COLUMBUS — Is the Demetris Robertson saga truly over? Probably, it would seem, but it appears Kirby Smart and Georgia won’t give up until the five-star recruit enrolls at California.

Robertson announced for Cal last Sunday, but his older brother kept the door slightly ajar afterwards, what with Robertson still free to go anywhere until he enrolls in early June.

Smart, asked Thursday whether he would continue to recruit Robertson, smiled a bit coyly.

“Absolutely. Why not?” he said, then adding after a moments: “Keep Cal working, maybe they can recruit less guys over here.”

Indeed, Cal and coach Sonny Dykes have made Georgia a recruiting priority.

“Coach Sonny Dukes and his staff are all from the South. And he and his staff put a heavy focus on the South, because they know the talent that is here,” said Shon Simmons, whose son Tyler was recruited by the Bears. “When we sat down with them, they explained to us that they made it a priority, to build that bridge.”

But Tyler Simmons was the in-state receiver who Georgia ended up beating out over California.

Simmons, from McEachern High School in Powder Springs, visited California last year. That school was actually the first to contact Simmons last year on the first official day it could contact. It came via e-mail. Then-Cal offensive coordinator Tony Franklin came to a McEachern practice.

“It’s real nice out there. It’s just not what I was looking for,” Simmons said. “It was a little bit different than I expected. They weren’t aggressive as far as recruiting, and as far as coaching. It just wasn’t the SEC.”

Why didn’t he end up leaving the state, or the South? Family figured in.

“We’ve got a good amount of money, but not enough to be sending this many people off to California to be seeing games,” Simmons said, laughing.