This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with Georgia’s 2025 recruiting class. It is currently ranked No. 3 nationally with a little bit more still left to eat in the bowl for this cycle.
Dear DawgNation reader,
You’re already here. Let’s pay off the headline quicker than FSU recruiting can run up the tab for its collective.
Here’s the great, the very good, the not-so-good and the out-of-place we see while we chop up the 2025 class like we’re about to cook it on the Hibachi.
Potentially great finish: If Georgia signs 5-star DL Justus Terry on Friday, that will vault the Dawgs back to the No. 1 class nationally. Alabama, Oregon and Texas all made moves on the first day of the early signing period to tighten up the race for the nation’s top class.
The great: Georgia has five signees with a 5-star ranking in the barn. There’s also a chance at a sixth on Friday at noon with you-know-who in Manchester. This constellation of 5-star Dawgs has only been matched four other times in Kirby Smart’s 10 recruiting classes. If the Dawgs can add one more, the class will have the second-highest total of 5-star players for Smart’s time in Athens. Georgia signed up a program-record seven recruits with that 5-star rating in 2018.
Second down with the great: We too often focus on data points that stand out in UGA’s storied recruiting history under Smart. What about everyone else? Georgia leads the nation in 5-star signees this cycle. Georgia signed five of those elite players in 2024 and only old nemesis Alabama matched that. Alabama signed nine in 2023 and Texas A&M reeled in eight in 2022. Other than that, no other program has signed more 5-star recruits going back to 2022 than Georgia did this year.
Third down on the great: Georgia signed the No. 1 LB in this class with Zaden Walker. The Dawgs signed the No. 1 DT in this class with that Elijah Griffin fella. They also signed the No. 1 TE (Elyiss Williams) and the No. 1 EDGE (Isaiah Gibson) in this class. See a pattern? That’s more No. 1s than Kendrick Lamar has had diss tracks lately. Texas was the only other school to sign a pair of No. 1 overall prospects at any position. The Longhorns got the nation’s No. 1 safety and the No. 1 ATH.
Fourth down with the great: While making another note on Griffin, Smart has never signed the nation’s No. 1 DT prospect before. Griffin is the first for UGA since Trenton Thompson in 2015. 247Sports also ranks Griffin as the fifth-highest-rated signee in UGA history. Gibson also now slots in at No. 12 among all-time UGA signees. As a means of comparison, junior DE Mykel Williams stands at No. 14 on that list.
Blame Bobo (and James Coley) for this extra great: 5-star WR Talyn Taylor was the first 5-star WR signee since George Pickens in 2019. You might have read that a few times this week. The bigger picture is this: The Dawgs signed their first 5-star WR in the great AJ Green back in 2008. Marlon Brown came after him in 2009, then there’s GP and that’s it. Georgia definitely needed to add more elite receivers to this roster and Taylor is only the fourth 5-star WR in program history. (Editor’s Note: We are fully aware of Terry Godwin in 2015 and Mecole Hardman Jr. in 2016, but those two were rated as athletes on the 247Sports Composite out of high school. Not at receiver.)
One ‘mo great for the road still in progress: If the Dawgs do sign 5-star DL Justus Terry on Friday, that will give them the consensus No. 1 and No. 2 DL prospects in the same cycle in Griffin and Terry. In this day of NIL and big paydays, I doubt we’ll see that again. UGA was fortunate here. It prioritized both when they were still in middle school and they were both in-state targets at that.
Historic note about this class: Georgia signed more in-state prospects in this class than at any other time during the Smart era. I’d label that historic. Some could call it risk management with the ever-present transfer portal, but I call it Smart recruiting. The best way to keep guys out of the portal is to bring in more in-state signees from the jump. At least they won’t be homesick.
A good in-state recruiting flex: With Terry still out there, the Bulldogs signed four of the top 5 prospects in Georgia. CJ Wiley made it five out of the top 11. That trend keeps building from there with nine of the top 25 and 13 of the top 40 players in the state.
