This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 4-star junior OLB Khamari Brooks. He ranks as the nation’s No. 11 EDGE and No. 154 overall prospect for 2026 on the 247Sports Composite. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the No. 12 EDGE and at No. 109 overall.
Khamari Brooks filled up the storybook last season at North Oconee. The Athens native caught 31 passes for 569 yards and nine touchdowns on offense, but that wasn’t his most important role.
He’s rated as the nation’s No. 11 EDGE for 2026 and plays above that projection as an absolute game wrecker on defense.
The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder had 131 tackles, 17 TFLs and 13 sacks. He forced two fumbles, recovered two more, picked off a pass and added two more scores on defense.
Brooks took over the 4A state title game against Marist. He tallied 8 tackles, 2.5 TFLs and one sack. He also had 52 receiving yards and caught a touchdown.
The state champion wore alternating gear from Alabama and Tennessee in that contest. That was interesting given his step-grandfather Charles “CJ” Junior was a receiver on Georgia’s 1980 national championship team.
That’s not even the most famous “DGD” in the family. That honor would go to his great uncle Horace King. King was an athletics pioneer in the SEC as one of the “First Five” black players at Georgia.
There’s a lot of story here. The challenge is to figure out what pops the most about Brooks.
That will include the fact he’s also a standout basketball player for North Oconee. Brooks can run the point and play shooting guard. Not just at small forward or power forward spot.
That’s what charts for an elite EDGE these days. Brooks catches nine touchdowns for a state championship team and can play guard for the No. 2 basketball team in GHSA Class 4A. Those Titans currently own a 15-game win streak.
Georgia assistant Chidera Uzo-Diribe told Brooks he was amazed to see how much better he’s gotten since just this past summer.
That’s an impressive resume. It got even better after chatting with Georgia legend David Pollack.
Pollack feels the most intriguing thing about Brooks would not be the stats, the film or his sharp developmental curve.
It all comes back to a beautiful football mind. The former Georgia great had the chance to assess it when Brooks was approximately eight years old playing youth football.
“Let’s start with the good,” Pollack said. “No, better yet I’ll start with the great. Khamari is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever been around. Khamari is brilliant. So how I got Khamari to North Oconee is he was in third grade and we played against him.”
“We had wristbands for every play. Khamari figured out our wristbands by the second half and was in the third grade. Where the ball was going. What it was. I was like he was the biggest and strongest kid on the field, too. He was the best player by far.”
Brooks was playing for a local Athens YMCA team at the time.
“I was like ‘Crap’ and it blew my mind,” Pollack said. “That was incredible. So it starts with brilliance. He’s just unbelievably brilliant. He’s got elite hands. He’s got really good hands and a feel for people. He’s never in a hurry. He’s got really good feel for the game. Instincts. Unbelievable prescence and calm in the storm. Never gets sped up. He plays at his pace and so he’s definitely got some really cool gifts.”
The 4-star EDGE remembers that day. One of his best childhood friends was playing for Pollack’s team.
“You know in little league, there’s not that many plays that you could possibly run,” Brooks said. “So you’re able to pick up on those things and just like know where the ball was going. It was in the back of my head for a long time. I think I remember we were on defense and they ran like a QB read one play and I remember I called it out and I knew where the play was going.”
Pollack was sold. He tried to get his family to move to North Oconee.
“I finally started playing on his team in like the sixth grade,” Brooks said.
Nothing has changed with that “brilliant” mind. Pollack is now coaching Brooks at North Oconee.
“You ask coach [Tyler] Aurandt or you ask coach Pollack now,” Brooks said. “I will come to the sideline and tell them things I am hearing on the field out there that will really help us when it comes game time.”
Khamari Brooks: Where does UGA sit with this “brilliant” mind
Brooks has clear ties to UGA, but he said the Dawgs kicked up their recruiting interest after his dominant state title game performance.
“I can say that’s when they kind of dialed it in and started going harder than they were,” he said. “After I got the offer, I heard from them every once in a while. But after that state championship game and I really showed that I could really play and I really showed up in a big game like that, after that game Coach Diribe has been talking to me non-stop and you saw coach Kirby Smart was just at my [basketball] game. After that state championship game, Georgia’s recruiting really got harder.”
There have been three teams consistently mentioned by Brooks in his recruitment. There’s a lot of Alabama and Tennessee, but UGA has always been there at the forefront.
