This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 4-star McEachern LB Joakim Gouda. He ranks as the nation’s No. 14 LB and the No. 193 overall prospect for 2027 on the 247Sports Composite. The Rivals Industry Ranking has him as the No. 14 LB and No. 153 overall.
Joakim Gouda knows his way around social media.
He just didn’t like what he had seen of late. That’s part of the reason why he moved up his commitment date from July 1 to June 1. Gouda had been ready to be a Dawg for a while, but saw no need to wait any longer.
He was a little ticked. Maybe even a Junkyard Dawg kind of mad.
“I’ve been seeing all of them Twitter comments,” he said. “They’ve been talking about Georgia.”
Gouda was referring to a group of rival fans online. But there’s more these days.
There’s always been the “Disney Dawgs” who see everything with their red and black-tinted Oakleys on. But there’s a new faction of “Disappointed Dawgs” who chirp about every little thing.
Some pointed out that the Bulldogs have fallen in love with recruiting 3-stars. The lifeblood of the program had been recruiting elite high school prospects, but it had not been the same this cycle.
When 5-star TE Jaxon Dollar committed to UGA on April 29, that decision was followed up by verbal pledges from five consecutive 3-star prospects.
“I’ve been seeing all the naysayers and what they’ve been saying online about the program at Georgia,” Gouda said. “I just wanted to go public with it just to show them that there’s still some real stuff going on here with this 2027 class. Some people just don’t get it.”
Gouda, a very high 4-star prospect, broke that streak. He’s rated as the Nation’s No. 2 LB and the No. 31 overall recruit for Rivals.
“I just wanted to show them that we’ve got something good going on in this class,” Gouda said. “It is going to be something great.”
This is not one of those tissue-paper-thin verbal commitments. Gouda already really loves Georgia and wants all those skeptics to know how much playing in Athens will mean to him.
“They are getting a guy,” he said. “A guy who is going to wear that ‘G’ with pride. Do you feel me? I mean, really do it big and really give it their all for that ‘G’ because it really does mean something to me. It is not just a logo to me. I’m representing my family. I’m representing the city of Athens and my coaches. They are getting a home-bred guy. At the inside linebacker spot, when they get a home-bred guy, you can look at the statistics of that at Georgia and see how well that works out.”
