Qua Russaw and James Smith: Two very important 5-star prospects are visiting UGA today

Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep previews another big visit for Alabama 5-stars Qua Russaw and James Smith. Russaw ranks as the nation’s No. 4 EDGE and the No. 37 overall prospect for 2023 on the 247Sports Composite. Smith is the No. 1 player in Alabama, the No. 2 DT and the nation’s No. 11 overall recruit.

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The “package” is back in Athens today. That would be 5-star DT James Smith and the equally impressive EDGE prospect Jaquavious “Qua” Russaw out of Alabama.

These two, we shall make it very clear, are different in a lot of ways from their peers.

While some recruits revel in the joys of being recruited, this pair embraces the work. They have been up so early for workouts over the last few years that when they get to college they will get an extra 30 minutes or so of sleep before their daily lifts at the next level.

I can imagine that a lot of recruiters and coaches grow weary of the photoshoot experiences by now. Especially the recruits that go through one on every one of their visits. Russaw and Smith are not about that. They’d rather sit in meetings, watch practices and see how the team lifts each day.

To put it mildly, those two are easily among the top five most important defensive targets in this class for Georgia. They both clearly seem like two of the nation’s top 15 prospects in this cycle.

They are back in Athens today for another key visit. Smith just took a visit a couple of weeks ago, Russaw missed out and was at Auburn.

In the rare event that they are not together, they are known to call one another on a recruiting trip to see how things are going. Smith even has a picture of Russaw atop his Twitter profile page.

Rankings check: ESPN actually has both prospects rated among the nation’s top 10 for 2023. Russaw is slightly above Smith at No. 7 overall. That’s not a stretch by any means. Rivals has Smith at No. 35 and Russaw at No. 62. On3 has Russaw as the nation’s No. 3 EDGE and No. 8 nationally. They also see him as the top player in Alabama for this cycle. Smith is at No. 10 nationally on the pure On3 recruiting ranking. The pure 247Sports rating has Smith at No. 11 overall and Russaw at No. 66.

A quick reminder here: These two young men are not in love with the daily calls and texts and relationship building of recruiting. When they finally find the right fit, they will not wait. These two really are old school and old souls when it comes to that stuff. There’s a list of names that work out with them at Madhouse Training in Montgomery that have gone on to the NFL. Those names include Mack Wilson and Shaun Hamilton. They work out with these two young men and they express that they weren’t as focused and driven at that same age.

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SENTELL'S INTEL

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