Take Two: Can Georgia land two 5-star TEs in 2020?
Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling an issue in the college football landscape. Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell and an expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites or a regional analyst.
MORE TAKE TWO: Can teams afford to wait on Zachary Evans' decision?
THE STORYLINE
Arik Gilbert and Darnell Washington are the top two tight ends, respectively, in the 2020 class. Two special five-star prospects who offer something different but who are a pair of the most impressive recruits at the position in Rivals history.
Gilbert, from Marietta, Ga., is a 6-foot-5, 248-pound standout who shined this summer at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas in Atlanta and has dominated other events as well. He’s definitely big enough to play tight end and athletic enough to move outside as a huge receiver.
Washington is a 6-foot-7, 255-pound recruit from Las Vegas Desert Pines who looks like an NBA small forward on the football field. He is surprisingly athletic for his size and he has a tremendous catch radius.
It’s only the second time in Rivals history that there are two five-star tight ends in the same recruiting class (also in 2003 with Greg Olsen and Tony Hills Jr.). And there is a chance that both could play at the same college program.
Gilbert is serious about Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Clemson. Washington has a top five of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Penn State and Miami.
The program most prominently discussed by both has been Georgia and the Bulldogs have proven they can go anywhere to get any recruit. A source close to Washington has said he would not be opposed at all to playing with Gilbert.
Can Georgia land both Gilbert and Washington in the same recruiting class or is it more likely that the two massive - and massively talented - tight ends go to school separately?
FIRST TAKE: JAKE REUSE, UGASPORTS.COM
“I feel better about Washington right now than I do for Gilbert when it comes to Georgia’s chances. The competition from Tennessee, Clemson and Alabama seems a lot more fierce right now than it has been. At the beginning of the summer, I thought Gilbert was headed to Georgia, but now I think he takes the visits and Georgia has to prove to him they’re going to get the tight ends back involved in the offense because it’s something they haven’t done much of in the last couple seasons.
“If they’re able to do that, they can certainly put themselves back in the mix. He’s still a fan but they’re going to have to hold off Tennessee. Tennessee seems like the team to beat right now. As far as them playing together, I’m a little leery of that. Arik might want to go somewhere where he’s the guy, but Georgia is going to continue to recruit both of them as well as Theo Johnson up until the end and they’ll take any combination of those three.”
SECOND TAKE: MIKE FARRELL, RIVALS.COM
“I didn’t think Kendall Milton and Zachary Evans would be in the same class and that can happen now, so I don’t think you can put anything by Georgia as far as how well they’re recruiting lately.
“It would be very interesting because one is a huge, flex tight end who can work in-line and another is a huge, flex tight end who can work outside. They bring different skill sets. Gilbert is the more athletic one, the bigger downfield threat whereas Washington is the bigger target, red-zone guy. If they were able to pull that off, that would be more impressive than two five-star running backs in the same class.
“I don’t know how Gilbert is going to react to the Tennessee loss and how their season goes, so we’ll have to wait on that one. Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia are definitely in it for Gilbert and who knows what Washington is going to do. He still has a lot of schools he’s considering.”