Georgia earned their biggest commitment of the year on Monday when five-star offensive tackle Mark Matthews flipped from Texas A&M to UGA. He is the No. 2 overall player in the country, so this sent shock waves across the college football recruiting landscape.
Many college football fans and recruiting experts believed that Georgia had to offer Matthews a significant NIL deal to get him to flip to them. Texas A&M, who he had been committed to since May, is known for throwing around large NIL deals. Miami is as well and they were the team many recruiting experts expected was the team to beat when he decommitted from A&M. So when Georgia ended up winning his recruitment these experts assumed the Bulldogs put their money where their mouth is.
That however isn't the case because Matthews reportedly flipped to Georgia for less money than other schools were offering him.
NEW: Five-star OT Mark Matthews flipped to Georgia and reportedly took less money to do it — Phil Rauscher is cooking in his first full cycle on the trail👀
— UGASports.com (@ugasportscom) November 11, 2026
Full Georgia War Room breakdown inside: visitors, 2028 targets, and what the next two weekends mean for the class.
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Kirby Smart's NIL strategy is working
The exact amount of Matthews' deal from Georgia isn't known, but that doesn't matter. It's likely that they offered him a substantial deal, but it was still less than other teams like Texas A&M and potentially Miami were offering him. That is a big deal for Georgia because it shows that Kirby Smart's NIL strategy is working.
Smart and Georgia are one of the bigger NIL players in all of college football, but they do not offer the largest deals. They would rather have a player choose Georgia because they want to work hard and be developed as a Bulldogs instead of going there just to college a check. If a recruit comes to Georgia and plays well then Smart will increase their NIL deal to ensure they don't transfer to a new team.
Smart likely sold Matthews on the developmental success Georgia has had in recent years with their offensive linemen. He also was able to sell him on the success they've had on the field in recent years which includes this season as they are the No. 1 team in the country and the betting favorite to win the SEC and College Football Playoff.
If a recruit doesn't pick Georgia based on this recruiting pitch then they were never a good fit for the program, but it's clear that Matthews has the drive that Smart and UGA are looking for.
Georgia's Transfer Portal strategy is helping more than anyone realizes
Georgia's Transfer Portal strategy may have worked to their benefit as well. Over the past few years Georgia has been one of the schools with the least amount of transfer acquisitions. That is on purpose because Smart wants to show loyalty to the players he recruited out of high school hoping they will return the favor and remain loyal to Georgia as well.
That so far has worked well because Georgia also is one of the schools who loses the fewest number of players to the portal every year. So someone like Matthews can see that and feel confident that Georgia won't give up on him and look for someone to replace him even if his career in Athens doesn't start out as fast as people might expect.
The expectation though is that Matthews will be a star the second he steps foot on campus. He has the potential to be a day one starter when he gets to Georgia next year, but at the very least he should get a lot of playing time and be a force for the next few years before potentially becoming a first round NFL Draft pick.
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