One persistent complaint during the Mark Richt era was the inability to bring the top-ranked, home-grown talent to Athens. With yesterday’s commitment of 2017 5-star athlete Richard LeCounte III of Liberty County, Kirby Smart has served notice to the recruiting world that he will live up to his reputation as one of the best recruiters in the nation.

LeCounte was thought by many to be a heavy lean to Ohio State. Georgia lost Liberty County linebacker Raekwon McMillan to the Buckeyes in 2014 and tOSU led UGA in Crystal Ball predictions on the recruiting website 247Sports for LeCounte.

LeCounte’s mother told Jeff Sentell of the AJC:

“I am so excited,” she said. “This is one of my prayers today. We’ve been in church all day and I’ve been praying he makes a decision to stay close to home and at Georgia. I love the camaraderie of the people and the coaches and the players and the oneness and how they care about one another. It was also now huge that Kirby Smart is there. Kirby Smart was a big reason why he wanted to go ahead and go to Georgia. I heard Richard say that.”