This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 4-star Texas QB Bowe Bentley. He ranks as the nation’s No. 10 QB and the No. 123 overall prospect for 2026 on the 247Sports Composite. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the No. 9 QB and No. 91 overall.
Bowe Bentley.
There’s a lot of buzz right now around Georgia with the 4-star passer who used to return kickoffs for touchdowns in Texas. He was once a soccer and national-level lacrosse player, too.
Bentley didn’t even start as QB1 for the Celina High School varsity until the first game of his junior season. He was up next behind a senior who went to West Texas A&M, so he ran track, played free safety and receiver, and returned those kickoffs.
Then he gave up all those other sports to focus on football. Bentley responded with a 16-0 season that led his Bobcats to the Class 4A title in Texas. He did so as a dual-threat with 47 passing scores and 16 rushing TDs.
He ran for almost 1,000 yards on the ground and threw just seven picks in those 16 games. He’s all that and also the guy who works out every day with his O-line in the weight room. (Side note: Star QBs that work out with their OLs are usually keepers.)
The tape below, if we’re being objective, is as good as any quarterback Georgia is recruiting this cycle. Especially given the level of competition.
Bentley recently announced a final three that included Georgia, LSU, and Oklahoma. While the Bulldogs didn’t offer him until late February, they’d been talking to him for a while prior to that.
We’ve been talking about Bentley on “Before the Hedges” for the last three months, but this is the first substantial DawgNation.com read on Bentley up to this point.
The 4-star visited UGA late last month, and he’s set an official visit for June 6 to check out UGA. The timing of that visit will depend on what 5-star Jared Curtis decides on May 5. He also has official visits set to LSU and Oklahoma later that month.
What’s all the fuss about? DawgNation wanted to know. Celina High coach Bill Elliott shared a lot in a very informative conversation about Bentley.
Perhaps nothing more than when asked what Bentley is looking for in the perfect college fit.
“The number one thing, this is kind of funny, but it is what it is,” Elliott said. “But I get it. Everybody in the world has been coming to talk to him. Those months in January and February, everybody was out here. So many coaches in our indoor watching him throw. It was like 20 guys a day sometimes.”
“His thing is what he’s asked a lot of the coaches, and I think it is a great question.”
Bentley asks: “Do you have a chance to win a national championship?”
Imagine asking that to every Power 4 coach that walks up and sticks out a hand to recruit him. Or on the college tour he went to in late March.
With the University of Georgia, he doesn’t have to ask that question. That got his attention when the Dawgs came calling,
“One of the greatest things he told me is ‘I don’t care about the money,” Elliott said. “He said ‘I wish I didn’t have to deal with the money. All this NIL crap, I wish I didn’t have to deal with it. I don’t care,’ and he said, ‘I’m getting a full-ride scholarship. I’m getting taken care of,’ and he said, ’I know it is something I’ve got to deal with, but I don’t want to. I want a chance to win a national championship. I want to go somewhere where every year we have a legitimate chance to win a national championship,’ and he’s asked several coaches that. Several coaches here in Texas he’s asked them, ‘Do you really think you’ve got a chance to win a national championship while I am there?’ and to really get a coach to fess up and and confess and say ‘Yeah, we can. Or we will’ but everyone can believe that but can they truly say that.”
“I think his top three are teams that can truly say they can be in the mix.”
The Bowe Bentley story: DawgNation is going to love to read this
Elliott said that championships are Bentley’s No. 1 thing. He said he also wants to be pushed, developed and to compete. He’s not worried about coming in and being told he’s the guy.
The 4-star has been timed at 4.45 seconds on the stopwatch at Celina and has a 30-inch vertical. He’s been timed at 4.35 seconds on the pro agility drill, and a strong time for an elite high school skill player is about 4.2 seconds. NFL draft picks can do that in 4.10 seconds.
