Editor’s note: DawgNation plans another DawgNation Invasion for the Oct. 28 game in Florida. Georgia will face Florida in three weeks.
The border rivalry is always intense. So are the recruiting battles. In preparation for that big-game weekend, DawgNation will produce a weekly installment taking a look at the recruits in play between the two SEC East schools.
Editors note: Salyer decided not to take that official visit to Florida and informed DawgNation about that on the Friday morning prior to that Saturday official visit. The fact that he did not take that trip has to hurt Florida’s chances going forward.
Florida has its chance this weekend to try to pry Jamaree Salyer from Georgia.
Jamaree Salyer has been a big target for the UGA staff for quite some time. That’s basically been since the new staff arrived and was in place for Kirby Smart.
When Smart hired Sam Pittman to take out his chisel and start rebuilding the offensive line, one of his first (and most frequent) stops on the recruiting trail was to Pace Academy.
That’s where Pittman toiled to sign 4-star Andrew Thomas for 2017. Pittman would get his man. Thomas has been a solid Day 1 freshman starter at right tackle.
But there was an added benefit. Thomas played with another elite lineman in Salyer. The 5-star prospect, now a senior, rates as the nation’s No. 1 OG prospect for 2018.
Salyer, a 6-foot-4 and 340-pound prospect, recently shared several new developments in his recruiting.
The first of those was a public statement that Clemson and Georgia were at the forefront of his recruiting process. He acknowledged that those two schools should be seen as the teams to beat.
The nation’s top OL prospect for 2018 went on to state there was a new school in mind for his first official visit: Florida.
Why Jamaree Salyer will take an official to Florida
Florida has a big recruiting weekend with LSU in town for another SEC East vs. SEC West clash. It will be a research trip that could extend or quell his future interest in playing at Florida.
Salyer, a very bright student, shared the thinking behind this week’s trip.
“Just to kill all doubts in my mind there,” Salyer said. “To go and visit and make sure that I didn’t have a school where I said ‘Dang, what if I had looked there first?’ So I will take that official. I will make a decision after I come back from there. If I didn’t like it, then I will just tell the coaches about it.”
If so, then he will just cross the Gators off his list.
“If I did, then I will just add them to my list,” Sayler said.
It will be a coup for the Gators to host the nation’s No. 8 overall prospect (247 Sports Composite) this weekend.
A key source told Dawgnation that Salyer still plans to make that trip.