Georgia football has been aggressively pursuing linebacker Tyler Atkinson for a very long time now. And for good reason, because he is the No. 1 linebacker in the country and top ranked player from Georgia, according to the 247Sports composite rankings.
Georgia's pursuit of Atkinson has been going so well that they even have an expert prediction in their favor to win this recruitment. However, Clemson has been coming on very strong in his recruitment over the last few weeks, so much so that the Tigers hosted Atkinson on an official visit this past weekend. This is the only official visit Atkinson has even scheduled to this point, so that was a big concern for UGA.
This past weekend was a big weekend overall for Clemson as they historically use the first weekend of June to bring in all their top recruits and do everything they can to get them to commit on the spot. That is what they attempted to do with Atkinson, but Adam Gorney with Rivals detailed how they were unable to accomplish that with Atkinson.
"Clemson did everything possible to land the five-star linebacker from Loganville (Ga.) Grayson from treating him like a top priority, to showing him the AtkNup packages they would use for him on defense (that’s his brand)," Gorney shared via uga.rivals.com.
Georgia once again appears to be in a great spot with Tyler Atkinson
Georgia's position with Atkinson will continue to improve with every passing day that doesn't result in a positive update being reported in Clemson's favor after this visit. It is still very possible at this point for a new report to surface that puts the Tigers in a great spot in Atkinson's recruitment, but that has not happened yet.
So now it is clear what Georgia and Kirby Smart need to do. They need to bring Atkinson on an official visit of their own, and maybe they'll be able to do what Clemson failed to do and get Atkinson to commit on the spot.