High school coaches tried to tell colleges they were missing out on Mekhi Mews

Thankfully for him – and for the University of Georgia – the Bulldogs came forth with an invitation to join them as a preferred walk-on. Right now that’s looking like a pretty good bargain.

Mews started at wide receiver for Georgia in its season opener against Tennessee-Martin on Saturday. He finished as the team’s leader in all-purpose yardage, with 125.

Fifty-four of those yards came on a touchdown reception on a pass from Carson Beck in the third quarter. Mews caught a total of three passes for 75 yards, returned two punts for 19 yards and returned a kickoff 31 yards in No. 1 Georgia’s 48-7 victory.

“Totally not surprised,” said Thompson, who was Central Gwinnett’s head coach when Mews was a senior. “We were trying to get him looks. Olivet Nazarene was the only one to offer him anything. Everyone was scared of his size.”

Here, Thompson chuckled.

“All those FCS schools that passed on him got to be kicking themselves right now,” said Thompson, now the defensive coordinator at Camden County. “He’d be an FCS All-American, for sure.”

If Mews maintains his current pace, he might well become an FBS All-American. But that’s getting a little ahead of the game.

As it is, Mews is a redshirt freshman who is playing his first full season of college football. He actually appeared in four games for the Bulldogs last season, the maximum allowed by the NCAA to maintain redshirt status. He finished with 30 all-purpose yards on two touches, a 9-yard pass reception and a 21-yard punt return.

Accordingly, Georgia was well aware of what it had in Mews entering last spring practice. But it wasn’t until the G-Day game in April that the Bulldogs’ fans began to notice the little guy wearing the big number (87).

Mews made four of the more electrifying plays during the annual intrasquad scrimmage. He had a 40-yard touchdown catch that ended the game, went 99 yards with a kickoff return (that officially didn’t count as a touchdown), ripped off a 29-yard punt return and turned a short pass reception into a 54-gain that nearly went for another score. He finished as the game’s leading receiver with four catches for 91 yards.

“Mews does that every day,” coach Kirby Smart said afterward.

And he’s still doing it, apparently. There was no greater indication of how Smart and the Bulldogs feel about Mews than when they sent him out Monday as one of three players to be interviewed during UGA’s weekly media-day press conference. For 10 minutes, Mews answered all sorts of questions, about being a walk-on at Georgia, about his diminutive size, about returning kicks and about trying to find a role among the Bulldogs’ talented corps of wideouts.

Like his high school coach, Mews seemed genuinely unsurprised about his journey to date.

“You just have to put your head down when you first come here,” he said. “You just start at the bottom of the depth chart and put your head down and work. If you put in the work, this place gives you an opportunity to work your way up.”

Georgia certainly has a good record when it comes to contributions from walk-ons. Safety Dan Jackson and running back Cash Jones are among those on the 2023 team making significant contributions. Quarterback Cory Phillips, place-kicker Rodrigo Blankenship and defensive end Richard Tardits are among the many players who became stars after walking on with the Bulldogs.

Of course, there is no greater example than quarterback Stetson Bennett. He went from walk-on to two-time national championship-game MVP at Georgia.

“Yeah, Stetson’s walk-on journey was an inspiration to me,” Mews said Monday. “I felt like if he could do it as a quarterback, then who am I to say I can’t do it at receiver?”

The fact is, coming to Georgia was the best deal for Mews. Because he was an excellent student at Central Gwinnett, he was able to enroll at UGA as a recipient of the state’s Zell Miller Scholarship.

“When Georgia offered me as a ‘PWO’ (preferred walk-on), it was perfect for me,” Mews said. “It’s 45 minutes from home. I just wanted to make the most of it once I got here. So, I just put my head down every day and worked.”

That’s what made him a can’t-miss prospect in the mind of his high school coaches. First, he was the Black Knights’ best player by a country mile. Central Gwinnett was a program in transition when Thompson came from South Paulding to take over as head coach. They went 1-9 in Mews’ senior season, but he finished with 1,065 yards on 76 catches and scored seven touchdowns in only 10 games. A player averaging over 100 yards receiving a game in high school is uncommon, especially on a bad team.

While everybody could see what the fleet-footed wideout could do on a football field on Friday nights, it was only his coaches saw what Mews did within the walls of the school every day. He was close and protective of a special-needs brother, and an exemplary student in every way.

“We knew he was going to qualify (for admission),” Thompson said. “He’s a local kid, a good kid, a high-character kid with a high GPA. So when Georgia came in there with a walk-on offer, I told Mekhi it was a no-brainer.”

Laid up in the hospital with a bad case of COVID-19 most of that fall, Thompson credits assistant coach Chaz Ferdinand with keeping Mews on the Bulldogs’ radar. It was Georgia tight ends coach Todd Hartley who ultimately convinced the Bulldogs that Mews would be worth the risk.

“Did I think this would happen? No, not necessarily.” Thompson said. “I thought he would go there and work his butt off, and they would love him. I figured they’d at least get a good student and a great practice player, but then he might hit the transfer portal and go somewhere so he could play because that’s the climate and culture of college football right now.”

It’s possible that Mews might eventually earn a full scholarship from the Bulldogs. However, Georgia gets only 85 total each year and is right on that number this season. With 26 commitments already pledged for the 2024 class, it looks like that will be the case again next season.

Mews acknowledged that his goal is to earn a full scholarship from Georgia, but it’s not something he’s thinking about at the moment. Thompson said he was told by a Georgia assistant that Mews is receiving NIL compensation through the Classic City Collective, so there’s that. Whether that will be enough to keep Mews around a while longer won’t be determined anytime soon.

Ultimately, nobody knows where the Mekhi Mews story will go from here. The early chapters, though, certainly have been exciting.

“It’s a credit to Mews,” Smart said as the Bulldogs prepare for Saturday’s game against Ball State. “He came in here and wanted an opportunity to compete, and he earned it. … I think everybody on the team will tell you he’s earned what he has gotten.”