Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. This page today calls for a chat with 5-star ILB and major Georgia recruiting target Noah Sewell. It comes in advance of his official visit for Notre Dame this weekend.
Noah Sewell is visiting Athens this weekend. Officially. For starters, here’s what he is looking to see.
“It didn’t really hit me that it was this week until this week,” Noah Sewell told DawgNation. “I’m just excited to go out there and watch the game I mean I’ve been out there for three days on my unofficial. I’m heading back out there now just to see the gameday experience. It is really exciting.”
The uncommitted 2020 early enrollee already had a previous 3-day trip to UGA for an unofficial this summer. What sort of impression has that left with him?
“Just mostly coach [Glenn] Schumann and the linebacker group,” he said. “I mean coach Schumann is a really cool guy and coach [Dan] Lanning, too. They really care about their players and they really hope to see them succeed on and off the field.”
The other thing here is the fit. The team fit. Georgia’s chances, the same for all his top contenders, will hinge on how much of a connection he builds to the guys he will play alongside. That is also what comes to mind readily for him about the Bulldogs.
“Just the linebacker group,” Noah Sewell said. “They really push each other to the best of their abilities. It is constantly competing in that room. Nobody hates on each other. They just push each other and try to be the best. That’s what I like.”
There’s a lot to get to in this update. Yet with that, it seems appropriate to share a bit about the man he is growing to be. Not just those five stars next to his name.
The best witness to that remains his father. Gabriel Sewell, Sr. currently has three sons playing college football at Nevada, Oregon and Utah. Noah is up next. His older brother, Penei, is a tackle at Oregon.
He’s very good. When the conversation of the best offensive tackles in college football comes up, his older brother is clearly in that conversation this year. That’s even though he is just a sophomore.
“My oldest one he’s all business,” Gabriel Sewell said. “Focused. Clearly focused and whatnot. The next one is special in and of himself. Penei was always kind of to himself and whatnot. But then there’s Noah.”
“Noah, I tell you, I think he should go into public relations. I have people who always ask me ‘Will he go far?’ and I tell them I could drop him off in Alaska and he’d be making friends with the chief of any Native American tribe fast and be fine with it. He is unique in that way.”
It was a very rare sight checking out the clips of Noah at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge this summer. He was fielding punts one-handed while cradling a ball in his other hand. Not missing a beat.
Those are the moments where even trained eyes have to remind themselves that he will operate inside the box on Saturdays and Sunday. This athlete is still going to be a problem at inside linebacker.
The latest ratings have him as the nation’s No. 2 ILB and No. 22 overall prospect within the 247Sports Composite rankings for 2020.
Noah Sewell: This guy is just different
Pick an adjective: Competitive. Elite. Fast. Hybrid. Instinctive. Physical. Uncommon.
They all apply. But when show up on this page, it somehow feels like they are not enough. If this was TV, a British voice talent would aid the description the best.
This would be something that befits a National Geographic or Mutual of Omaha special.
“Georgia – an untapped land of rare and exotic recruiting sights galore in the Kirby Smart era – might not have ever had one appear on the Sanford plain quite like Sewell. This rare breed in the insidious Insiderus Linebackerus species is only found in Utah. While fitting the size profile of the most imposing predators, the Sewell is able to match the speed of even his smallest prey. Is there a chance this exotic Insiderus Linebackerus might migrate Southeast as it reaches adulthood? He might. It might hinge on whether or not he seen any of those equally rare black-chested Bulldogs on this visit.”
He’s built like an old school defensive tackle. Yet with the range of an elite safety in pass coverage.
He’s 6 feet, 2 inches and will tip the scales at 265-ish pounds. When he tested at the Opening finals in Texas back in July, these were his numbers:
- Laser 40: 4.75 seconds
- Vertical jump: 35.6 inches
- Pro agility drill: 4.13 seconds
- Powerball toss: 47.5 feet
Let’s focus on that pro agility test. That’s five yards to one cone, 10 yards in the opposite course zooming past the starting point to another cone. Then five yards back to the center cone. Sewell’s times were in the same ballpark with Georgia freshmen WR Dominick Blaylock (4.00 seconds) and OLB Nolan Smith (4.08 seconds) when they ran that drill as rising high school seniors in July of 2018.
He has 60-plus pounds on Blaylock and another 30 on Smith.