“Knowing that it is right down the road, that will always be a school that will be in that mix with the other top schools I’ve talked about,” Brooks said. “That will be a school that is always up there no matter what happens because they are so close to home.”
Clemson and Georgia Tech are also in the mix. The Buster Faulkner connection helps the Yellow Jackets given his son, Harrison, is the QB at North Oconee. The Faulkner family has watched those boys grow up together back to his time as an offensive analysts on the UGA staff.
Brooks said he’s planning visits to Alabama and Clemson for Junior Days as well. He is also planning to take an official to UGA in June. He just hasn’t locked the date in yet.
“They see me as a EDGE,” Brooks said. “Kind of that guy who will be able move around a lot. They really talked about to me about getting right around the 250 [pound] range. Being able to move around [and a guy] that does all those things like drop back in coverage. They don’t want me to be that bigger guy that just plays end all the time. They want me to be the guy that moves around and does a lot of different things.”
What’s the best thing about Georgia to him?
“They get players on the field early,” the likely early enrollee said. “They substitute a lot of guys on the defensive side of the ball. I think this year - I was in a meeting - I think they said like 17 guys played. I know I think like two or three in Chaz [Chambliss] and Damon [Wilson] were the ones that really fluctuated a lot. They play a lot of guys on the defensive side of the ball. They’ve had multiple freshmen All-Americans over this past couple of years. That’s the thing I like the most. If you show that you are good enough to play, they are going to put you out there.”
Brooks isn’t 100 positive about the player parallel for him at UGA.
“I think kind of the way that Mykel [Williams] played,” he said. “He will drop in coverage sometimes, but he doesn’t do that often. I’m not really sure. I will probably hear more about that. They said that I am a guy that will be able to move around a lot and do a lot of different things.”
What sticks out to him for coach Uzo-Diribe?
“He really likes my unique skill set,” Brooks said. “He really likes my film and the way that I’m really versatile. I’d say I’m one of the more versatile players at that position around the country. I will play inside ‘backer sometimes, but I will also drop off to play the middle linebacker. ... He liked the way I developed since I came to camp this summer. He reallly talked about that when I got the offer and when I went up there for the game. He said I had developed so fast from the time he had seen me at camp throughout the whole season. He just said I developed really fast.”
Brooks can do a lot to help a team win. That might be the new move in an heavy-NIL era. He said a TFL on a big third or fourth down stop and catching a touchdown are his favorite things in the game right now.
What will be the most important aspects of his recruitment?
“Education is a non-negotiable,” he said. “That’s always going to be the most important thing. Then having a great relationship with my position coach. Those are two things that are really going to be the most important no matter where you go. That’s because at the end of the day, you are going to need your education. Because at some time football is going to end. Then having that relationship with that coach for however many years you are there for. That’s the guy you’re going to be around the most.”
He said he grew up in Athens as a UGA fan. Those ties to the program are substantial.
“My uncle,” he said. “I think it was my great uncle played at Georgia so yeah and then my kind of like step-grandad also played there. So I kind of grew up a Georgia fan all my life.”
“One of them is Horace King. He was one of the first five African-Americans to play at Georgia. So that’s my great uncle and then Charles Junior. He was on the 1980 national championshp team. He’s kind of like been around my life the whole time being with my grandmother back then before he passed. Those two are the guys who played at Georgia.”
When Brooks walks by that “First Five” mounument at UGA, it hits different. There’s a sense of pride.
“Definitely,” he said.
His teammates will call him “K5″ because of his initial and number. They also call him “King” because that’s his mother’s last name. But he’s picked up a new nickhame after that state title peformance.
“They will start trolling and calling me ‘Thanos’ but most of them will call me ‘K5′ that’s kind of my nickhame. Kind of around my friend group they call me that.”
Thanos fits. Given he’s got the basketball stone, the hands stone, the size stone, the TFL stone, the football legacy stone and the “brilliant” mind stone.
Will the Dawgs be inevitable in this recruitment? We will see how things stand at the end of June.
Brooks is a highly-likable kid. The sort that will fit in well within any locker room and enhance a strong culture.
“I do it for my family man,” Brooks said. “My mom, my brother and my grandma. Those are the three that have been around me my whole life. I grew up with just my mom and my grandma. Those are the people who have been taking care of me my whole life. Those are the people I do it for the most.”
SENTELL’S INTEL
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