This Sentell’s Intel rep has the latest with 5-star DL Elijah Griffin at Savannah Christian. He ranks as the nation’s No. 1 DL and the No. 3 overall prospect for 2025 on the 247Sports Composite ratings and The On3 Industry Ranking.
Elijah Griffin told DawgNation this week he had another strong visit to check out Georgia football last weekend.
It continues to feel like “home” for him. Or better yet like an Olive Garden
It was a good trip. He “loves” several things about UGA. He brought a special family member with him on this trip. That was the highlight.
We’ll get to that. Those are all the things that a reader will dive into about a can’t-miss DL prospect who has been rated as the No. 1 DL in his class by everyone with a URL and a paywall.
How ‘bout we tell you something you didn’t know about Griffin first? Something that speaks to why every school in the country wants him.
It’s why he’d be a great fit in the Georgia culture.
That’s something we had to get to probably our eighth or ninth interview rep with Griffin to learn. It was worth the wait and worth rewinding the clock to when Griffin was in the fifth or sixth grade.
“To be honest with you in the fifth or sixth grade, I didn’t really want to play football,” he said. “At all. I didn’t want to play any sports. All I wanted to do was play video games all day.”
We don’t want the DawgNation reader to always associate the terms “No. 1 DL” or “5-star” or “mega 2025 priority” when they think of Griffin anymore.
“Grateful” fits pretty well here, too.
“The Elijah today is not the same Elijah I was coming up as a young ‘un,” he told DawgNation this week.
It says just as much about this 6-foot-5 and 280-plus pounder’s aptitude to be a game wrecker as anything.
That has a lot to do with the example placed in front of him by several strong women in his life. His mother, Ashley, is one of those.
“My Mom she worked her butt off,” he said. “She was working two jobs. Stuff like that. Just hustling for us. You know? Me and my little sis.”
He paid attention during all those matches of “WWE” wrestling he was playing on his video game console. There came a time when he wanted to hustle like his mother when people told him he could be pretty good at this football thing.
He didn’t want to see his Mom work so hard all the time. Not for the rest of her life.
So he started working. And listening to the coaches and trainers told him he had a chance to be special. His grandfather, Ulysses, was a college wrestler at Army. There are some strong roots in his family tree.
“To come up from what I have now is just a blessing and a miracle from God,” he said. “Because it wasn’t always like this. How it is now. I just want people out there to know to just don’t take anything for granted. That’s just something about me. I’m very humble. I’m very true to myself. I don’t really like to talk. I don’t really boast. I’m kind of quiet honestly. I just want people to know that about me.”
It meshes with what Savannah Christian coach Baker Woodward had to say about Griffin last fall.
“He’s like a model Raider,” Woodward said. “Every question you have, and I bet you have interviewed him by now, is a ‘yes sir’ or a ‘no sir’ and he gets it done in the classroom. But what’s so special about him is you have a guy that’s 6-foot-5 and 280 pounds and he moves and is as agile as a skill player. That makes him really special on top of the kind of kid he is, too.”
“He leaves from practice and goes to a personal trainer. He then goes home and does his homework and some college is going to be really lucky to have him. He’s got his pick of wherever he wants to go anyway.”
Video games aren’t his focus anymore. Griffin now exudes the potential to be in a football video game one day.
Elijah Griffin: How did that latest Georgia football visit go?
That visit was another great one for the ‘Dawgs. It had better be.
The 5-star DL plans to visit Florida this weekend and Clemson the following week. The current plan is to wrap his mother Ashley’s birthday weekend around another visit to check out South Carolina on Feb. 3. He’s hoping to be in Columbia that weekend if he can.
Griffin had the chance to share what he “loved” about his latest trip to Athens.
His favorite part centered around another strong woman in his life. That would be his grandmother Edna.
“Honestly it was a great trip,” he said. “I finally got my grandmother down for the first time. You know I just kind of wanted her to experience what I have experienced in this whole process with Georgia. I just kind of wanted her to get a feel of what I feel. She enjoyed herself and that was probably my main highlight of the trip.”