The roll call about all things Bentley can fill up a Texas-sized reporter’s notebook:
“So many people have seen him on interviews. They’ve heard about him. They watch him play. They see how he carries himself. He’s just different. When you watch him, he’s got it all. He’s got the look. He looks like he’s Joe Namath out there. Just the hair. ... People see him and just his smile. The personality and they fall in love with him. Even our opponents, who hate us because we win a lot, they love Bowe.”
“I’ve never had a kid. In my 32 years, I’ve played here in Texas. Grew up here. I’ve gone to places right now, and I have kids come up to me at soccer games, and they say, ‘Hey, you’re the head coach at Celina, right? Hey, do you know Bowe Bentley?’ and I go, ‘Well, yeah, I’m the head coach.’ They say, ‘He’s really good, isn’t he?’ and I say ‘Yeah, he’s pretty good’ and they say ‘What’s he like?’ and I tell them. People are enthralled by him. Even adults come up. I’ve never had them come up to me and know our player like that, too. It amazes me. He’s got something about him that people are just attracted to. It is just a magnetism that he has.”
“I’m so happy for him and all he’s getting right now because he’s a kid you want to see have that success because of how good of a kid he is. How quiet and humble he is, and yet he will speak up and do what he has to do to lead the team.”
“He is a spectacular athlete. His skill set is unbelievable. With his arm, his legs, his size, and his speed. All of that is unbelievable.”
“I think it was Dan Mullen who told me when he was in watching him throw. He said, ‘I’ve seen a lot of guys who can spin it like Bowe. But they’re not Bowe Bentley. They’re not Bowe Bentley. Bowe is just an exceptional young man. I’ve been coaching for 32 years here in Texas at Celina. We’ve won nine state championships here. Been in it 12 times. Had a lot of great players. Guys that played in the NFL. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Bowe Bentley.”
“I’ll be honest. My own son, who played quarterback here, was an All-State quarterback. Played at UNC. He’s our OC and our QBs coach now. He’s been working with Bowe for the last five years, I guess since Bowe got to junior high. We just haven’t had a kid like him.”
“He’s the whole package. His leadership. His attitude. His demeanor. He’s so mature. When he talks to you, it is like talking to a man. He looks you in the eye. His work ethic is there. He’s so humble. He is a team player. He builds up his teammates. He picks up the lowest guy. He’s not above anybody on the team. We have a saying, ‘Nobody’s above cleaning out the shed,’ and he’s a guy in there picking up the trash around the locker room or the facility. He’s just a very special young man. That’s what makes him who he is.”
“I would say he’s pushing more 6-foot-3 and 205 [pounds] right now. He might be pushing 210. He’s big. He’s thick right now. He looks really good. He’s running really well. Track. He looks great working out right now. He’s just got a lot of athletic ability.”
“We were going into that state [title game], and I always talk to him before the game. He’s the guy who calls the coin flip and calls everything. Just his calmness. That’s one thing I’ve always noticed about Bowe. Just his calmness going into the big game and how calm he is. He just looked at me and said, ‘Coach, we’ve got this’ and said ‘We got it’ and the confidence he had in him, and he was reassuring me. I’m the head coach. I’m the guy who’s supposed to be reassuring everybody. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Been around this area a long time coaching and been to a lot of state championship games, and he’s telling me we’ve got this and it is all okay. That really spoke to me about his confidence and how he believes in his team.”
“He was a JV player playing quarterback for us; he was undefeated. Then, as a sophomore, he started four games for us. When he started those four games, he won all of those, and of course, this past year, he was undefeated. 16-0. His first actual first season as a starting varsity quarterback he won every game.”
“He was a national lacrosse player. He was really good. Played on a travel team that went all over the nation. He’s also a great soccer player. He played soccer for us during his freshman and sophomore years. He decided after his sophomore year, he came to us, him and his Dad, and said that they were giving up everything. Giving up soccer. Giving up lacrosse. They were going straight football. They were dedicated. He dedicated himself that spring and summer to working on his craft. On his throwing. His footwork. Just everything football, and he excelled. He blossomed that summer and just took off. It was a great decision.”
