Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep shares the commitment of 2025 defensive back prospect Tae Harris to the Georgia Bulldogs.
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Tae Harris has no stars or rankings by his name right now.
Well, that’s about to change.
That will change about quickly as he can get down the field or cover some ground on the track.
The Class of 2025 defensive back prospect announced his commitment to UGA via his social media early Monday evening. Harris becomes the sixth commitment in a Georgia football class that also has the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for the 2025 class. Not just the current group of rising seniors.
Harris hails from Cedartown. The back-to-back national champion Bulldogs also accepted his commitment this early in the process before the recruiting industry identified him as a major prospect for the 2025 class.
That’s good enough.
“My story is not normal,” Harris said. “I went from no offers and no stars, which I still have no stars, but then my recruitment took off. Coaches started rolling into our school. They started looking at a couple of our DBs. I got a couple of offers from Group of Five schools and then Dell McGee showed up at my school one day and watched me practice.”
McGee told him to come to camp at Georgia on May 31. He did. They really liked what they saw. Georgia co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp offered him to play safety in Athens.
“My recruiting went from really really low to really really high in a matter of three weeks,” he said.
If a young man that hails from Cedartown is good enough to draw the offer from the ‘Dawgs and get that traditional “Go ‘Dawgs” tweet from Kirby Smart quickly in response, then that is plenty good enough.
Cedartown has sent a pair of All-American prospects to Athens recently in perennial NFL Pro Bowler Nick Chubb and All-American LB CJ Washington in the 2021 cycle. Washington has had to step away from football due to a neck injury he suffered during his first spring practice in Athens, but Harris is now the next Cedartown Bulldog to decide he’s ready to become a Georgia Bulldog.
Why UGA? Harris had a clever comeback to that.
“Why not UGA?” he told DawgNation on Monday. “They treated me like one of their own. It felt right.”
The 6-foot, 180-pound rising junior has great speed. He was timed at 10.71 seconds in the 100 meters this spring as a sophomore on the Cedartown track team.
He’s also quite strong. Check out his reps with 355 on the squat rack from this winter.
DawgNation is going to love seeing this young man in red and black. His Instagram avatar is the words “I hate Wide outs” written on a sheet of paper. He said that Nick Chubb gave him a personal endorsement to the UGA staff.
Harris said that Georgia running backs coach Dell McGee extended a committable offer to him after a camp workout in Athens on May 31. He knew that he wanted to be a ‘Dawg then.
He somehow found a way to wait three weeks before letting the world know that he was a ‘Dawg. Georgia offered him to play safety.
“They see me as that Malaki Starks kind of player,” Harris said. “That type of safety. I like to hit.”
Tae Harris: The good stuff to know about the newest UGA football commit
Harris camped on May 31. He got the offer from UGA on June 1 and it was already committable.
The rising juinor has always wanted to be a ‘Dawg.
“I talked to CJ and Nick today about it and they said ‘Yes sir you can go on ahead and do it’ and I was like ‘Yes sir I am going to go ahead and do that one then’ and they said it is the best thing for me. They said that our program at Cedartown is a lot similar to Georgia. They do a lot of the things that we do like agilities and mat drills. Our meetings and stuff like that.”
He knew when that offer came, his recruiting process was over.
“I really didn’t pay attention to anybody else’s school,” Harris said. “I wanted to be a ‘Dawg. My momma wanted me to be a ‘Dawg. My city wants me to be a ‘Dawg and I really wanted to be a ‘Dawg.”
Other offers will come. The stars and rankings will come. It will not matter to him, he said.
“I’m locked in with the ‘Dawgs,” Harris said. “Coach Smart wanted me to be a ‘Dawg. I told my recruiting coach first. Coach McGee. I told him first. I wanted to thank him for blessing me for coming down to my school. Then I called Coach Muschamp. I sat in his meetings before. Then I called Coach Smart and Coach [Fran] Brown and when I called Coach Smart he answered the first time. I called Coach Smart and he said “We’ve been excited for you and wanted you to be a ‘Dawg we just didn’t want to pressure you’ so they were even encouraging me to go to other schools and make sure that I knew that I wanted to be at the University of Georgia, too.”
“I told him ‘Yes sir’ and I said ‘I appreciate you Coach Smart but I’ve always wanted to be a ‘Dawg’ and he said ‘We’ve always wanted you to be a ‘Dawg’ and I was like ‘Let’s do it’ after that.”
When he made it official, he said it felt great. He felt like he had his family and the whole city of Cedartown behind him when he made that move today.
He wears No. 27. That’s the number that Chubb wore at Georgia. That’s the number that Washington wore at Cedartown after Chubb made that No. 27 famous in Athens.
“I just want to keep that tradition going,” Harris said. “It is not technically a tradition at Cedartown because Nick wore No. 21 at high school, but that No. 27 was then worn after that by CJ and him so I wanted to keep it going.”
He’s already been to several games in Athens. When he camped on May 31, he came back on June 13 for another unofficial visit.
When he made that commitment to Georgia, it would have been great to capture that moment on video.
“Well first that room was very loud,” Harris said. “We were pumped up. Excited. There were a lot of giggles. There were a lot of smiles. There were a lot of teeth in those smiles getting shown in my house.”
He’s just 16 years old. He will turn 17 in November.
When he sat down with Smart after his offer on May 31, he said that Smart shared with him that he had already gotten the stamp of approval from Chubb.
“He said Nick Chubb endorsed me and that he doesn’t really endorse just anybody,” Harris said. “If you know Nick, then you know he really doesn’t talk a lot. It was great. I appreciate Nick Chubb and my coaches for getting me in there in that room with Coach Smart. I appreciate everybody that played a role in my career so far.”
Check out his sophomore film below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
