Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. The play sheet today calls for a chance to share a good strong Intel drip on 5-star junior OT Amarius Mims. He plays for Bleckley County High School.
Amarius Mims. That name is going to prove to be very important for Georgia in the 2021 cycle.
Let’s tee up the conversation with this: He’s 16 years old. Will be 17 in October. Mims already wears a size-17 cleat.
It seems self-evident we won’t get the chance to write about many 5-stars who’s shoe size is a greater number than their years on this Earth.
That’s the first of many curiosities to note here. Let’s tally a few more of the bigger ones.
- Grew up an Alabama fan. Mims is also getting recruited hard by the Tide. But still claims UGA as his solid leader.
- Rates as the nation’s No. 2 OT and No. 12 overall prospect (247Sports Composite ratings) for 2021. That’s despite not playing offensive tackle basically at all until this spring and the upcoming season.
- He was at TE almost exclusively a year go.
- Currently at least 6 feet, 7 inches tall. Will weight in right around 310-315 at this time.
- His line coach, Ryan McKenzie, had both former UGA signee and U.S. Army All-American pick D’Antne Demery and current Georgia Bulldog Warren McClendon in high school while he worked at Brunswick. When asked for an apples-to-apples comparison between the three at this age, he gave the nod to Mims.
- Why? While Mims is very raw, he felt that he has greater tools and skills to work with as far as his overall athleticism. He’s a great “bender” who moves well laterally and kicks backward with his feet.
- His arm length on that frame is really something to see. This photo below really captures the in-person visual of just how big he already is.
- Mims shot up about three inches from the start of his sophomore season to earlier this year.
Amarius Mims is the nation’s No. 2 OT prospect for the Class of 2021. (Jeff Sentell/DawgNation)
Why does Georgia lead right now for Amarius Mims?
Mims can be heard explaining his answer to that subhead topic in the featured video slot above. Let’s recap it.
“It is just because like the influence that they have had on me,” Mims said. “They have been more like around. They have been trying to get me down more to their place. More. Just basically I feel like they want me there than any other schools do.”
Mims doesn’t sound like he has a set decision plan or timeline in mind.
“I was thinking around early senior year,” Mims said.
He has visited UGA at least 10 times by now. It meant he was both at G-Day and the summer cookout event.
The big Bleckley County standout even said that Georgia junior OT Isaiah Wilson is his favorite offensive lineman in college football, too.
“He reminds me of me,” Mims said of Wilson. “We get down and dirty and we play nasty.”
What does he like best about the Bulldogs?
“I would say the relationship I have with the coaches and everything,” Mims said. “I have a good relationship with coach [Sam] Pittman especially. Every time I go down there we just get closer and closer. I would probably say that.”
When asked to share his favorite Pittman story so far, his smile turned quite jovial. He was also a little bit stumped by that one.
“There’s so many I can’t even think of them right now,” he said. “There is a lot of them.”
Georgia and coach Kirby Smart had been telling him to go ahead and become the first commitment for the 2021 class. But that’s no longer the case. South Carolina DB Bralyn Oliver became the first to do that last week.
The Bulldogs have also made an impression on him with their strength and conditioning program. Mims brought up what he sees out of Ben Cleveland when he is up in Athens.
Mims likes the way the Bulldogs build up their linemen. That’s on the field and in the weight room.
“It is kind of unique when I go there and see Ben Cleveland at 340 and 6-foot-7 with a six-pack,” Mims said. “That’s kind of cool. I am trying to be like that.”
He still calls Alabama his favorite team. That was the school he grew up watching on TV whenever they were on.
“Coach [Nick] Saban just knows how to coach and he just wins,” Mims said this summer. “You know Alabama is just known for winning. He just sends all of his players to the draft. Especially the offensive linemen now.”
Mims had a top 8 list of schools but then decided to open things all the way up.
The coaching points to know on Amarius Mims
Von Lassiter is the head coach at Bleckley County. When folks have heard Kirby Smart over the last few months touting how well Jake Fromm was prepared to play winning SEC football in high school, that was Lassiter and his staff at Houston County that get the lion’s share of the credit for that.
Lassiter is now at Bleckley County. He was sure he was going to be big-time already well over a year ago. He said Smart told him that the felt Mims was the best tackle in the 2021 class back in January.
Lassiter also had Georgia center Trey Hill for a time at Houston County, too.
“I’ve had some really really good players,” he said. “But I don’t know if I have ever had anybody that big that can bend like him. When he squats, you can see it on Twitter and his hips get down below his knees. He can do that with close to 500 pounds.”
It is actually a good thing that he is so athletic. At that size, it would be very awkward to be that big and not be an athlete at his age.
“He’s the biggest and most athletic kid I have ever coached.”
Those ratings were pretty high for a 15-year-old who was basically a “Y” last fall. He buried a lot of the defenders that teams used to try and fill that “C” gap against his Royals. He could also really get it done on the stretch and power plays to his side, too.
He could kick of that “C” gap player on other plays, too. Mims was athletic enough to do that.
“Basically because he’s athletic enough to do it and that was a big need we had and he was coming off an injury,” Lassiter said. “Then we had a senior left tackle who was a 3-year starter and a very good player in his own right. It worked out really well for us for him to be able to do that.”
Pittman was there this spring on the first day he could see Mims during the evaluation period.
The 5-star tackle also works on the track team. He threw the discus and shot put this spring.
Mims has also gotten a lot stronger since last fall. He was already 60-to-70 pounds higher on every one of his lifts over the summer from his sophomore year.
It also bulked him up from 273 in January to 310 back in May. But he still was skilled enough to play the “Y” in some Bleckley County “over” sets.
“He’s putting on good weight and is every bit of 6-foot-7 which gives him every shot in the world to be very good for us at the left tackle position,” Lassiter said this summer.
He also benefitted from growing three inches and putting on 30 pounds rather quickly.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a kid grown as much as he did in one year,” Lassiter said.
When Mims impressed at the Rivals 3-Stripe Camp earlier this spring, he was there with kids who had their college visit bag tags all over their backpacks.
“They all had their offer tags on there walking out with all their tags hanging down,” Lassiter said. “He walks out with his cleats in a Wal-Mart grocery bag. He’s not concerned about stuff like that. He’s just a blue-collar kid who works hard and wants to be good and then wants to be great.”
A few more things to like about Amarius Mims
He has a strong foundation in football. His father played college football at West Georgia and then on in the Arena and Canadian Football League for a time.
He has good size, too.
Mims has also handled a little adversity so far coming up. He battled back from an injury that is somewhat common for a young man with his size that has been growing so fast. He’s overcome and returned to the field from a broken kneecap.
It popped on him when he came back down from going through a lay-up line in a pregame basketball warmup. It was actually the best possible scenario there.
“Just popped on him,” Lassiter said. “Absolutely the best thing that could have happened to him there. No tendon damage. No cartilage. Nothing. Nothing had to be cleaned up.”