When walking the halls of Toombs County High School, stop at the Blue Angels picture by the office of football coach Buddy Martin. Through that door one will find a few key pieces of program signage.
They read “BAD” — the slogan of the No. 1 team in Georgia’s Class 1A Division I.
“BAD” stands for “Be a Dog” — or “Be A Dawg,” depending on one’s SEC allegiance — with Toombs County’s mascot being the Bulldogs.
The Toombs County football team is home to four-star prospect Lagonza Hayward, who both Georgia and Tennessee are heavily recruiting.
When he goes to church every Wednesday, he hears “Go Dawgs” all the time from members of his community.
As it stands, he’s still more blue tick hound than Dawg. The Hayward recruitment, along with 4-star LB Christian Gass, comprise the two biggest ongoing recruiting battles between Georgia and Tennessee this week.
Hayward has been committed to the Vols since late July, but that hasn’t stopped the Georgia Bulldogs from vying for the flip.
The two major recruiting services list him as the No. 13 player in Georgia this fall.
Georgia football recruiting: Could Lagonza Hayward flip?
When DawgNation caught up with Hayward recently, he made one thing pretty clear.
“I’m definitely 100 percent committed to Tennessee,” he said. “They’ve been there the whole time. I’m not going to look on the other side thinking the grass is going to be greener when I know its not. They’ve been showing me this type of love the whole time when its just like an ‘Oh now we want you’ type of situation.”
While Georgia is the only team with any chance of flipping him, it doesn’t sound like a major shot. What keeps him committed to the Vols?
“Really because the loyalty,” he said. “It hasn’t ever been like a dry stage with them where they have not kept in contact with me and not checked up on me and stuff like that.”
Hayward described the recruiting attention as “lukewarm” and “then really, really hot” from the Bulldogs. He’s now hearing from safeties coach Travaris Robinson, Kirby Smart, graduate assistant Prather Hudson and defensive backs assistant David Metcalf.
He said there’s really no other school in the picture aside from UGA.
“I’m committed to Tennessee,” Hayward said last week. “Still talking to them and Georgia is still trying to get me to flip.”
Hayward told DawgNation on Tuesday night that he was not planning to be in Athens this weekend.
There was a time when he wanted that badge of honor — a UGA offer — that goes with being a player in the state of Georgia. He went up for a “Junior Day” event in early 2024, but it never came.
That could be chalked up to the transition from safeties coach Will Muschamp to Travaris Robinson at the same time as the turnover from corners coach Fran Brown to first-year assistant Donte Williams.
While the UGA staff was putting their 2025 secondary board back together, the Vols stayed strong.
There was a report this month that had Hayward going to check out the Bulldogs taking on Florida in Jacksonville, but that didn’t materialize.
Part of it was that Toombs County had just lost a region championship game the night before to Savannah Christian, which includes 5-star UGA commit Elijah Griffin.
When Hayward woke up the next morning, he was salty. He hates to lose.
He also woke up to several messages from the UT staff. The prospect placed his phone on “Do Not Distrub” before going to bed, but the Vols woke him up that morning.
“They were like ‘Are you in Jacksonvile’ and I was like ‘Nah, I’m at the house asleep. We just lost. Why would I feel like going to a game?’”
Hayward quickly dismissed any incorrect social media reports.
When he visited UGA this year for the Auburn game, he let the Vols know he planned to be in Athens.
Why is Georgia even in the mix here at all?
“I would kind of say development,” Hayward said. “Javon Bullard. Malaki Starks. KJ Bolden now. Malaki is going to leave so that is going to like create a spot. It is really development at the safety position.”
His high school coach believes Hayward is “locked in” to Tennessee and feels there’s really no major pending threat from the Bulldogs.
That said, he shared a story that says a lot about Hayward and also what these young men go through trying to choose from two big-boy SEC programs.
“He came in about a month ago,” Martin started off. “He was asking ‘Coach will you just pray for me for wisdom? I just want to be in the right situation and make the right decision’ and I told him then that ‘Hey you are going to be in the right situation whether it is choice A or choice B because of where your mind is with all of this.’ He has not gotten caught up in the NIL stuff and who’s been here and who hasn’t. He’s just looking for the best opportunity for him and he’s got a very wise outlook on all of it.”
“At the end of the day, when you are being fought over by some SEC schools, it is not a bad place to be. I think he’s in a great spot with it. He’s been open to everybody. Didn’t want to shut a door to anybody. He’s wanted to hear everybody out. From my perspective - just from seeing people come in and listen and watch - I just think that Tennessee has done the best job recruiting him.”
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