David Sanders Jr: The nation’s No. 1 overall 2025 prospect ‘loves Georgia a lot’
DawgNation Staff
Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This rep has the latest with 5-star LT David Sanders Jr. out of North Carolina. He ranks as the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect for 2024 on the 247Sports Composite ratings.
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CARROLLTON -- David Sanders Jr. was at the Under Armour Next Football Atlanta camp on Sunday. It was no surprise to see him perform as well as, if not better, than any top prospect at the event.
He’s rated as the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect for 2025 by the 247Sports Composite. On3.com has him as the nation’s No. 2 overall prospect. That’s because the 6-foot-7, 260-pounder could very well be a 5-star LT, a 5-star EDGE or a 5-star TE if he wanted to.
Sanders said Sunday that he set a new PR with a broad jump of 9 feet, 10 inches. That’s some two inches higher than he flew last spring.
He can also already throw the shot put farther than future No. 1 overall draft pick (and former Georgia Bulldog) Travon Walker ever did while he was in high school.
If I’m being as transparent here as possible, I can’t help but regard Sanders as one of the top 10 prospects I’ve come across in eight cycles now on the Georgia football recruiting beat. There might have been better pure football players at this stage, but we’ve never seen an athlete quite like him that is also blessed with so many strong all-around intangibles that pop out here.
Simply put, he’s what a future No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick looks like while he still has two more seasons of high school football to go. He’s just that good and that talented and is just dripping with so much raw potential.
On top of all that, he’s wired and driven by the type of things that Kirby Smart and his staff dream of in their future signees and team anchors. This young man is the No. 1 player in the country. Yet he has also dreamed of becoming an orthopedic surgeon after his playing career is up.
That’s because he was positively influenced by the broken femur that abruptly ended his freshman season early. He wants to help other athletes the same way he was helped to return to the field after his own injury.
He’s got that aspiration and is also putting up all As on his high school transcript at Providence Day School in Charlotte to prove he’s up to it.
Sanders had a lot to say about his recruiting process on Sunday, including a continuation of some very strong positive feelings toward Georgia. He offered up a charming update on his recruiting that most might expect him to say about the nation’s two-time reigning national champions, but he was a little more candid than that.
There were three things that stood out about Sanders on Sunday. We will introduce them briefly here and then detail them later on down the page.
Sanders dearly loves his family: He’s adored by his three younger sisters and there is a strong family bond. It looks as strong as it gets on the recruiting trail. Those three girls were in attendance watching him camp on Sunday. The connection he has to his family is so strong here that it makes one wonder if he might pull off a stunning recruiting upset and stay in-state with a Duke, a North Carolina or an NC State here. Will location play that big of a factor? Will the heart tugs of family mean that Georgia is just too far away? I had a chance to speak with his mother, Samantha, about that topic. DawgNation will be pleased to hear what she had to say in regard to that topic.
Georgia remains very much on his mind: “They are probably one of the hardest [schools] to be recruiting me right now,” Sanders Jr. said. “They take it above and beyond since they can’t [directly] reach out to me but they do every other stuff they can to stay in touch with me. It is always a pleasure hearing from them. I love Georgia a lot. I will always remember the atmosphere and the lights and everything from that game. It was fun.”
Sanders was referencing his first visit to UGA for the Tennessee game last season. Needless to say, he was very impressed. DawgNation chronicled that “amazing’ visit here.
He’s planning to visit the Bulldogs this spring: Sanders said he has a series of spring visits planned beginning in March. “I don’t know the exact dates because I have to look in my schedule but we’ve got Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and South Carolina.”
Sanders said he is planning to see the ‘Dawgs again in March or in early April. That will be his first visit since that epic showdown with No. 1 Tennessee at Sanford Stadium back in November.
His father, a former NCAA Division II basketball player, wore an Alabama hat on Sunday. A few reporters might have picked up on that, but that’s not going to be a major factor.
His mother also said on Sunday that the decision was going to be her son’s to make. It doesn’t matter how many hats his family members wear.
Georgia football recruiting: The many many things DawgNation learned …