BREAKING: Georgia Bulldogs Confirms Commits For Another Highly Rated Star over Georgia Tech, Miami, South Carolina

The 6-foot-3, 315-pound rising senior announced his decision in front of a packed fellowship hall this afternoon.

“I’m going to Georgia,” Smith told DawgNation earlier this week. “I made the decision a couple of days ago. Well, actually during the official visit, a couple of days after the official visit.”

There were some ups and downs in his recruitment journey. Miami made a strong impression on him, followed by a significant push from South Carolina. He was also highly impressed by Georgia Tech’s pitch.

Why did he choose Georgia? It starts with knowing that there will be no easy days in Athens.

That’s just the beginning.

“It’s the community behind it,” he said. “The way they specialize in you as a person. They ensure everyone is treated the same regarding finances, education, resources, and health. Everyone gets the same level of attention with all those resources. They focus all those resources at the University of Georgia on everyone equally, if that makes sense.”

Smith had been leaning towards Georgia for some time.

This is reflected in how he has worked with his trainers to become the type of plug-and-play mainstay at center that Georgia had in its All-American Sedrick Van Pran-Granger for three prolific seasons.

DawgNation first noticed Smith’s potential when he stepped onto the field to start at center as a true freshman back in 2021.

Smith, now 16, was a 13-year-old starter back then.

“Well, I liked the starter part when they said that,” Smith said. “But they said center, and I’d never played center before.”

Let’s give the Parkview staff their due credit for their foresight. They knew what they were doing, even if Smith had never snapped in games before. They eased him into the transition, maybe no more than two weeks prior.

“That was not enough time to teach me how to snap,” he said. “For real, for real.”

They didn’t ask him to identify the ‘Mike’ backer or set any protections or line calls.

Commit Breakdown: What OL Cortez Smith brings to Georgia's 2025 recruiting class https://t.co/L2M898zIZk

— Dawgs247 (@Dawgs247) July 20, 2024

“They just said, ‘Snap and do your job,’ because we had a lot of seniors,” Smith said. “The older guys. I was kind of like the puppy.”

When he watches that tape now, he shakes his head.

“I know the snaps were bad,” he said. “Not the greatest. But I did pretty decent considering I had just started snapping a week ago.”

Smith was better than that. He was playing winning football at 13 years old in the largest classification in Georgia, in Gwinnett County of all places.

He won’t turn 17 until later this fall in October, meaning he will still be 17 when he first steps onto Dooley Field in the fall of 2025 wearing the red and black.

“I’m really excited,” Smith said. “Because a lot of people think that I’m not going to be able to play at this school. They say that ‘I am going to be a number there,’ but I don’t feel like that. I feel like I can work hard to do something great at this school.”

He knows what he will get in Athens.

“It came down to how they can make me the best person and football player possible,” Smith said. “How I will feel being there and the enjoyment of being in college.”

Georgia is already getting a really good one on both counts. Smith did something unique for a high school commitment ceremony. Before the event, he sat near the door of the fellowship hall and made sure to greet and thank everyone who started filing in early to his event.

That’s the first time we’ve seen something quite like that at a commitment ceremony.

“What an incredible human being that we get to celebrate today,” Parkview head coach Joe Sturdivant said.

BREAKING: Four-star offensive lineman Cortez Smith commits to Georgia https://t.co/L2M898AgOS pic.twitter.com/I8Qhm8liSX

— Dawgs247 (@Dawgs247) July 20, 2024

The first real good story we want to share about Cortez Smith

If it seems like there’s a culture of achievement to chronicle with Smith, it’s because there is.

He had over 25 offers, ultimately narrowing his choices to Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami, and South Carolina.

Smith was a rare four-year starter in GHSA 7A football. Watching him on the field, the word “explosive” comes to mind—something not always seen, even with 4-star offensive linemen.

His spring activities are equally impressive. The early enrollee won the 7A state title in the shot put this past spring with a throw of 56 feet, 2 inches, and finished second in the discus with a throw of 167 feet, 4 inches.

There’s a lot to learn about Smith from his athletic accomplishments, but there’s just as much to learn from how he handles adversity.

In the discus, Smith came from behind to nearly win the state title on his final throw.

“I came in second-to-lowest,” Smith said. “Surprised everybody with a big throw. Got second. Lost on the last throw. That was like the biggest jump out of the whole decade or something like that.”

His response to adversity also showed after his worst high school game—a rainy Friday night home game against Archer. A bad snap gave Archer the ball, leading to a game-winning score. Smith felt responsible, even though no single play defines a game.

“But the resiliency he showed the week after, it was amazing,” Parkview offensive line coach Brian Lane said. “He graded out at 96 percent the following Friday. You could tell he had a chip on his shoulder all week long and he didn’t let that moment define him.”

Smith dominated the next week in a 28-21 win against Newton.

“He came to work the next week, put that behind him, and grew from that moment,” Lane said. “After the game the following Friday, I looked at him and said, ‘Dude, you had the best game. I don’t think you could have been any better.’ He executed perfectly. He’s very resilient. There’s not a lot of times he has to face resiliency because he’s usually the ‘Alpha’ and dominating, but I was very proud of him in that moment last year.”

