Notre Dame star Kyle Hamilton was Josh Moore’s teammate at Marist School (HS). Now the two will get the chance to play against each other.
Notre Dame recently offered a scholarship to 2021 safety target Josh Moore of Marist School in Atlanta. If Marist School sounds familiar that’s because it’s the same school that produced current Notre Dame star safety Kyle Hamilton.
Moore was offered by Notre Dame on May 6 and trimmed his list of potential colleges down to six just last week, the same day that he received an offer from Stanford.
Moore has made up his mind already and announced his decision late Tuesday morning, choosing the Stanford Cardinal.
Moore is graded as a three-star prospect on 247Sports and becomes the third player to commit to Stanford’s 2021 class joining quarterback Ari Patu and corner Jimmy Wyrick.
UT has offered 2023 CB Avieon Terrell from Atlanta. UT the first Big 12 school to offer him, while SEC schools have begun recruiting him.
Texas has offered 2023 cornerback Avieon Terrell from Atlanta, Georgia. The Longhorns are the first Big 12 school to offer Terrell, while SEC schools have already begun recruiting him.
Moore attends the same high school that produced current star Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton as well as the man who played more games as a Chicago Bear than anyone in history, Patrick Mannelly.
Notre Dame currently has 10 commitments to it’s 2021 recruiting class that most outlets have in the nation’s top ten overall. They’ve received commitments from a pair of defensive backs but are still looking for more.
Good news came on that front Tuesday as Georgia star safety Josh Moore announced his top six schools and Notre Dame made the cut.
Moore is ranked a three-star recruit on 247Sports and the 42nd best safety in the 2021 class in those same rankings.
Joining Notre Dame were a few other schools very much known for great academics: Northwestern, Boston College, Stanford, Syracuse and Duke.
Moore attends the same high school that produced current star Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton as well as the man who played more games as a Chicago Bear than anyone in history, Patrick Mannelly.
Former Georgia football teammate Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall have stayed close. Marshall took to Twitter after TG signed with the Falcons
Keith Marshall and Todd Gurley played together at Georgia from 2012-14.
Both signed with the Bulldogs as elite members of the 2012 recruiting class, where Marshall was the 13th ranked player in the class (No. 1 RB) and Gurley ranked 73rd (No. 6 RB). Both hailed from North Carolina.
Their freshman year in Athens, the two, dubbed as Gurshall, were unstoppable. Marshall hit you with his blazing speed while Gurley was, well, Gurley.
They combined for 2,144 rushing yards and 27 total touchdowns.
Gurley left Georgia in 2014 and was taken with tenth overall pick by the Rams in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Marshall stayed an extra year, but sadly was never the same after suffering a season ending injury his sophomore season.
But together, along with Aaron Murray, the two running backs gave Georgia a 2012 that we will never forget.
Unfortunately for Marshall, his NFL career did not last long. After running the fastest 40-yard dash at the 2016 NFL Combine with a time of 4.31 seconds, he was taken by the Washington Redskins in the seventh round of the 2016 draft. A torn patellar tendon in his right knee would eventually end his NFL career in July of 2018.
But the bond between the two has stayed tight, and you can often see them together vacationing or hanging out across the country. Marshall has been quick to take to Twitter following a great Gurley run over the past few seasons.
When news broke that Gurley has signed with the Falcons, Marshall again took to Twitter to express his excitement.
Georgia football’s Andrew Thomas is a first round NFL lock
Georgia football has not seen another guy like Andrew Thomas.
Nov 30, 2019; Atlanta, GA, USA; Georgia Bulldogs offensive lineman Andrew Thomas (71) prior to the game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
As a true freshman out of Atlanta’s private Pace Academy, Thomas was thrust into the starting lineup early. He started for the Dawgs for three years, and has been a dynamic left tackle for the last two SECCG runs. As a true freshman, he started in the Rose Bowl and national championship game.
After his junior year, Thomas declared for the draft, because he was so widely considered to be pro-ready. Mock drafts have him going in the first round of the NFL draft, as high as top five.
He accompanies offensive classmates D’Andre Swift, Jake Fromm, Isaiah Wilson and Solomon Kindley, as they depart UGA early for the league. They are five of the 10 Georgia players at this year’s NFL combine.
With the losses of Thomas, Wilson, Kindley and transfer Cade Mays to the so-called Great Wall of Georgia, and the departure of great line coach Sam Pittman to be the head coach at Arkansas, new line coach Matt Luke has his hands full in Athens.
