All 16 of Georgia’s early enrollees in the 2021 recruiting class are on campus and moved in. These young Dawgs arrived yesterday and in doing so they nearly doubled the number of early enrollees from the 2020 class’s count of 9. The decision to early enroll has a lot of factors that go into it. Coaches, players, and the players’ families all have to be in lockstep on the process. Also, there has to be a decent amount of forward thinking and preplanning done on the part of the player choosing to enroll early. All of this boils down to two things, need and maturity.

The coaching staff at Georgia will simply not encourage a signee to enroll early if they do not feel that the move is best for that particular student athlete. The more a player fits into the culture of the program and into positions of need, the more adversity they’ve proven they can handle, and the stronger their support system, the more likely the Georgia coaching staff is to encourage them to enroll mid year. The fact that Georgia has 16 young men that meet most all of these criteria, if not all of the entirely, is quite impressive. The sheer number alone should communicate just how assured and excited Kirby Smart and his staff feel about the class of 2021.

As mentioned before, the Dawgs are projecting confidence in both the playing ability and the maturity level of the 2021 class by encouraging, convincing, and accommodating so many early enrollees. A young man like Nyland Green that has all the talent in the world, but could probably add a little muscle mass and good, lean weight. The fact that Green could be counted on to play, maybe start, as a true freshman makes the sense of urgency increase for getting Green reps and assimilating him to the culture of the program that undoubtedly played a large part in the decision of the Newton native to get to school and practice in depth with teammates and the coaching staff.

Jamon Dumas-Johnson, Kamari Lassiter, and Xavian Sorey are all also candidates for early playing time. The more versatile that an athlete is, of course the better changes they have to get on the field early. Georgia’s defensive depth is lesser than that of their offense heading into to 2021. Even if some of these young Dawgs don’t crack the starting lineup at the linebacker and defensive back positions, they’re definitely going to contribute heavily on special teams. Chaz Chambliss would be another 2021 early enrollee that will have the opportunity to impress with his raw strength and work ethic leading into spring practice.

Simply put, Georgia needed a class that was full of team-oriented, winning-hungry, and rock solid talented players. In one word, Georgia needed maturity. It appears they gotten it in the class of 2021 with a collection of hardworking and soft spoken men. This recruiting class impacted drastically by COVID-19 and they handled it with great poise. Look for some members of the 2021 class, especially at linebacker and defensive back, to contribute early on the field, but they’ve already begun contributing to the program with their approach to becoming, being, and growing as Georgia Bulldogs.