than he is used to. (Former Centennial coach) Sean (O’Sullivan) did a great job with him, but having so much weight on him is something he has had to struggle through. But he doesn’t back down from anything. That’s probably one of the most impressive things I’ve seen out of him to be quite honest with you.”
Let’s be clear on this point. Calhoun has a lot of mass, but that does not mean he cannot move when he needs to.
“The lateral movement jumps out,” Brunner said. “It is the way he moves. For him to move like he does. Wow. Shuffling. Moving. Having a low pad level. All that kind of stuff. It is really impressive. The way he pulls. The way he pulls around the corner, he is as fast then as anybody coming at him that we have on our offensive line, right?
“I’m like ‘Dude if you just drop 30 pounds think about how much better you are going to be? I’ve told him I need him for as many reps as he can give us a game. If we need him on defense. So the work he puts in this spring and summer to get ready for the season will determine how many reps and how much he can help our team this fall.”
There should be no chemistry issues with Calhoun in Athens.
“He is such a good boy,” Brunner said. “He blends so well. A lot of these kids here knew him already from the prospect circuit so they knew him. But from a classroom standpoint and the hallways and our fieldhouse dude you’d think he’d have been here five years with us already.”
B.E.A.S.T: The playbook for Georgia football commit Daniel Calhoun
It is not often that we get to drop an acronym in a Georgia football commitment story, but this specific player affords that opportunity.
That term for Calhoun here is B.E.A.S.T.
That’s a term his father gave him at an early age as the youngest son in a family full of large men and college football players.
It stands for:
B -- Blessed
E -- Effort
A -- Attitude
S -- Successful
T -- Toughness
It is one thing to look like a “Beast” the way that Calhoun does. It is another thing altogether to aim to punish and pummel players on the field, too.
This roadmap and operating system in place for this future Georgia Bulldog ensures he looks like one and plays like one, too.
This is a hard worker with achievement always on his mind. That comes from trying to come up to the status as players that his brothers established in the game.
“Daniel is a beast on the field but at the same time he is a humble kid,” his father Vincent Calhoun said. “He wants to be a beast on the field and he wants pancake after package if he can.”
The Calhoun family just loves the way that the ‘Dawgs play ball.
“I just love that nastiness that Georgia brings,” Vincent Calhoun said. “Whenever we would go and sit in the office with Coach Searels I would like to look at film. He will have this tape that he puts on and it is something to watch the offensive linemen going down the field and finishing blocks.”
“They are going five or 10 yards down the field trying to hit somebody to help their running back or their receiver get some extra yardage.”
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