More very good: Start with Georgia’s WRs haul. The Bulldogs addressed big needs for playmakers and stars in this class. They just didn’t restock the room to weather significant attrition after this season. Georgia has signed a pair of top 100 overall prospects at receiver for the first time since 2020. That’s Taylor and 4-star CJ Wiley. They also got serious game-breakers in Landon Roldan and Tyler J. Williams. 4-star Savannah resident Thomas Blackshear will be a deadly run-after-the-catch weapon for future Georgia offenses.
A very good positional ranking: Here’s one scribe’s view of the strongest positional classes in this class: 1) EDGE; 2) WRs; 3) TEs; 4)OLs; 5) DLs. The EDGE spot for Chidera Uzo-Diribe sticks out because there’s a 5-star in Gibson, plus two other guys in Darren Ikinnagbon and Chase Linton that the recruiting services both saw as top 100 overall players. (Note: If the Dawgs add Terry on Friday, the DL spot moves up to No. 1. Don’t sleep on the 3-star DL JJ Hanne out of California by the way of Berlin in this class.)
What position needs a good portal signing: Running back. Georgia only signed one this year in 4-star Bo Walker. The program also saw Top 100 overall prospect Ousmane Kromah flip out of the class on Wednesday to FSU. With uncertain futures about the veterans in the room, this class needed another high school signee.
What’s out-of-place: The Dawgs signed two QB prospects for the first time since 2019. That’s different. Especially since UGA didn’t sign a QB at all in the 2023 cycle.
What’s not-so-good: It feels like the two secondary coaches struggled in their first season. Georgia chased talented in-state safety Lagonza Hayward hard late, but Florida swooped in late. There was also the decommitment of Cedartown’s Tae Harris early in 2024. That guy works out with Nick Chubb but Georgia lost touch with him while going through a transition to its new DB coaches. Michigan and Texas A&M also flipped a couple of highly-touted DBs from UGA. This group needed a reclassified 2026 4-star CB in Dominick Kelly to add depth. A trio of two 300 overall national recruits at DB is pretty good for a lot of SEC teams, but that’s not the standard we’re used to seeing in Athens.
What’s also out of place: This is the first class in which Georgia was not able to sign a 5-star DB since 2021. This was also the first class in which the Bulldogs didn’t sign at least two top 100 overall national prospects to play DB since 2020. The Bulldogs didn’t sign any Top 100 DBs in this class. That hasn’t happened since Smart’s first recruiting class in 2016. That’s when the staff had two months to recruit.
What’s just plain unusual: There are a couple of signees in this class who didn’t start playing football until their sophomore seasons of high school. JJ Hanne moved to America from Berlin in 2022 and quickly started to develop. 3-star OL Dennis Uzochukwu, a former hooper, also didn’t start playing football until he was in the 10th grade. He started playing the OL during his junior year.
Talent is talent: As it stands now, Georgia has commitments or signees who were at one point committed to Boise State, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Northern Illinois and Rutgers. That’s unusual. That said, there are still signees who were once committed to marquee programs like Alabama and Ohio State. The working theory here is Smart is cooking up his roster build with a mix of 5-star guys plus strong senior year evals for players who will be those “eat off the floor” types. The real magic trick is Smart managed that while still signing a higher percentage of 4 and 5-star recruits than UGA does most years. There’s the same amount of 3-star recruits in this class (5) as there are 5-star signees. That’s sticks out.
We’ll close with a pair of news items. It sounds like new 3-star DB commit Daniel Okonkwo will be getting a PWO opportunity in Athens thanks to a better side of the NIL game than we usually see on the trail. We also feel there’s nothing to worry about with 3-star QB commit Hezekiah Millender-Hale. He’s waiting for his paperwork to cycle through the proper channels given he was a late commit to the class earlier this week.
Georgia has also not announced the signing of longtime 4-star safety commit Jaylen Morgan for a very good reason. He’s not signing until Friday. Morgan told DawgNation he was still “locked in” with the Dawgs and his school plans a signing ceremony on Friday afternoon.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
