Quintin Somerville: His first UGA visit exceeded some lofty expectations

Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. The call here is the second read from DawgNation on the developing recruiting relationship between Georgia and 4-star Arizona LB Quintin Somerville. 

Quintin Somerville had more than a few ‘wow’ moments on his first recruiting trip to Georgia last month.

It all started to sink in when he looked around the facility. He couldn’t miss that image of Bulldog legend A.J. Green.

He locked another image of Green in his mind years ago. That’s when he was just a kid in Arizona. He saw Green at Georgia playing in front of a big crowd on TV. Making big catches.

Somerville was just six years old. Already enthralled with Georgia back then. It was why Somerville chose an uncommon social media reaction to his UGA offer. 

There’s history there. It was part of the reason why his family made a quick trip to see UGA. The Somervilles made it out for a “Junior Day” roughly 16 days after he received that offer.

The plot kept getting interesting.

The 6-foot-3, 235-pound junior even found out his high school teammate would be in Athens for that same weekend. He learned about that shortly before his trip. 5-star Kelee Ringo also signed with UGA out of Saguaro High School (Scottsdale, Ariz.) in the 2020 class.

If it seems like a lot of coincidences are lining up here, then it should.

Ringo wasn’t going to say beforehand. He did not seek to hype up the trip for his friend. Somerville just knew Ringo would eventually find him.

Then he’d flash a look. It was his way to say “I told you so” when it came to all things UGA.

“Oh my gosh,” Somerville said. “Oh my gosh. That was it … He said like man are you blind? We went to dinner after the day. I didn’t get to see Kelee much during the day when I was touring the facility. But we went to dinner with Kelee and some of the other recruits and the coaches that were there. He was like ‘Bro, what did I say?’ and you could just see the kind of look on his face when he walked in.”

Somerville was expecting a lot for his first trip. He was hoping to be enthralled. All over again.

Georgia hit the bulls eye square with that notion.

“It kind of exceeded my expectations,” Somerville said. “Georgia just kind of sticks out. Georgia is a big football factory and everyone is excited and passionate around the football team. But I kind of learned a lot more around the different aspects Georgia has. I thought it was by far the best visit I have been on thus far.”

He said the best part was his meeting with Kirby Smart.

“He didn’t even talk about football really,” Somerville said. “He just talked about family and life and everything that has been going on. Then he told us obviously that the football part is going to take care of itself. It is a big football school, but then there is a side of the academics that I didn’t really know about.”

“[He talked about] Georgia being the No. 2 school in the SEC for academics and how they hold their players to a high standard in that aspect, too. I thought that was really cool. Then there was especially that part about coach Smart touching base with my family. I just thought that was really special to me.”

The academic appeal caught him off-guard.

“That was what really surprised me about the trip,” he said. “That was big time.”

When he got back to Arizona, everyone wanted to know his the trip went. Family. Friends. Teammates.