This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 4-star Karlos May at Ramsay High School in Birmingham. He’s the nation’s No. 22 DL and the No. 182 overall prospect for 2027 on the 247Sports Composite. The Rivals Industry Ranking has him as the No. 17 DL and No. 165 overall.
Karlos May did more than just say that Georgia football was his new No. 1 school after his recent official visit.
May said he had a moment in Athens this weekend.
That was when the chill bumps came. Or when the hair on the back of his sizable neck started to stand straight up.
It was brought on after a meeting with Georgia defensive line coach Tray Scott.
“After that meeting,” he said. “I just kind of sat down for a minute and said‚ ‘I knew Georgia was the place.’ It was the place. You can see why they win games. Just because coach Scott has developed a lot of people.”
That was the best part of his visit.
“I almost wanted to commit on the spot, actually,” May said. “But I changed my mind. I said I was going to do what I said I would. Go through all my visits. Things like that. But I definitely felt that way.”
That was during the day. Then he went out with the guys on the team later that night.
“Then the next morning, when I woke up, I said this is the place to be,” May said. “Honestly, I almost did it, but I had to think about it. I had to take all the rest of my visits. It might, you don’t know, it might have been just an emotional thing. Being off emotions or the way I felt about a school, but nah, I still think about Georgia like that. Even a day after I left my visit.”
He said that feeling was new for him.
“I’ve never felt that way at a school before,” he said. “That’s really why I felt that was real. I’ve never felt that way before.”
May was shrewd in how he looked at one specific aspect of Scott’s resume.
“I know a lot of people can say who all they sent to the league,” May said. “But most of the time it has just been the school or the coach previous to them, but Coach Scott can really say that because he’s developed all those guys because he’s been there going on for what eight or nine years.”
Scott joined Kirby Smart’s staff at UGA in January of 2017.
“He can say that he’s developed all those [NFL] guys that have come in,” May said. “I just think with my skill set and my mindset that I have of facing challenges and facing hard work, that I can be next up.”
May has also taken an official to FSU. The Dawgs are considered to be in a fight here with Auburn. Ohio State is also looming.
“Man, I love Georgia,” he said. “They are in my number one spot right now, recruiting-wise. I just want to keep going forward, keep building that relationship with them and just take it from there.”
Karlos May breaks down his Georgia football official visit
It was the sort of visit that defines a recruiting story.
“Man, Georgia picked up steam with me this weekend by basically showing me exactly what I needed to see,” May said. “I kind of got the chance to see everything I needed, whether it was just the details on how I would be used there. I got a chance to see exactly everything and how I would be used for the scheme.”
“They just showed me I was a priority and they did a good job showing me that this weekend. That was definitely important to me.”
There were so many details. There was the fact that his phone got lit up by reporters on the UGA beat yesterday. But he didn’t mind it.
“Yeah, they are, but I love Georgia, so I’m willing to respond to any questions,” he said.
He didn’t have just one official visit host. The fact that the entire Georgia defensive line hosted 4-star Florida DL Tyler Alexander, himself and UGA commit Waylon Wooten on that official visit impressed him.
“We got a chance to be around those guys,” May said. “That’s another thing that kind of hyped me up about them. Just seeing their relationships up close and the way that they communicated with each other. It was just good. You can tell they’ve got a bond and they are all going to go in there and they are going to go hard every day.”
He ate so much that he gained about seven or eight pounds, he said.
“Before all of that steak, I was probably like 316 pounds,” he said while laughing. “When they weighed me in, I was like 320-something. They waited until I had finished eating all that food to weigh me in. I was like ‘Maaaannnn’ when they did that.”
May felt a jolt of electricity when he tried out that UGA gear.
“When I suited up, I felt like I was going to run right out of the huddle,” May said. “I was feeling like I was going to run out of the tunnel, man. When I put that No. 52 on, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, it is time to go to work.’ I was just so excited. I don’t know, man. It just felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, bro, which it is. I was really excited. I’m not going to lie.”
He wears No. 52 in honor of Ray Lewis.
“I’ve seen how No. 52 looks at Georgia,” May said. “Like a lot of the guys there wore it. Like [Christen] Miller, who just left there, who had No. 52 on. It just looked good.”
“That number will fit me, bro. For real.”
The visit clearly showed him the two big things he loves the most about UGA.
“The stability and the development,” he said.
The weekly DawgNation.com “Before the Hedges” program is available as an Apple podcast.
Karlos May: What happens next from here with the 4-star DL?
May said he thought about it, but he eventually decided he would take his two remaining visits to Auburn and Ohio State.
The home state Auburn Tigers are up next on the weekend of June 12. Ohio State will then get the next weekend on June 19.
He’d previously established a commitment timeline of August 12. That is now fluid.
“I told some guys yesterday that it might get changed,” he said. “It might stay the same. But if it gets changed, it would definitely be moved up.”
His mother, Kandyce, was already dialed in on all things UGA back when he took a spring practice visit.
“I feel like my family has seen everything they needed to see, but a couple more of my family members need to get down, too,” he said. “My uncle, he’s a big part of my recruitment, he wants to see some stuff because he had a wedding he had to attend. So he missed [his official visit weekend at UGA] because of the wedding. He missed the visit, but he’s going to make sure he sees exactly what we saw this weekend and we’re just going to go from there.”
How hard will it be for somebody to knock them off that top spot?
“Man, they set the bar about 10 times higher,” May said. ‘Any other schools that I visit, they are going to definitely have to pull out the red carpet."