The quality talent is there on hand to compete, but losing four starters, and even more so a guy like Andrew Thomas, is a big blow.
Many consider Thomas the best offensive tackle in UGA history.
Former Georgia QB Jacob Eason could surge up NFL draft boards.
Former University of Georgia football starting quarterback Jacob Eason declared for the NFL draft after one year starting for the University of Washington Huskies, back in his home state. Indications are that his measurable qualities may push him up some teams’ draft boards.
In a feature article, Mike Silver, a columnist for NFL.com, ruminated on Eason’s interesting path through college football to the combine, ultimately lumping him in the second-tier of current NFL draftees, “…that includes Utah State’s Jordan Love and, yes, Georgia’s Fromm.”
Oct 7, 2017; Nashville, TN, USA; Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Jake Fromm (11) and quarterback Jacob Eason (10) high five as Eason enters the game during the second half against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Vanderbilt Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Joe Burrow, Tua Tagoviloa and Justin Herbert are fairly consensus 1-2-3 as far as quarterbacks at the top. I personally projected Fromm fourth with Eason fifth, in an earlier piece for UGA Wire.
At the time of the switch at UGA from coach Mark Richt to Kirby Smart, retaining top recruit Eason in Athens was considered the biggest “get” of the first recruiting class Smart had as a head coach. Eason had flirted with the Florida Gators and made a late visit to Gainesville, Fla., before honoring his earlier verbal commitment to UGA.
In the opening contest of the season versus UNC in Atlanta, Eason came off the bench in replacement of incumbent starter Greyson Lambert, who was struggling to get passes off. Eason won the game, which saw Nick Chubb run for 222 yards in his first game back from injury. Eason never yielded the position that year, going just 8-5 as a starter at UGA.
Georgia running back Nick Chubb (27) is hoisted in the air by offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn scoring a touchdown for a 31-0 lead against Appalachian State on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga. Georgia won, 31-10. (Photo by Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS/Sipa USA)
That mark as starter includes the first game of the next season, when Eason was injured and replaced by Fromm, who went on to lead Georgia to seasonal win totals of: 13, 11, 12, before declaring for the NFL.
An unnamed NFC head coach is quoted in the article as saying of Eason, “He partied hard early, but he has matured.”
I actually ran into him out the night before the 11 a.m.-kick Liberty Bowl in Memphis. His cocky attitude on display, long flowing hair, tight Euro suit and reputation for being out late struck me as potentially problematic for a young team leader, of a then-struggling program.
He can fling it. Eason has that tall stature of a classic pocket passer and a very strong arm, throws a tight spiral and can drop balls in at times. NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said, “With Eason, teams are literally all over the map.”
My primary concern with him is his low winning percentage. Georgia won 10 three years in a row before he got the nod, as a true freshman. Washington was coming off winning 12, 10 and 10 in three years.
He went just 8-5, and then he skipped a would-be senior season.
ATLANTA, Ga.–The Atlanta Business Chronicle ran a bottom-half, front-page piece in this week’s issue on the huge costs associated with landing the number one recruiting class in the nation. In “Here’s how much it costs to the land the No. 1 recruiting class,” writer Eric Jackson took a fairly deep dive into the numbers.
That the preeminent local Atlanta business publication (founded 1978) cares so much about the nuances of the business end of American college football shows the true prominence of the old amateur sport in the city, especially when considering that Georgia football is based in Athens, Ga., fairly nearby, yet outside Greater Metro Atlanta’s wide suburban sprawl.
The reporting indicated that UGA spent $3.7 million in the 2019 fiscal year on football recruiting, with the second biggest spenders in the nation at neighboring state school Alabama spending $2.6 million.
Jan 8, 2018; Atlanta, GA, USA; Georgia Bulldogs athletic director Greg McGarity prior to the 2018 CFP national championship college football game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Athletic director Greg McGarity was quoted as saying, “We basically do what we need to from a financial standpoint to support our football program in all areas; that includes recruiting.”
On recruiting efforts, UGA spent $2.2 million back in 2016, which had swelled only slightly to $2.6 million by 2018. The huge leap to $3.7 million put Georgia in a spending class of its own.
The NFL Atlanta Falcons should draft Georgia football running back D’Andre Swift.
