Elite 2027 running back David Gabriel Georges has not announced his commitment yet. He’s currently weighing his options after taking official visits to Ohio State, Tennessee, and Ole Miss, but reports around the sport have speculated that the Buckeyes and the Vols are the two main competitors for his services.
According to CBS Sports, Gabriel Georges’ announcement will come on July 22.
There’s no clear indication of which way Gabriel Georges will go. There’s been a lot of speculation from different fanbases and analysts, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus trend for the elite five-star prospect. But what has been clear, though, is that the Tennessee and Ohio State fanbases both want this commitment badly.
When Gabriel Georges was taking his visits to Columbus and Knoxville in back-to-back weeks, there wasn’t a lack of heated conversation online between fans on both sides. Tennessee fans are determined to keep DGG in the Volunteer State, while Ohio State fans believe that they’re always going to be in the mix for the top players.
RTI’s Bob Baskerville and On3’s Chris Low shared their thoughts on DGG’s recruitment during Sunday night’s episode of The RTI Low-Down.
“I’m not going to predict,” Low said. “I know everybody has predicted. You’ve seen national recruiting analysts, some have picked Ohio State, some have picked Tennessee. Talking to people at both those schools, they both feel pretty well-positioned.”
Many in the Tennessee fanbase are looking at DGG as a must-get for Josh Heupel and his staff. He’s an in-state prospect, Tennessee is an offensive-heavy team, and so on. But Low offered up a different opinion. While he does acknowledge that Gabriel Georges would be a difference-maker at Tennessee, he also lays out why he has “mixed feelings” on the situation.
“I think Tennessee is prepared to pay him somewhere approaching $2 million,” Low said. “And there’s incentives in there that he could hit on that would, again, make him far and away the highest paid high school running back since we went down the NIL road. And some people look at that – I’m sort of, I have mixed feelings. Because I give Josh a lot of credit. He’s been able to get thousand-yard rushers out of just everybody. I mean, pretty much anybody he’s brought in here: Dylan Sampson, DeSean Bishop, who was a walk-on from Karns and had a terrific year last year, Jaylen Wright. So having guys that have run the football for 1,000 yards hasn’t been an issue for Tennessee. Now, is Georges enough of a difference maker, where he’s going to come in and run for 1,800 or 2,000 yards? Maybe so. Everybody I’ve talked to from the Ohio State perspective, the Georgia perspective, the Tennessee perspective, says this kid is as good as they’ve seen as a runner at this point in his career.”
Still, though, Low is at least pondering the idea of whether Tennessee is better off allocating its resources elsewhere.
“If you ask me, and I know optically you’ve got to get a guy like that in your state who’s playing high school football, man, I’m hard pressed not to go spend more money on an EDGE rusher, on a left tackle, maybe on a big play receiver. Split it up a little bit more. But you know what the narrative will be, Bob, if they lose this kid to Ohio State… ‘How can you let Ohio State come in our backyard and get the best high school running back that’s come through here in a long time?'”
Low’s comments offer a unique perspective on the situation, and possibly even a silver lining if things don’t go Tennessee’s way. Like anyone would admit, Low included, landing DGG would be a massive, massive recruiting win for Josh Heupel and the Vols. And certainly one they would be earning after a hard-fought recruiting battle. But it is a situation where, if things don’t land with Tennessee, there are other places to take that money to improve the roster down the road.
Tennessee and Ohio State both seemingly wowed Gabriel Georges on his official visits to both places. National recruiting experts have favored both sides at different times over the last two months or so. It’s undoubtedly one of the most heated recruiting battles in the entire cycle, and Tennessee is fighting hard to keep its elite prospect in the Volunteer State.
We’ll just have to see how everything pans out next month.
Rivals’ Industry Rankings have DGG tabbed as the No. 9 player in the class, the No. 2 running back in the cycle, and the No. 1 player from the state of Tennessee.