He tested as the second-most explosive LB in the nation at that event. Check the weights of the guys who finished Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 among all the linebackers tested that week: 220 pounds, 214, 226, 234 and 226.
Sewell competed well in the Opening finals in the 7-on-7 tournament. At that size, he was expected to be a drag. How was he supposed to hang with elite slot receivers?
The answer was quite well. Sewell was one of the five best defenders at that tournament by anyone’s measure. He was everywhere. Even in an event that wasn’t supposed to be his strength.
The true beauty of his game is supposed to be in pads. Between the tackles. Not in Dri-Fit shirts and shorts.
Didn’t matter. Sewell stood out.
The rest of the recruiting story for Noah Sewell
Sewell will return to the field on Friday night for the first time all season. He had broken a bone in his foot.
His coaches at Orem High and his family treated that carefully. Their goal is a state title. The odds won’t improve there by running their Insiderus Linebackerus out in late August and September.
“I tried to take the weight off it,” Noah Sewell said. “The doctors told me six to eight weeks. This is my eighth week. I just got cleared on Monday. So I’m just practicing and ready to roll.”
Sewell told DawgNation he’ll be around 90 percent on Friday.
That’s the mid-week observation from his head coach. It serves as another example here that those who see Noah are prone to finding just the right colors to their words to shape the picture of what they see. That’s even those who see him play all the time.
Sewell plans just two other official visits at this time. Those were the same two he had his eyes on back in July. The first is to Texas A&M for the Alabama game on Oct. 12. The other one is to take a hard look at joining Penei in Oregon.
The Ducks do not have any real marquee home games this year. Their best games are on the road. So the exact game weekend for the official to Eugene is still undecided.
RELATED: Check out the robust visit list for UGA-Notre Dame this weekend
The biggest thing for Sewell on this trip to Georgia this weekend will be to see what bonds develop between him and potential teammates. That’s both the ones who will face Notre Dame on Saturday and the ones that wish they were already in the red and black, too.
“Yeah, that will mostly be it,” Noah Sewell said. “Just having that relationship with them and the coaches. Because you can have all the nice facilities. Nice jerseys and everything. But when it comes down to it and when things get hard those are the people you have to rely on.”
Sewell is a clear competitor. He showed that over and over in prospect camps this summer. It helped him earn his fifth star in those rankings.
Watching him work was like focusing in on a youth hoping that just the right clip that founds its way to social media would land his first offer. It netted his fifth star instead.
That mindset seems right where it needs to be, too. When asked about the SEC, he does see the conference as another proving ground.
“SEC is a whole different ball,” Sewell said. “They really have big boys upfront. They average like 6-5 and 330 pounds. That’s really big boys up in the trenches. You really go to battle with them. They will just push you and prepare you for the NFL.”
RELATED: A father’s view…Gabriel Sewell Sr. shares a window into his son’s process
When did things get real with Georgia and Noah Sewell?
Noah Sewell didn’t have Georgia on his radar earlier this year. Maybe even seven months ago.
“Right when it got real was when coach Schumann and coach Lanning pulled up to my campus,” he said. “Because they really came far away from home to come and see me. That really stood out to me. So if they took the chance to come out and see me I might as well take the chance to go out and see them. Then things just went from there.”
The frequency of the way Georgia is recruiting him is balanced compared to his other options. No one school is overwhelming the others in terms of how frequently they reach out.
But the Bulldogs have found their own lane with it.
“I can’t really describe it,” Noah Sewell said. “But you can feel it deep down. It is something different. They know things differently than other coaches. It seems like they know a whole different ballgame.”
Sewell has even been watching the Bulldogs on TV this fall. This weekend might be the biggest crowd he’s ever been a part of.
That is another thing he’s looking for. How will the home crowd support their team?
“I mean I saw over social media that there were more Georgia fans than Vanderbilt fans at that game this year,” he said. “I mean we will see all of that this weekend.”
He connected with a lot of current Bulldogs on that three-day unofficial over the summer.
“Just the whole linebacker group,” Sewell said. “Channing [Tindall] and Tae [Crowder] and all the other linebackers,” he said.
Sewell is committed to taking part in the All-American Bowl out in Texas in January.
“I hope that I can make a decision before the game,” he said. “If not, then probably there.”
The Sewell family feels they already like the people in the building at UGA. Will they leave Athens loving them?
That might be the big question which gets settled on this official visit.