A Pair of Highly Touted 2021 Defensive Line Prospects Discuss Georgia

Jahvaree Ritzie and Marcus Bradley are both highly talented 2021 targets for Tray Scott and the Georgia Bulldogs.

JAHVAREE RITZIE

2021 Defensive End Jahvaree Ritzie is hungry coming into his senior season. Despite over 32% of his tackles in his junior campaign resulting in negative yardage for opponents, there is still more to accomplish.

Ritzie and his Glenn High School teammates, came up just shy of a State Championship last year and that’s really the main focus in 2020. “It’s our time. The school across the street has won it, now we’ve got to go win it all.” Glenn certainly has the talent to do so. The Bobcats are coming off of a 9 - 5 season and an exit in the 3rd round of the playoffs. Also, Ritzie has a teammate in Raneiria Dillworth that is a star prospect in his own right at linebacker, who is also being recruited by Georgia.

One thing that Ritzie is not still in search of is opportunity. The 6’3.5” 265 pound, 4-Star out of Kernersville, NC has plenty of opportunity in front of him as he has been piling up Power 5 scholarship offers as of late, including every school in the SEC East. Ritzie plays the game with an unwavering desire and a relentless pursuit of the football. Jahvaree uses his hands well and is able to create separation from defenders with his long arms and a variety of moves.

In the same way that Ritzie pursues the football, that's the kind of effort he's looking for and that matters to him in terms of his recruitment. "I'm just looking for consistency. The programs that are staying in communication and helping to create that family-like atmosphere is big for me. If the consistency isn't there, you kind of have to ask, do they really want me?", said Ritzie.

Coach Tray Scott is the primary recruiter for the North Carolina native and Jahvaree described the relationship in good terms. Scott and Ritzie seemed to hit things off during the 4-Star's recent visit to Athens, even having some fun in the now customary prospect photoshoot.

Commit to the G??👀🐶❤️🖤‼️✌🏽#UGA #GoDawgs #ATD #CommitToTheG pic.twitter.com/ljVKjUkR8K

— Jahvaree “J5” Ritzie (@jahvaree) February 4, 2020

He also described Dan Lanning and Kirby Smart as, "great guys who keep things real." Ritzie plans on being in Athens for the G-Day game and that should provide those coaches and the Georgia program as a whole with an opportunity to impress Jahvaree. Ritzie says that the Dawgs are likely to be one of his five official visits.

Jahvaree has a plan for the remainder of his recruitment. Ritzie will be an early enrollee in the 2021 class and he plans on committing by September. Georgia, along with Tennessee, Duke, and South Carolina are the members of Ritzie's top 12 that are recruiting him,"the most consistently right now. They all hit me up a lot."

I would expect Georgia to be heavily in communication with Ritzie, and his teammate Raneiria Dillworth, once the February dead period ends.

MARCUS BRADLEY

Marcus Bradley is a 6'3" 270 pound defensive tackle out of Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The 4-Star prospect is a hot commodity right now in the college football recruiting landscape. Bradley has picked up over a dozen Power 5 offers in less than a month. Marcus displayed his humility when asked about how he handles all of the excitement that comes with the exciting, yet hectic process. "I didn't even realize that," Bradley told Bulldog Maven.

Bradley has aligned at various positions and techniques for his high school team and has shown playmaking ability on both the interior defensive line and on the edge. However, Bradley believes that he is, "more productive on the inside at the 3 technique type of spot." This is a position that Tyler Clark excelled at recently for UGA and Bradley's game reminds me of Clark's.

Now, a college strength and conditioning program will help the 270 pounder get up closer to the 300 mark that Tyler Clark was at, but the similarities in their style are there and go well beyond the fact that they both don the number 52. Bradley possesses a nice initial strike and is able to penetrate the opponent's backfield with his quickness after the beginning blow. Also, Bradley is a very smart interior pass rusher, like Clark, who knows how to get his hands up and affect the throwing lanes of a Quarterback when he is unable to get home on a pressure.

Marcus is considering Georgia for an official visit. Although he candidly admitted that Ohio State, Maryland, Duke and LSU are doing a very good job of staying in communication. Bradley enjoyed his recent visit to Athens and is still building a relationship with Georgia. 

The Dawgs offered the 4-Star from the mid-Atlantic region back on January 22nd and Bradley stated, "I had been talking to them (UGA) for a few weeks before they offered me and I liked the connection." Obviously, Marcus liked the connection enough to subsequently name Georgia as one of his top 10 schools just a little over two weeks later on February 7th.

Georgia is going to have to fight to continue to stay in the thick of this recruitment, but Bradley did come away from his visit to UGA impressed with the environment of Athens and the facilities that are currently on campus and those being built. The top factors going forward for Marcus will be, “development, location, and scheme." Scheme and development would seem to be pluses for the Dawgs as one of Bradley's comments relating to his visit was that he likes the defense that Lanning and Smart run. The development piece would seem to be in good hands as well with the new facility on the way and Georgia already having a propensity to place talent into the NFL. Georgia has 10 former players in the 2020 combine.

Bradley anticipates narrowing down the top 10 to a top 5 in May or June. Also, the Gaithersburg, Maryland native is working towards getting everything done academically to be an early enrollee wherever he ends up signing. The school that does land Bradley is going to get a disruptive force on the interior defensive line that brings a lot of energy

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