Georgia football: Nakobe Dean gives Kirby Smart big win

Georgia football was able to beat off Alabama and Ole Miss to sign the top-rated inside linebacker Nakobe Dean and that’s a big win for Kirby Smart.

It wasn’t all good for Georgia football yesterday. The Dawgs went into the early signing day with a lot of momentum with some of the nations top undecided players. That being said, the buildup was highjacked by the Justin Fields transfer story that populated the entire atmosphere of the program the past 48 hours. Still, Kirby Smart was able to turn around and bring in a great class. No player that signed was more important that of Nakobe Dean from Mississippi.

Dean was the number one ranked inside linebacker in the 2019 class. He might be the best ILB prospect in the past few years, to be honest, his film is frankly ridiculous. He’s built very similarly to Roquan Smith and has a very similar profile. He’s not quite ideal in terms of size and length, but boy can he play ball. One of the most explosive LB’s on tape this year, almost nobody covers the ground and lays the wood like Dean. This was an all-out recruiting brawl between Kirby and Nick Saban for a player that UGA desperately needed and Smart came out on top. That’s a huge win for UGA and Kirby and the Dawgs needed it, especially after missing on running back Trey Sanders.

Georgia needed Dean in the worst possible way. The inside linebacker position was not good this year. They did have some very talented your players at the position but they did not see the field, unfortunately. Channing Tindall and Quay Walker both have serious talent but took some time last year learning the defense. Monty Rice is also going to be in the mix but Dean adds something special. He’s a heat seeking missile out there and is going to be so much fun to watch between the hedges.

Now let’s be honest, Dean is unlikely to start in 2019. Tindall and Walker were both incredibly talented players as well but starting in Kirby’s defense at this position is very hard. Even Roquan who is now the gold standard of UGA’s linebackers barely played in his freshman year. But when the time comes, Dean is going to be an impact guy for Georgia on the defense. To be honest, that unit is starting to look incredibly dangerous right now.

I don’t think any team has a more talented linebacking corp than UGA right now. It’s quite frankly insane just how much talent the Dawgs will have in that group going forward. Add that to a solid defensive line class and there is a lot of reason to be excited for the next few years in Athens. The Dawg should be nasty on that side of the ball for a while and if you’re like me, that should make this team even more fun to watch in the years to come!