One of the many joys of recruiting is seeing how a player’s skills translate from the high school ranks to college and beyond. For years, the state of Georgia has produced some of the games’ best high school talents that have gone on to make a name for themselves at the collegiate and professional levels. Rivals.com looks back at the top-rated Georgia QBs from 2017 to 2021 seeing how their five- or four-star status stacked up when leveling up.
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2017: DAVIS MILLS
Colliding against 3A squads with Greater Atlanta Christian, Mills was the top-ranked quarterback in his class ranked 10th overall. Mills’ final high school run was solid throwing for 2,732 yards with a 34-TD 1-INT ratio. The added dimension to his game was his wheels covering 332 yards on the ground with eight more scores.
Signing with Stanford, Mills redshirted his freshman season and then worked behind K.J. Costello before replacing him due to an injury in 2019. In two full seasons with the Cardinal, Mills threw for 3,468 yards producing 18 passing touchdowns. The Houston Texans made him the 67th overall pick in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft.
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2018: TREVOR LAWRENCE
Georgia was the center of the QB universe with five-stars Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields slotted one-two respectively in the 2018 recruiting class. Lawrence was a stat machine during his senior campaign tossing for 41 touchdowns against just one interception while covering 3,290 yards.
Lawrence upheld his billing as the top-rated player leading Clemson to a national championship during his freshman season. Before closing out his collegiate career becoming a first-round draft pick for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Lawrence was named a first-team All-American in 2020.
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2019: JORDAN YATES
The 2019 season was an unusual one in the Peach State for quarterbacks. So it seems, there is always a Georgia player in the running for one of the nation's best but the top gunslinger that year was Yates, ranked just 33rd overall in-state, out pacing starting Texas A&M QB Zach Calzada at No. 38.
While Calzada had a 2,100-yard, 17-touchdown, season in 2021, Yates has slowly made his way up the depth chart with Georgia Tech. In 2019 and 2020 combined, Yates completed eight passes off 21 attempts without a touchdown. Jump to 2021, he completed 91-of-153 attempts for 908 yards with a 6-TD 3-INT slash line.
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2020: HARRISON BAILEY
The storybook senior seasons don’t get much sweeter than Bailey’s. Slinging the pigskin for Marietta High School, Bailey brought home a 7A Georgia state championship with a 17-9 win over Lowndes. Bailey’s performance was electric throwing for 4,674 yards producing 50 touchdowns and just 10 interceptions.
Slotted as the third-ranked QB in his class behind Bryce Young (Alabama) and D.J. Uiagalelei (Clemson), high hopes were pinned on Bailey’s career at Tennessee. The pro-style talent got his feet wet in 2020 under then head coach Jeremy Pruitt completing 48 of 68 passes for 578 yards with four touchdowns against two interceptions. When the whistle was handed over to Josh Heupel in 2021, Bailey was relegated to a backup role completing 3-of-7 passes for 16 yards. In January, the former five-star transferred to UNLV.
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2021: JAKE GARCIA
The path from the high school ranks to college was full of ups and downs for Garcia. The four-star started out behind former Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral at Long Beach Poly before taking over the reigns at Narbonne High School. With California football shut down during his senior season due to COVID, Garcia transferred to Valdosta then Grayson playing eight games with the Rams.
In limited action with Miami last season, Garcia was tossing darts completing 11-of-14 passes for 147 yards with two touchdowns avoiding a pick. In a reoccurring theme, Garcia is picking up a new offense again fighting for the QB1 spot this season.
