This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 3-star senior Harran Zureikat at Fox Chapel in Pennsylvania. He’s the nation’s No. 1 K and No. 2,421 overall prospect for 2026 on the 247Sports Composite. The Rivals Industry Ranking has him as the No. 2 K and No. 2,176 overall.
The season is in full swing for the 2026 Georgia football recruiting class. The Dawgs have 30 commits churning through their senior years. It gives us a chance to spotlight the monster seasons that several of them are putting together.
We’ll call this series “How ‘bout them commits?” and we could only kick things off by profiling the next great kicker in Athens.
That’s 3-star Pennsylvania kicker Harran Zureikat.
Zureikat is rated by Kohl’s Kicking as the nation’s No. 1 kicker for 2026. His bio for that service assesses him as the best kicker in the country over the last three years.
No Zureikat story could get started without answering this question: “How ‘bout that kick?”
That’s the 57-yarder he blasted last month. Zureikat feels it would’ve been good from 62 or 63.
“I think it hits easily from 67,” Fox Chapel coach David Leasure said.
That kick, which is captured below, set a new WPIAL district record. With two games left to play, he’s got his sights on the Pennsylvania state record. That would be a 64-yard boot.
Rewatch that clip. Pay attention to the skill guy from the opposing team who gave him a low-key “low five” after that missile. That’s respect.
What was that like? Success has been hard to find for his Fox Chapel Foxes. The program has only won four games during the last two seasons. Zureikat will typically win that many games each month as a Dawg.
When he launched that 57-yarder, his Foxes were coming off a 63-3 loss the previous week that drew Pittsburgh-area headlines because of the vast talent gap between the schools.
Leasure explained his thinking before that kick.
“We were third-and-20 on the 45,” Leasure said. “I’m thinking the chances of picking up third-and-20 here are not good. So if we can get five [yards] on a run, we’ve got a shot. We were up 7-0 at the time.”
“I figured, let’s pick up five here and give Harran a shot to get us up by two scores.”
The Foxes ran it and got those five yards. While a lot of high school kickers might not warm up until their team crosses the 35, the future Bulldog warms up whenever his team has the ball.
The reality is that anywhere past midfield is scoring territory for Zureikat. He also hit a game-winner this year from chip-shot range with nine seconds left. It was tipped at the line.
“Someone got a good hand on it,” Leasure said. “But he kicks the ball so hard, it made it through for the winner.”
That was maybe from 22 yards. Tough angle. On the hash.
“It cleared the bar by like an inch,” Zureikat said. “But I also knew those guys were going to come in hot. We were tied up. It was for the win, so I knew they were going to try their hardest to block it on a kick like that. It was 20 yards away. I honestly didn’t have to aim. I just put everything in it.”
He converted another kick in the same game from 40 yards out. That was also tipped. There was another game this year against Pine-Richland.
“I had a 54-yarder, which was also tipped,” he said.
That’s three field goals he’s made where the ball was tipped coming out, but it still had enough juice to split the uprights.
Zureikat tried a kick last Friday from 65 yards out.
“Which I missed,” Zureikat said. “The refs told me I missed by like an inch. An inch short. Which was heartbreaking, but coach Leasure definitely has a lot of trust in me.”
The hold wasn’t ideal, but he thought he hit it pure. That would have broken the state record in Pennsylvania.
“Everyone in the stands thought it was good,” Zureikat said. “Everyone went crazy. I was just waiting for the ref to give me that signal, but they called it no good.”
He feels the talents of an SEC-level long snapper and a SEC-level holder will amplify his game.
“I think about this a lot with the pros and cons of heading to an atmosphere like Georgia,” he said. “The biggest con would be having to adjust to the crowds of like 100,000 people. But with a really good long snapper and holder, and especially a line to block for me, it will really help a lot. There’s also hitting well-conditioned balls. It will really improve my game.”
Harran Zureikat: What stands out about the next great Bulldog kicker?
There’s a confidence that’s apparent when speaking with Zureikat. The 6-foot-1, 180-pounder has his process and repeats it before every kick.
He’s grabbed headlines for his distance, but those who have seen him feel that his accuracy is at least on par with his power.
“I treat every kick the same way,” he said. “A lot of the stability that I have comes from trusting the holder, the snapper and pretty much the whole operation. That they are going to do their job. I know if they do their job, I’m going to do mine.”