“I think he took the blame for that Archer game,” Lane added. “He said, ‘That was my fault,’ and the next game he blew everybody up.”

The second real good story we want to share about Cortez Smith

Smith is now linked to Georgia’s 2025 football class as the 21st commitment. The four-year starter at Parkview High in Metro Atlanta becomes the highest-rated recruit among the three Peach State prospects committed to play for Stacy Searels on his “Great Wall of Georgia” class.

Smith is now the eighth-highest-rated prospect in the 2025 class in Athens. Only three future Dawgs are rated higher than him on the offensive side of the ball.

The story of how Smith caught Georgia’s attention has been known for a while. It was at a summer camp before his junior season when he pancaked a current UGA freshman DL like he was a college senior going against a high school senior. The Bulldogs have been aware of him ever since, with Searels playing a big role in his recruitment.

“He’s definitely going to push me to the max,” Smith said. “He doesn’t take it easy on anybody.”

The Parkview staff is also effusive in their praise of Smith. When head coach Joe Sturdivant was hired in March 2023, he was quickly impressed by the future UGA commit.

“Since I’ve been here, Cortez has not missed a single workout, a single voluntary lift, a single afternoon workout, a single track practice, or a single shot put practice,” he said. “He hasn’t missed a thing. Not a thing. So to me, that’s a football player.”

“That’s a guy that is going to take care of business. You want to talk about guys and their projection? How far can they go or will he be a great football player? Well, I know for dang sure he’s going to be able to walk into a college meeting room, have his notepad, and be there every day. To me, that’s a requirement for being a great football player.”

Smith’s leadership skills are always evident.

“What can you say to him?” Sturdivant said. “He hustles every time. He’s always here. When he talks, everybody listens. I think the biggest growth for him has been his leadership. Now combine that with his athletic ability and how well he can move. It’s a beautiful thing.”

That leadership is the biggest asset he brings to Parkview.

“Now as a football player, he’s a road grader,” Sturdivant said. “He can move. When we run wide zone in a pro-style offense, he can reach a ‘3’ technique, and that’s really hard to do. But he can do it.”

Put him in that old Denver Broncos wide zone scheme, the one made famous by the late great Alex Gibbs for the Mike Shanahan offense.

He can get to that “3” tech from center in an “Over” front.

“I would show a play where he’s taking that guy and knocking him into the dang ‘D’ gap, pushing vertical, blocking a linebacker, and moving,” Sturdivant said. “That’s all happening at the same time at full speed. It is really hard to get a high school kid not only to do that but just to run out of a stance.”

Cortez Smith: He had an interesting take about NIL for recruits

Smith said he heard many negative recruiting aspects about UGA from other schools, which motivated him more than it created doubt.

When it comes down to it, it’s unclear how that type of recruiting is supposed to sit with recruits. It’s an indirect way of saying a player isn’t good enough to play at one spot but can come play for another school.

“I heard it a lot,” Smith said. “Everybody said you were going to just be a number. I’m trying to prove somebody wrong.”

He also had his share of NIL proposals to consider. There’s a growing trend of some schools offering significant financial incentives upfront, especially for the first season.

He has a different perspective.

“It is great and all, and I guess I would of course love it,” Smith said. “It is money and all. But I guess I just feel like personally that a kid this age shouldn’t have this much money handed to them. Like I haven’t even got to campus yet. I haven’t done anything yet. I didn’t work for it.”

This decision didn’t come easy. Smith doesn’t like to be predictable.

“I don’t like people just saying where I will go myself,” he said. “I was really leaning away from Georgia at first, but it is just too good. The pros and cons here, man. What they put on paper? What they have done? There’s just not many cons.”

As stated earlier, there’s an entire package to appreciate here.

Smith has made his decision known today. It isn’t shocking to report that a prospect of his caliber with this backstory had been trending to UGA for some time.

Check out his junior film below.

There are a few things to pay close attention to. The first is how easily he can reach a 3-tech on film. That’s not advanced O-line play for him in his third season of GHSA football.

Smith was able to do that his freshman year at Parkview. Thinking about that at 13 years of age is remarkable.

“He can really do anything,” Parkview offensive line coach Brian Lane said. “As an offensive lineman, he can play all three positions. But I’ve seen him reach a 3-tech from center and it looks so good. He can do it all. He’s just an amazing athlete. He’s strong. He’s fast. He knows every position on the field. He knows what everybody is supposed to be doing.”

“I think probably his greatest characteristic is his understanding of everything.”

The best position for Smith will be at center on Saturdays. Georgia will have a battle at center after Jared Wilson moves on to the NFL. That might be after this fall or after the 2025 season.

If Smith plays early at UGA, it will be because of his understanding of the game and his footwork.

“His feet are so smooth,” Lane said. “I mean everything looks effortless and sometimes we’ll be watching him and we’ll be like, sometimes we don’t feel like Cortez is giving us his best max effort, but then we see he’s getting places. It is just like he just makes it look so easy. It almost makes it look like he’s not trying.”

It is hard to believe we were looking at a young man who is 15 and barely 16 years old in those junior clips.

That’s why he’s a Dawg today.