5-star Knoxville OT Cade Mays signing with Georgia, a month after a Tennessee decommitment

Five-star class of 2018 offensive tackle Cade Mays is heading to Athens. He announced his commitment to Georgia on Wednesday, the first day of college football’s new Early Signing Period. He’s a huge get, literally and figuratively, for the Bulldogs.

First, the literal: Mays is 6’6 and 318 pounds. He’ll get even thicker and stronger in college, once he spends time in a strength and conditioning program.

And the figurative: Mays is an elite prospect all the way around. He had offers from more or less every major program in the country, and he could’ve gone to any of them. There are a couple of offensive tackle prospects like Mays every year, who are so clearly elite that nobody doubts they’ll eventually be dominant college blockers.

He’s the No. 2 offensive tackle in the country, according to the industry-consensus 247Sports Composite. He’s just behind Fairfield, Ohio’s Jackson Carman, who committed earlier in the day to Clemson.

Mays is from Knoxville, Tennessee. He was previously committed to the hometown Tennessee Volunteers, but he backed off that pledge amid the Vols’ disastrous 2017 season. His decommitment came right before Butch Jones’ firing.

Mays’ commitment to UGA makes two years in a row that the Dawgs have signed a five-star tackle. They got Isaiah Wilson out of New York in the class of 2017. And earlier in the day Wednesday, they got 2018’s best offensive guard: Jamaree Salyer.

Kirby Smart continues to build one of the deepest rosters in the country.