“Just seeing her interact with the coaching staff and stuff like that. You know just seeing her being happy up there.”
Who had more fun? Grandma? Or her 5-star grandson?
“I had a lot of fun,” Elijah Griffin said. “I guess you could call us even. We both had a great time.”
What is the number one thing he likes the most about the Bulldogs?
“I would say the atmosphere and the people,” he said. “The atmosphere is electric every time you go there for a game day. It is something that you will never forget in my opinion. Obviously. I would say it is the atmosphere. The people. They are great and you know, the coaching. I love a lot of things, but I couldn’t just point one thing out.”
“I love it all to be honest.”
Griffin said that Athens “100 hundred percent” already feels like home to him.
Could he be committed before his senior season?
“Honestly I kind of just go off of how I feel,” he said. “If I feel like it [the recruiting process] is too much before my senior season and I know in my heart where I’m going and it feels right then I will. But honestly nine times out of 10, then [I will] just wait it out.”
Look for him to take most of his official visits in the summer. Most of them. He will save some for gamedays.
“Nine times out of 10 then most of them will be in the summer,” he said.
He plans to graduate in December and enroll with some very lucky team in January of 2025. He used the phrase “taking it slow” to describe the pace of his process. He commented on how the retirement decision from Nick Saban was an eye-opener for him.
“Coaches might leave,” he said. “Things might happen overnight. As you can see one of the best coaches in college history shockingly retired. That’s going to be a big game-changer. You never know. I just want to weigh out all my options. Where ever God leads me, that’s what we will do.”
He said that recent development is another thing that Georgia has going for it. Kirby Smart isn’t going anywhere.
“Yes sir,” he said. “Absolutely. It is definitely a plus. What he has brought into that university. To be back-to-back national champions. That speaks volumes. Knowing that he’s going to stay committed and do what he loves and that’s to the university. It does speak volumes.”
The other things that stand out about Elijah Griffin
Not all 5-stars are created equal. We are keenly aware of that and try to show that in this space over the years.
Check out this image of Griffin below.
That image was taken after his Raiders fell in the Class 3A state championship game in December. Griffin was hurting that day. That showed us something.
Show us a 5-star who hates to lose. We’ll file that young man away as a prospect who has the chance to eat during his years on the practice field in Athens.
Eating on the practice field is the first step to a great playing career on Saturdays for UGA.
Hating to lose is not innate these days. Not even for all the players the ‘Dawgs sign. The ‘Dawgs have signed a few 5-stars over the years where losses didn’t bother them. They were smiling three or four minutes after the clock struck triple zeroes.
Griffin wasn’t smiling after that Cedar Grove loss. Not even coming out of the locker room or waiting to leave.
“It is a feeling that you will never forget,” he said. “Our team didn’t want that to happen. That was not the outcome that we wanted.”
He still burns about it now.
“Yes it is going to motivate me,” Griffin said. “It is like a chip on your shoulder. You always remember that last year [and] what happened last year. You will always remember that. Absolutely. We plan on being back this year.”
That’s always something to pay attention to. Especially at the level that the Bulldogs compete at yearly now.
The speeches he got from Travion Scott and Smart were consistent last weekend. It was the same message he’s taken away from every Georgia football unofficial.
“If you do not want to work do not come to Georgia,” he said. “That’s all they do there and I want to work. Honestly, that’s just me. I love to push myself to the limit. Maximize my abilities. If you don’t want to work, do not come to Georgia. That’s probably the best quote I can give you from both of those coaches. Coach Smart and Coach Scott.”
It is the same thing. Every time he goes up, he said.
What’s the most important thing he’s looking for in the right fit?
“What I’m looking for in a school is development,” Griffin said. “Maximizing my game. My goal is to be in the NFL. Honestly. I just want a school that is going to be there and to help me do that. The best way to do that is to figure out the coaches who are going to do that for me. Who’s the best at it? Developing players. Just looking at that and then the business management. That’s something I want to have a degree in.”
“I kind of look at that as well. That’s really pretty much it.”
SENTELL'S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
