2023 DB, Aaron Gates Recaps Summer Full of Offers including Georgia Football
Offers seem to arrive on players' doorsteps at an earlier and earlier age nowadays, though it's still rather uncommon for athletes to receiver Power 5 scholarship offers after just their freshman season of high school football.
Georgia has handed out almost 50 scholarship offers at this point in the 2023 class and one of the most recent recipients, Aaron Gates, sat down to talk about what it means to hear from UGA.
Gates is a 2023 defensive back from Trinity Christian School in Sharpsburg, Georgia and he's had quite the summer, receiving offers from FIU, UNLV, Kentucky, Pitt, Georgia Tech, LSU, South Carolina, and Georgia all in a four-month time span.
With several offers coming in this summer, one offer in particular was the "Wow" moment for Gates. The defending national champs, LSU Tigers offered back in June of this year, and the offer brought Gates to tears.
"Definitely LSU, I remember I got the offer and ran onto the field, grabbed my coach and we were on the phone and we were both tearing up on the field. It was definitely LSU."
The head coach at Trinity Christian School, Kenny Dallas does something rather unique for players like Gates that receive scholarship offers. Whenever coaches are prepared to offer a young man, he places the on FaceTime during a workout or practice and has the coach extend the scholarship offer to the player in front of his teammates so they can celebrate the accomplishment as a team.
"I was completely shocked too, I didn't know. Only my dad and coach Dallas knew what was about to happen. It was surprising, it was fun, and it was just great to have all of my teammates there with me."
Dell McGhee was the coach from Georgia that reached out to Gates through coach Dallas and extended the offer to Gates:
"It was super amazing. All Glory to God. It was right after school, hopped on the phone. I answered a bunch of questions about my family, my height and weight, school, and then he offered. It was just awesome."
Gates is nearing 6'1, 180 pounds as a rising sophomore, and will be playing both corner and safety this fall for Trinity Christian depending upon where they need him to play in order to give the football team the best chance to win.
And he's not the only 2023 defensive back from the state of Georgia that has racked up the Power 5 offers. I asked Gates where he stacks up against the likes of Aveion Terrell, Michael Daugherty, Daiquan White, Caleb Downs, Kaleb Cost, and Terrence Love and he says he can hang with them all.
Trinity plays Athens Academy the first game of the season, so Gates will have the opportunity to line it up against one of the best wide receivers in the 2021 class in Deion Colzie.
