First, it was a rumor. It was one that spread like wildfire on Thursday afternoon. Sources close to John Emery Jr. were not even sure if it was true. They had to check.
Then Emery sent out a tweet. And it was.
The 5-star RB is no longer committed to Georgia. He announced the news via his Twitter account. His decision drops the Bulldogs down to just a trio of 5-star commits for the class of 2019.
Emery becomes the fourth de-commitment for the Bulldogs in the 2019 class in October. His decision also drops the program down to 16 commitments for this cycle. Jadon Haselwood, another 5-star prospect at receiver, also backed off his pledge to UGA on Oct. 2.
“This is one of the toughest decisions I’ve made in my life so far,” Emery said as he led off his social media post.
The 5-star RB was in attendance for the UGA-LSU game and afterward, he told DawgNation that the results of just one game did not diminish or affect his commitment.
Something has. Something did.
“This recruiting process has taught me patience,” Emery posted a notepad document with the tweet. “Even though something seems right, and in fact, it may be right, it is always better to be careful and time is a subset of being careful.”
His decision does drop the Bulldogs to No. 4 nationally with their 2019 class in the 247Sports Team Composite ratings.
It is an interesting note to point out that only four schools (Clemson, LSU, Michigan and Oklahoma) have as many 5-star prospects committed to their program in 2019 as the Bulldogs have had de-commit from their board this month.
Where this John Emery Jr. news now leaves UGA
Look for the Bulldogs to continue their pursuit with Emery and even 5-star RB Trey Sanders at IMG Academy.
The thinking here is that the Bulldogs will not forget their recruiting scope for the 2019 class with other big names like 4-star RB Ty Davis (an LSU commit) and Florida RB prospect Nay’Quan Wright.
Noah Cain, the nation’s No. 6 RB prospect in this class, is another name to watch in this cycle. He’s always been impressed by the Bulldogs and has built solid relationships with the coaching staff.
Georgia will need to add a talented RB prospect to the 2019 class. The decision made by Emery today will not change that.
The initial reaction by many here will be that the LSU performance against Georgia helped to spur this decision. Or maybe something that the Tiger fans or even coach Ed Orgeron told him. It is just that hard to keep elite Louisiana prospects from going to play in Baton Rouge.
Yet the degree of difficulty on this one didn’t seem any tougher than the Alabama late tugs for Zamir White. The same can maybe be said for Penn State and D’Andre Swift. James Cook and FSU and Miami could also be lumped into that column.
Those were all elite out-of-state RB prospects who eventually chose UGA despite heavy interest from other power programs.
The big difference here is that all of those guys weren’t already at UGA while they were making their big decisions. They simply knew that Nick Chubb and Sony Michel were soon to be off for the NFL.
LSU is a huge program to try and pull recruits away from, but I think the former reason matters just about as much as the latter in this case.
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