The UGA Recruiting Rewind for DawgNation has sorely missed Fridays like today. It is already a great Friday. Best Friday of the year if you asked me. High school football is back.

I got the chance to experience my first Georgia High School football game since 2007 last night. (Side note: I have been working in Alabama the last eight years. I got to cover Hoover. It seems after you spend so many years in that football-loving town you earn the right to make UGA football your profession from then on. See Jeremy Pruitt. See Kevin Sherrer)

I do have one question before we get to Friday’s Recruiting Rewind. I was at Mill Creek last night. I couldn’t help but notice the club music being played over the PA the ENTIRE game. Is that a thing now? Or was it a “relaxed” atmosphere for a scrimmage? Can bands now play do that during the season? I’ll check my National Federation rule book. I must have missed that update. I can never see that being allowed.

I love my jams on Spotify as much as the next guy, but don’t see the need to mix it with football. Football is all but sacred to many of us this time of year. A good head-bobbing song is always in season. Just don’t mix the two. That’s like salsa and ice cream. Those are two very very good things. Mix ’em up? Yucksville.

OK, that’s my two cents. Its time for a Silver Britches edition of UGA’s Recruiting Rewind.

Today’s must-reads

1. 100 percent > 90 percent

The DawgNation team chatted with UGA defensive back commitment Chad Clay last night. He said he’s “90 percent committed” to UGA at this time. He mentioned an interest in Oklahoma and expressed an affinity for the Big 12 and said Florida State is in the picture.

I  did have to re-read those lines. Clay is a personable kid who speaks his mind. He’ll be a go-to quote for college beat reporters. He could be an ESPN analyst one day. But those Big 12 words were the sort we’re not used to hearing from SEC commitments.

Don’t interpret that as UGA having too many numbers or liking another DB better than Clay so he’s getting slow played. Its just August. Clay is a versatile player who comes from a great football family. Let’s ponder this, but not mix our salsa and ice cream over it just yet.

Davis is the top-rated WR in the nation according to at least one ranking. (Jeff Sentell / AJC)/Dawgnation)

2. Kyle Davis on the mic

The 5-star receiver from Archer had a few minutes after the game last night. He gave the UGA Recruiting Rewind for DawgNation the skinny on his upcoming Oct. 23 commitment date. How will he do it? Why did he choose that date? Is there anything else that he needs to see? What school is he thinking about visiting this week?  The update also has a one-handed sideline catch by Davis in slo-mo.

The answers are all there plus his thoughts on whether or not he’ll take any visits once he’s committed.

Isaac Nauta is the nation’s top-rated tight end. (Student Sports)/Dawgnation)

3. Nauta sets his official visit dates

Where’s the nation’s best tight end going? UGA has to like it chances, but that answer drops on Jan. 9 from San Antonio.

Where’s the nation’s best tight end going on his official visits? Those matters have been cleared up. Nauta released his official visit playlist via his Twitter account yesterday.

Dear Mr. UGA fan: You want this guy. You really want this guy. He can make Jacob Eason look like maybe 85% of what he’s being hyped up to be. That is a ridiculous statement considering how much Eason talk there is already, but Mr. Nauta is really that good at what he does.

4. Nigel names two of his five

Peachtree Ridge 4-star safety Nigel Warrior was also part of our scrimmage coverage plan on Thursday night. Warrior told the AJC earlier in the week that UGA, Bama and Tennessee would not get an official visit and also why that was no big deal for those schools.

He weighed in on two schools he expects to make his final Top 5 on Thursday night. If you had a Dr. Pepper bet on Alabama or Ohio State then you look pretty smart this morning.

5. UGA remains in good shape with an OG

Davis told the AJC after Dawg Night that UGA was going to get an official visit. (Randy Schafer/Special)/Dawgnation)

There was some news yesterday on DeMatha Catholic offensive guard Terrance Davis yesterday. He told Rivals.com that he has five schools in mind and DawgNation saw fit to clarify that report once we heard back from Davis.

He had UGA among those five listed schools along with Alabama, Maryland, Michigan and UCLA, but those aren’t his final five schools. He told the AJC he’s still open to the recruiting process and that those schools were just his current leaders at this time. Got it? That’s the current Top 5, but not the final trimmed-down Top 5.

He already told the AJC that UGA would get an official the day after Dawg Night.

6. Another 2016 WR?

UGA has landed in the Top 5 for another receiver prospect for 2016. Grant Holloway — 3-star recruit from Virginia — did narrow down his scholarship options to five schools this week. Those are his Final 5. (We think. The business of reading the impressionable minds of teenage boys is always an inexact science.)

Ok, I just have to say this. Give receivers coach Bryan McClendon mad props for what he’s doing with recruiting this year. He’s grinding. But right now this feels like 12 CDs for the price of 1 from BMG Music Service. What’s BMG Music Service? If you were playing those antique music storage devices before Y2K like I was, then you know what I mean. Everyone got one of those BMG offers. They fell out of magazines. They may have even fell out of school library books.

Seeing a receiver putting UGA into his Top 5 right now feels that sort of exclusive to me at this point. Almost. McClendon is everywhere.

Friday’s UGA Recruiting Rewind for DawgNation catches up with Gibbs. Its rather hard to do that on a football field. (Chris Kirschner/DawgNation)/Dawgnation)

7. Gibbs shares junior year plans

Peachtree Ridge junior ATH DeAngelo Gibbs is good. Very good. We’re talking potential No. 1 prospect in the nation for 2017 good. DawgNation profiled him on Wednesday and we saw why his family background prepares him to excel. He comes from a family of achievers.

Where does he plan on visiting this fall? Glad you asked. The Recruiting Rewind has the skinny on all of that, too.

UGA is in good shape with Gibbs, but he’s also got a Texas-sized order of schools on his mind right now.

8. Hey Mr. DJ

Shockey led UGA to the SEC title in 2005. (AJC)/Dawgnation)

This week’s Throwback Thursday got the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour and took us to 2001. That’s how we were able to visit with former UGA QB D.J. Shockley and learn why he chose to play ball in Athens rather than FSU or North Carolina.

It was interesting to know how he felt about Mark Richt back then and what recruiting was like back in 2001. A prospect was lucky if he had a beeper and there was no way to DM those things.

Has it really already been 10 years since Shockley’s star turn at QB at UGA? Man, time flies.

 

 

 

 

Jeff Sentell covers UGA recruiting for AJC.com and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow him on Twitter for the latest on who’s on their way to play Between the Hedges.