It doesn’t matter the range.
“The 57-yard ball is the same mindset as the 45-yard ball,” Zureikat said. “Obviously, I have to put some more power into it, but I just kick it the same way.”
Zureikat will touch his nose and then his right hip before every kick. He’ll do that a few times before he lines up the ball, well, because he’s a kicker. That’s what kickers tend to do to lock in and focus.
“I connect the ball with that big bone in the middle of my foot,” Zureikat said. “That’s when I know I usually smacked the ball. My follow-through lines up perfectly and everything feels right.”
That confidence was earned by how hard it is for a kicker to earn a full scholarship from an elite program like UGA. The word “pressure cooker” describes it because all of the nation’s best kickers go through a gauntlet with the staff watching.
Rankings don’t matter. Let’s say the stud prospect bellyflops while Georgia special teams coordinator Dirk Benedict or Kirby Smart are watching in June. That will be a no. They will never be ready to kick in front of 90,000-plus fans in the SEC.
Zureikat has consistently come out on top in those trials, including his camp work at UGA. He feels he’s the best kicker in the country.
The confidence to say that matter-of-factly comes from those camps.
“I’ve probably gone to 15 or 20 events over the past two years,” Zureikat said. “The first three or four camps, I went to, I barely charted like 75 percent. Just seeing how much better I needed to get. Then slowly over time, at the 10th camp or the 11th camp, I started to win those events. It gave me a lot of confidence from starting out, coming up from the bottom.”
Harran Zureikat: The “How ‘bout them commits?” scouting report
Leasure said if the ball is on the opposing team’s 48, he’ll give him a shot. Especially if it is an end-of-the-half scenario or not much time on the clock. That’s a 65-yarder.
“I have no trouble giving him a shot from there,” Leasure said.
He was effusive in his praise for the future Bulldog.
“He is a generational kicker,” Leasure said. “Not just like this year. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never coach, or better yet, I’ll never see another high school kicker like him.”
There’s not just a thunderbolt’s worth of leg strength here. There’s that accuracy component that looms just as large. Kickoffs are a breeze.
“That’s what I’m trying to describe,” his coach said. “He’s the total package. There is no clear strength because it is all strengths. I’m doing the best I can to describe it. Coaches coach 35 years and never have a player at a position on the field that is this good.”
What is it like watching him kick?
“You’re basically in awe,” Leasure said. “I guess it’s the best way to put it. You can’t even really describe it because you know you’ll never see it again up close like this.”
There’s a distinct Zureikat-inspired sound.
“It is a thud like you’ve never heard,” Leasure said. “People love hearing pads crack on the football field, you know? A big hit? It’s like hearing the equivalent of that every time he kicks the ball.”
Leasure described what the Dawgs are getting in this phenom.
“The sky is the limit,” Leasure said. “Coach [Kirby] Smart is going to rest easy a lot of nights in tight games. Because not only is he really really talented, he’s as cool as the other side of the pillow.”
He plans to graduate in December. The current plan is to join the Dawgs after he kicks in the Under Armour All-American Game. Zureikat is also preparing for current ALL-SEC hopeful Peyton Woodring to turn pro.
“I feel like it is a win-win for me,” Zureikat said. “If Peyton decides to leave and I come in early, then I can continue the momentum with me right now by not having a year to sit out. But on the flip side, it would also be real helpful to have Peyton be a mentor for me for a year. Learn all the ropes and how to handle the pressure situations I’ll be in. I’m honestly viewing it as a win-win.”
He committed to UGA in June, but his feelings have not changed.
“It has honestly never been stronger for me than right now,” he said. “I genuinely feel there’s no other place I’d rather be. First off, the way they play in the games makes them one of the most consistent teams out there. I don’t know what the statistic is, but they haven’t been unranked in a really long time. They are one of those blue-chip teams anyone would want to play for.”
“Then we have the first or second-best recruiting class in the country. They are consistently bringing in the best players and playing on the big stage of the SEC, and I’ll be playing for the best coaches in the country. Coach Smart is probably the best in the country right now. It is the best place in the country.”
Have you seen this week’s “Before the Hedges” weekly recruiting special on YouTube yet? Check it out below
SENTELL’S INTEL
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