“He’s a legit 4.6 guy [in the 40], and he’s got really good speed. He can run. He can. I think in a football uniform, he might be faster than that. He’s got football speed. He’s got field speed. He can really get it and motor. He’s got great vision. He makes great cuts, and he makes great decisions.”
“I think that’s what a lot of the college coaches talk about. He’s going to go through his progressions. ... I don’t know if we’ve ever had a quarterback. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it in a high school quarterback that can fully progress through the entire process of a play, reading the play and making the play.”
“I think it is an all-around arm. He amazes me all the time with how he can stick a ball in a hole. When he makes his mind up, he will put it in there and put it on the money. He also has great arm strength to throw it down the field. He can put a ball on a rope, and what gets me is when he is mobile and when he is escaping and how he keeps his eyes down the field. There were several times just this season when he is on the run escaping, and all of sudden he sees a receiver 30-40 yards downfield, and he sticks it on a rope right to them. A couple of times, it was an amazing play that I’ve never seen a high school kid make before. How he can throw the ball on the run and put it on the money and still see that guy running down the field with all the traffic in front of him.”
Coach Elliott’s son, Nathan, is now the offensive coordinator at Celina. He was a 3-star QB in the 2015 cycle that went on to sign with North Carolina. He started 12 games and threw 21 touchdowns for the Tar Heels. When his ACC career was up, he went to coach as a graduate assistant at Arkansas State. His perspective also helps here.
Elliott started for four years at Celina before going to college football.
“He said, ‘I wasn’t doing the things that Bowe is doing now until I was probably a sophomore in college,” Celina coach Bill Elliott said. “He said, ‘That’s just the normal progression, and he’s already doing that. The way he’s been reading. The vision he has. He’s so decisive that he’s going to throw the ball or I’m gone. He’s running,’ and he makes great decisions. He’s never hesitant. Never second-guesses himself. When he decides he’s going, he going.’”
“The thing we’ve learned about Bowe is he never has negative plays. Even when there is a bad snap or something happens, he will at least get you back to the line of scrimmage or get you out of it. It is amazing how few negative plays he has with him. It’s been that way since he was a freshman. He just does not give up a negative play.”
This sounds like a coach really selling the wares of a player who’s very deserving. But there’s one more element that fits in here regarding all things Bentley.
This came from DawgNation. From a scattering of UGA alumni and fans that live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They’ve seen Bentley and have been emailing about him since last season. When he got his UGA offer in late February, the emails and messages kept coming.
- “You need to write about him.”
- “How much do you think the Dawgs are looking at him? They really should.”
- “You really need to introduce Dawg fans to Bowe Bentley.”
- “If by some chance the Dawgs do not land [Jared] Curtis, he is absolutely nobody’s second best.”
- “Bowe is the type of player that would thrive at Georgia.”
- “Do a deep dive on him. You won’t be disappointed.”
- “He’s the real deal.”
- “He could be a taller Stetson at UGA. He’s that type of playmaker. He’s a winner.”
Georgia has recruited a ton of 5-star QBs during the Kirby Smart era. Or big-time talent from across the country. This reporter has never seen this type of groundswell about an out-of-state player who had yet to receive an offer from the Dawgs.
It wasn’t just what the coach had to say here. It was what DawgNation folks in the DFW saw in him last season.
While the Stetson Bennett parallels aren’t cookie-cutter, that name brings to mind the impact he could have at UGA. It raises eyebrows the way they should be here with Bentley. Dawg fans could certainly handle another three or four years of a Bennett-level QB in Athens.
Stay tuned.
The fact that he decided to give UGA an official visit and place the program in his final three is telling. Especially with his desire to win championships as the No. 1 thing he’s looking for in the right school.
Have you seen this week’s “Before the Hedges” weekly recruiting special on YouTube yet? Check it out below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
