A new trend is occurring in college football where recruits are announcing their commitments much earlier in the year than they ever have before. That can be a good thing for Georgia if they are trending well with a recruit, but it’s terrible if they have fallen behind with the player.
Unfortunately that is what appears to have happened with four-star offensive lineman Carter Jones who is scheduled to announce his commitment on May 25.
Four-star OL @carterjonesfb will announce his commitment live with @247sports on Monday at 5 p.m. on the CBS Sports College Football youtube channel and he previews his decision (FREE) https://t.co/jrKX4W4HNm pic.twitter.com/7pH0esEZp1
— BrianDohn247 (@BrianDohn247) May 22, 2026
Early momentum wasn’t enough for Georgia with Carter Jones
On Friday Jones also announced who his final four schools are. Georgia thankfully made the cut along with Clemson, Tennessee and Penn State.
That is where the good news ends because Clemson is the clear favorite to win his recruitment. 247Sports has six crystal ball predictions in their favor to win his recruitment, and with his announcement coming in just a few short days it may be too late for Kirby Smart to change that.
It’s a shame this is how Jones’ recruitment unfolded because Georgia looked to be in a good position not that long ago. Jones visited Georgia for G-Day, and immediately after that visit he said he planned on committing soon. Many assumed that was a good news for Georgia, but that turned out to not be the case.
Jones also spoke in great length about how cool it was when he saw Brock Bowers working out at Georgia during his visit. That again seemed like a good sign for Georgia, but Clemson unfortunately is still the team to beat.
Carter Jones is another example of Kirby Smart’s need to change recruiting tactics
At this point it seems very unlikely for Georgia to come back and win Jones’ recruitment. So instead of trying to flip the script Smart should look inward and try to figure out what he needs to do differently going forward.
As mentioned, recruits are wanting to commit much earlier in the year than they ever have before. Jones is just one example, but there are a handful of recruitments Georgia has been involved in where the player committed earlier than expected. Georgia has won some of those recruitments, but overall they have lost most of them.
The most recent example was with elite offensive lineman Jatori Williams who committed to Miami one week before he was supposed to officially visit Georgia.
That is what Smart needs to do more of at Georgia. He hardly ever is able to convince recruits to commit to them before taking all of their visits, and in the past that wasn’t really a problem. But recruiting has changed and other schools are able to get recruits to commit before they visit other schools, so Smart needs to figure out how to pull that off.
Maybe he needs to be a little more aggressive and tell these recruits he wants them to commit now if they are serious about Georgia. That could be a bit too much, but something has to change if Smart wants to keep up with this new trend in recruiting.
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