ATLANTA, Ga.–The Atlanta Falcons should take Georgia running back D’Andre Swift in the first round of the NFL draft, which is April 23-25 this year in Paradise, Nv., of greater Las Vegas.
As the NFL team playing in Atlanta, the Falcons find themselves in a unique marketing situation that is not going anywhere. Atlanta itself has, over the past two decades or so, transcended other markets for American college football to the level that it is now widely considered the World Capital of College Football. The Atlanta Falcons can capitalize on this unrivaled collegiate popularity by drafting a University of Georgia runner.
Nov 25, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Georgia Bulldogs running back D’Andre Swift (7) is pushed out of bounds by Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defensive back Lance Austin (17) in the third quarter at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
D’Andre Swift declared early for the NFL draft as a junior running back out of UGA; he should still be available with the 16th overall pick. It is believed by many Georgia fans that the Dawgs would have won it all in the 2019 season had he not been so banged up in the college postseason.
The greater metro Atlanta statistical area of $5.6 is full of regional transplants from all over the South and other regions of the country, and the diehard loyalty to the Falcons is simply not felt here in the organization’s many lean times. Yet, the city remains so hungry for a professional sports winner, that the denizens will rally around any pro team making a run.
After losing the Super Bowl by abandoning the running game completely, with a big halftime lead, and then failing to keep any positive momentum in the following years, drafting a member of the vaunted running back university (“RBU”) stable from local favorite Georgia could build some faith in the Falcons’ stated future plans to be more physical.
At UGA, D’Andre Swift ran for 1,218 yards on 196 carries as a junior and 163 times for 1,049 yards as a sophomore. He chipped in 618 rushing yards to the backfield with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, as a true freshman.
The Falcons (7-9 record) finished 30th in the NFL in rush yards in 2019.
Georgia football 2020 opens with the Virginia Cavaliers in Atlanta on September 7th, in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game.
ATLANTA, Ga.–Palpable excitement is already building in certain circles in Atlanta for the University of Georgia Bulldogs college football season opener. Considered by many to be the world capital of college football, winning more in the nationally prominent games played in downtown Atlanta is of the utmost importance if Kirby Smart’s program is going to be atop the tip of the upper echelon of the old sport, entering its 151st season.
Under Coach Smart, Georgia has fared extremely well at Grant Field in Midtown Atlanta while playing its in-state rival. But after opening 2-0 in big games played in the domes (Georgia Dome, Mercedes-Benz Stadium), UGA has somewhat alarmingly dropped three straight such contests. Each loss came to a powerful SEC West opponent: a national championship overtime defeat to Bama; a near replay of that game featuring the same two programs in an eerily similar SEC championship game; finally, a disheartening blowout at the hands of the current national champions, LSU.
Opening with the ACC’s Virginia Cavaliers in Atlanta could get the big city mojo flowing in the right direction. Georgia is plainly planning a return trip for a fourth straight SEC championship game and well-positioned amongst the favorites to win the SEC title.
The action commences on September 7th, on the holiday weekend Monday. UGA will be playing football on back-to-back weekdays for the first time, after beating Baylor in a midweek Sugar Bowl, on the first day of the new decade. Winning a New Year’s 6 bowl definitely pushed Georgia in a positive direction.
Hoos ahead for Dawgs: The Bulldogs are 1-1 in Chick-fil-A Kickoff games, including 1-1 versus the ACC, with a defeat of North Carolina in Kirby Smart’s head coaching debut in 2016. UGA and UVa met twice in Atlanta for Peach Bowls, which I attended. Virginia won 34-27 in 1995 after a gallant comeback effort by polyglot quarterback Hines Ward came up short in the final seconds, in Ray Goff’s final game as a coach. After that defeat, the all-time series stood at even. Then, Georgia was able to win the next two meetings between the programs, a narrow 35-33 escape in Atlanta in 1998 and a 37-14 blowout in Hawaii for the Jeep Oahu Bowl of 2000, in Jim Donnan’s last game coaching.
Nov 16, 2019; Clemson, SC, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons quarterback Jamie Newman (12) drops back to pass the ball against the Clemson Tigers during the second half at Clemson Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports
Virginia, who finished ranked 25th in the final Coaches Poll off a competitive defeat by the Florida Gators in the Orange Bowl, of the New Year’s 6, should be familiar with grad transfer quarterback Jamie Newman, a former Wake Forest Demon Deacon.
Kirby Smart is 4-0 in season openers as a head coach.
