Georgia Football: Freshman Receiver is Turning Into a Top Target for UGA
Pickens scored his first career TD Saturday against Murray St.
What a day it was when Alabama native and longtime Auburn commit, George Pickens made the decision to flip from the Tigers to the Georgia Bulldogs.
That was just seven months ago.
Shortly after that, fans of SEC rivals began to doubt Pickens' ability to qualify at The University of Georgia. However, despite all of the rival rumors, Pickens qualified and enrolled this fall.
After watching Pickens play in high school, it's easy to see why he was so highly recruited by schools across the country like Georgia, Auburn, LSU, Miami, and plenty of other big-time programs. He straight up dominated at the high school level.
But then the next level comes around, and many fans and analysts tend to believe that the game will speed up for these highly recruited players.
Not for George Pickens.
Pickens has everything you could possibly want in a receiver. For starters, he's got a ton of length and size. At 6'4 190 lbs. he's got the length to tower over a corner without being "too big" to outrun the secondary. We saw both his size and length come into play in his diving catch against Murray State on Saturday.
What about the athletic and playmaking abilities that Pickens also has?
Personally, it's something that I have not seen at Georgia in a while. It doesn't show up around college football too often either.
Pickens has a combination of vertical leap, catch radius and pure tenacity that most receivers do not have. He almost always comes down with the catch as long as it is anywhere close to him.
He also has the ability (and the want) to block when needed, which allows him to be on the field more often. He had a key block on D'Andre Swift's touchdown run this weekend.
Kirby Smart told the media in the post-game press conference, "His willingness to do it (block) is what has allowed him to play at this point because when he's willing to do it and when he knows who to block, he's pretty good."
We've only seen the basics of what Pickens can do. He's going to be a problem for defenses moving forward.
Pickens was also shown some love from NFL great, Randy Moss on the NFL's Monday Night Countdown, and I can guarantee you this isn't the last time Pickens recieves national attention.
Pickens led the team on Saturday with 4 receptions, 78 yards, and 1 TD in just his second career game as a Georgia Bulldog. We'll see if he can follow this stellar performance on Saturday's noon kickoff against Arkansas State.
Maybe we might see something like this...
