National Signing Day is big in the South. High school seniors signed their letters of intent to determine where they will spend the next three-four years of their lives.
Some of metro Atlanta best players made their way to Andretti Indoor Karting and Games to announce where they would play college football. The event was hosted by the Touchdown Club of Atlanta. Some of the high schools that were represented were North Gwinnett, Buford, Peachtree Ridge, Wesleyan and Blessed Trinity. The young men wore the hats to represent the school that they choose and the schools ranged from as big as Georgia to as small as Chattahoochee Tech.
The boys from Brookwood, who won the 5A state championship got the festivities started with their announcements. QB Ben McLane announced he signed with Georgia State and LB Andre Sims will play for Michigan State. North Gwinnett followed a little bit later and QB C.J. Uzomah announced he will play for Auburn. OL Garrett Clark announced he will play for Southern Mississippi and Brandon McGowan signed with Appalachian State.
Another team from Gwinnett, Buford, who won the 2A state title, followed shortly after and RB Dominique Swope announced he will play for Georgia Southern. Swope picked the Eagles for one reason that any player should pick a school where you will spend a good amount of time away from home.
“It’s one big family,” Swope said.
Swope will not be alone when he heads to Statesboro. Teammate Sean Jones will head to Georgia Southern also he is ready to take that next step because of what Buford does to get them ready on and off the field.
“Things we do are different from other schools around Atlanta,” Jones said talking about Buford. “They prepare us for the next level.”
Another Buford signee that was in attendance was QB Alex Ross who will play at Coastal Carolina. Ross went to Coastal Carolina in the summer and fell in love with it.
“It’s right by the beach,” Ross said. “It’s a unique place to be. I felt like this was the place for me.”
Chattahoochee, who won the 4A state crown, was right behind the Wolves and they had a good amount of players at Andretti to announce their college choice. QB Timmy Byerly who was one of the state most productive players this past season, will play for Middle Tennessee State next season and he chose MTSU because of the familiarity of the system that they run.
“It’s almost the exact same offense,” Byerly said. “They’re going to try to get away from running the quarterback, instead of 25 times a game, maybe 10. I’m pretty excited about that.”
Buford, Brookwood and Chattahoochee may have won state titles, but were they winners in the recruiting game on National Signing Day? If you want to know who was the big winner, it had to be Stephenson who had 20 players sign their letters of intent. Not all were in attendance, but some of the players that will move on in their football careers will be Kadetrix Marcus, Regis Ball and Tarik Cook. Marcus will play for South Carolina, Ball will head to Memphis and Cool will join George O’Leary at Central Florida.
One of the big winners when it comes to colleges signing players was Miles College which is a small school located in Alabama. Six players from the Elite Performers Sports Academy signed with Miles College. If you are wondering what the Elite Performers Sports Academy is, it’s a post-graduate football program that allows athletes to gain participation in college sports. So Anthony Armstrong, Baron Fox, Julantate English, Xavier Simmons, Gresten Coakley and Mike Mitchell will move on to Miles College in the fall.
Other notable signees of the day were Corey Moore from Griffin (Georgia), Brian Randolph from Kell (Tennessee), Ralph David Abernathy IV from Westminster (Cincinnati), Alex Chisum from Sandy Creek (Cincinnati), Demarco Robinson from MLK (Kentucky) and Xavier Dickson from Griffin (Alabama).
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