Georgia pulled off quite the shocker on National Signing Day, flipping Hoover (Alabama) receiver George Pickens from Auburn. This is big for a number of reasons.
Why Georgia flipping 5-star George Pickens from Auburn is a major rivalry win
Georgia now has two elite receiver recruits. Auburn has none.
Pickens is a really good receiver. He is a five-star, and a consensus top-five player at his position. At 6’3 and 195 pounds, Pickens has the ability to win in the red zone, and can out-jump opponents. He’s also a physical player who can take over the game. Pickens had more than 30 scholarship offers.
Pickens officially visited Georgia on Jan. 18, and had also visited Miami and Tennessee in recent weeks, as well as making a Sunday visit back to Auburn to see the Tigers one last time.
After losing longtime receiver commitment Jadon Haselwood to Oklahoma in the Early Signing Period, Pickens is a massive pickup and fills a hole in Georgia’s recruiting class.
Along with Dominick Blaylock, the Bulldogs now have two of the top-five receivers in the nation.
The Bulldogs lost three of their top four receivers following the 2018 season, and came into today needing immediate play makers at that position. The Bulldogs have a lot of talented players at receiver, however most of them are untested. Pickens fits the mold of the receivers Kirby Smart and his staff have been recruiting in the past two cycles: big, fast downfield threats.
The move is a blow and a surprise to Auburn. Pickens is tight with Auburn QB signee Bo Nix. They play on the same 7v7 club team. And at the Under Armour Future 50 event, Pickens said that the only school with a real shot to flip him from the Tigers was LSU.
Auburn’s recruiting class as of this writing drops down to seventh in the SEC, though it could potentially pass Tennessee for the sixth spot if it lands another player or two on Wednesday. But Auburn has to play Georgia every year, which means it’ll have to face Pickens annually. Auburn is having a rough day.
This is a huge gut punch for Auburn for numerous reasons. First, Pickens is a monster. He is a Day 1 impact player that has NFL first-round potential. He’s been almost unstoppable the past two years and is arguably the best wide receiver prospect in the class.
Second, Auburn was on the verge of landing the top-ranked player in the state of Alabama (per 247 Composite) for the first time since Nick Saban came to town. Sure that doesn’t REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things but following a 7-5 season, it would have been some impressive pub for the program to land two of the top three players in the state.
A current Auburn player’s Twitter account also weighed in on the report, perhaps in jest, or perhaps implying the reason behind Georgia’s recent recruiting dominance.
Georgia, meanwhile, has the No. 2 recruiting spot not only in the SEC, but in the entire country. It has more than twice as many five-star recruits signed (5) as the rest of the SEC East combined (2). Over the last three recruiting cycles, Smart’s Bulldogs have signed 15 five-stars. The rest of the SEC East has signed three.
