Sentell’s Intel: Here’s what we’re already hearing with the big Georgia football scavenger hunt weekend (2024)

This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting breaks down the names that DawgNation has been able to confirm will be in Athens this weekend for the annual scavenger hunt that has developed into a major official visit weekend.

We’d like to clarify one thing in our earlier DawgNation reporting when it comes to the annual May Georgia football scavenger hunt weekend.

It is that the weekend started on early Thursday afternoon.

That was when 4-star California WR Phillip Bell III told DawgNation he was already heading to the airport out in California for his official visit to check out UGA.

So, there’s that. The weekend has not only gotten bigger, but it has stretched out to four days as well

We’ve never seen the May scavenger hunt weekend include this many official visitors. But that is just the sign of the times with major college programs wanting to do the bulk of their hosting of official visitors and most of their on-campus recruiting in May and June.

The official visits for this weekend are as follows:

• 4-star RB Bo Jackson
• 4-star WR Marcus Harris
• 4-star WR Phillip Bell
• 4-star OL Ziyare Addison

Here are a few things that we are already hearing regarding everything that is happening this weekend.

• Check out the updated RSVPs below. It includes several big names on the offensive side of the ball in 5-star 2026 Utah TE Brock Harris and priority 2025 WRs targets in both Travis Smith Jr. and CJ Wiley. Those names right there are likely big enough to merit individual headlines. The visit for Brock Harris has been planned for some time.
• Bell has Georgia among his top six schools. It will be interesting to see how well this visit can go for him and Georgia. It could move the needle. It needs to move for the Dawgs to really be in it. It is important to note that Bell is the high school teammate of 2025 5-star CB Dijon Lee, Jr. Lee is a priority target who just placed UGA among his final four schools.
• The film below on Bell shows his worth. The 6-foot-2, 195-pounder had 56 catches for 644 yards and seven scores in 2023 for a state champion in his class out in California. He had seven catches for 76 yards and two of those seven scores in the state championship. He averaged 11.5 yards per catch and rates as the nation’s No. 16 WR and the No. 149 overall prospect for the 247Sports Composite scale.

• Bell is taking six officials. He’s looking to make his decision this summer before his senior season. He will be a December graduate and enroll with his new team in January. He’s been a target on the board for a while. We remember Ryan Montgomery bringing up his name shortly after he chose the Dawgs.
• Georgia will get Bell’s first official. That will be followed by Washington, Penn State, Ohio State, Tennessee and finally USC. USC is seen by many as the team to beat. For now at least.
• He is also one of two California WRs in town on officials this weekend. Georgia’s connection to these two players was amplified with the hiring of former USC defensive backs coach Donte Williams to the staff. Georgia’s returned WRs coach James Coley was also already Bell when he was at Texas A&M.
• The other Cali WR will be Mater Dei’s Marcus Harris. This could get interesting, but maybe not so much for UGA. Not yet. News broke on Thursday about the nation’s No. 1 WR Dakorien Moore decommitting from LSU and looking hard at Texas coming out of that. Texas has been the team to watch for a long time with Harris.
• Alabama is another big team to watch for Harris. Reports have him already taking three visits to check out Alabama since Nick Saban retired in Tuscaloosa. That is substantial. He has officials set for Alabama (May 31), Tennessee (June 7), Oregon (June 14) and Texas on June 21.
• Harris, a high school teammate of Georgia freshman RB Nate Frazier, had 43 catches for 644 yards and six touchdowns. That’s 15.0 yards per catch. Mater Dei was the mythical national high school football champion last fall. We must also note that Harris went bonkers as a sophom*ore in 2022 averaging 25 yards per catch for the same 644 yards and bringing down 12 touchdowns. Check out the Harris film below.

• For now, we’d note that there are times when Georgia can close on a recruit on an official. There are some visits where they have a chance to get onto the medal stand. There are others in which they are just one of five or six visits a recruit has earned the right to take. As of now, this feels more like those last two for both Bell and Harris.
• We can’t help but note the 2023 season totals for these 4-star receivers do place the junior season tallied up by Wiley in the proper light. These two impact playmakers from California are ranked higher right now than the Milton star, but Wiley had almost the same yardage and TDs as the two of them put together in the 2023 season.
• The 6-foot-4 Wiley had 68 catches for 1,473 yards and 14 touchdowns for the GHSA state champion in the state’s largest classification in 2023. He averaged 21.7 yards per catch.
• The one name that catches everyone’s eye on that OV list would be Bo Jackson. The 4-star from Cleveland has Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State as his final three. He’s rated as the nation’s No. 5 RB prospect and the No. 71 overall recruit. He scored 28 combined touchdowns in 2023 and racked up 1,700 approximate all-purpose yards.

• Jackson told DawgNation something interesting this week. That leads us to go ahead and inform folks not to expect to see any post-visit reporting with juicy Bo Jackson quotes on Sunday and Monday. He told DawgNation he’s not doing any interviews until after his recruiting process has concluded.
• We haven’t seen that in several years. But he’s welcome to go about his process in any way he sees fit. “I want to be really locked in and respectful of this process but I will tell you that I’ve been looking forward to this OV and I’m excited to spend more time with Coach [Kirby] Smart, Coach [Josh] Crawford and the Georgia staff,” Jackson said.
• Jackson is likely to wait until after all his OVs and his eventual college decision before discussing his recruitment publicly and on the record.
• The read here is we feel like Georgia’s chances with Jackson here are markedly greater with both Bell and Harris. At least for now.
• As for Addison, we deem him to be the most important official visitor on the weekend. It just seems like he’s got a lot of qualities we’ve seen in the type of player that UGA likes and the ones who eventually choose Georgia. This will be big for both schools. FSU is seen by most as the current leader but we believe the Dawgs would accept Addison’s commitment at any time. He told DawgNation that he’s been hearing from either line coach Stacy Searels or head coach Kirby Smart pretty much every day for a while now.
• Addison wrestled for his high school and also ran the 100 and 200 meters for his high school track team. He went 7-2 on the mat in the heavyweight division in Florida this winter. We’ll have a deeper profile on Addision to come later today. It is also important to note that this will be his first visit to check out UGA.
• The 6-foot-5, 285-pounder started his high school career at 190 pounds playing DE and TE. He packed on some 40 pounds before his junior season. That’s why some schools were slower than others to offer him. He just picked up big national offers from Michigan and Ohio State this week. Check out his junior film below.

Check out the list of names DawgNation has now been able to confirm for this weekend.

The scavenger hunt weekend was a big topic for DawgNation’s weekly Wednesday night live-streaming recruiting program, among other key topics.

These plans of the young men on the list up above are, as always, subject to change.

DawgNation will continue to update this list as the RSVPs roll in for the weekend.

Did you know the weekly DawgNation.com "Before the Hedges" program is available as an Apple podcast? Click to check it out and download it.

SENTELL’S INTEL

(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)