It was a special weekend for football recruiting in Athens as the 2019 class picked up pledges from top targets at tailback, athlete, and linebacker. The announcements came after “The Reveal” – an event to show off the new west endzone project and locker room to some of Georgia’s top recruiting prospects. The Reveal had its intended effect, and Kirby Smart was quick to thank the donors who contributed to the project.

If you build it, they will come. Thanks members of the Magill Society for a beautiful new home !!#TheReveal pic.twitter.com/WU69dLNPSa

— Coach Kirby Smart (@KirbySmartUGA) July 30, 2018

The weekend’s haul raised Georgia’s commitment total for the 2019 class to 16. The Dawgs have added six commitments since mid-July. That’s turned a solid core of a class into one that’s suddenly close to filling up. The thing is that the 2019 class isn’t expected to be a large one. The current senior class is fairly small (around 16 players), and even normal amounts of attrition along with an early NFL entry or two only get you so much flexibility. Jeff Sentell projected the size of the 2019 class at 21.

The number might shift one way or the other – they always seem to find the room to sign just one more, don’t they? Say it’s somewhere between 20-23. But the exact number isn’t the point. It’s a safe bet that Georgia’s class will come in under the limit of 25. Space in this class is beginning to become tight. If we use Sentell’s number, that means we head into August with only five spots available. Some thoughts on the next four months of recruiting with single-digit spots remaining:

• Recruiting news will probably slow down. There could be one or two more decisions before the season, but Georgia’s targets also include some waiting until Signing Day or at least the end of the high school season. Journalists covering recruiting will find angles to keep readers engaged, but we’re not going to see things proceed at the same pace with six commitments in two weeks. Other schools might appear in the recruiting news more than Georgia. That’s OK.
• The staff knows who their remaining targets are. They’ll focus on those few while keeping other options alive. Managing those few remaining spots will be the job until the class is full, and the staff can afford to be very, very picky.
• Will there be even less Georgia drama in this year’s late signing period? Georgia had a few but impressive additions in February to put the 2018 class over the top. With only five or so scholarships left to fill for 2019, how many will remain available after December?
• Are all of the current commitments firm? When you’re dealing with such elite prospects, they’ll be prime targets of other programs until the moment they sign. Georgia will spend plenty of time re-recruiting each commitment.
• Along those lines, will the list change for other reasons? We saw attrition from last year’s class right from the beginning. Whether or not Georgia encouraged those prospects to look elsewhere in order to make room for interest from a “must-take” player, it’s not unheard of.
• We know that even after the class is done and full this staff won’t stop looking for ways to improve it. Graduate transfers, regular transfers, walk-ons, and unsigned JUCOs will all be in play once we get a better understanding of the needs of the team after the 2018 season. The pursuit of those late additions will have to be as much a part of the roster management as the size of the 2019 recruiting class.