Kirby Smart flips quarterback recruit from 'Bama
HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. - The Georgia Bulldogs landed a massive commit on Thursday when one of the nation’s top 2017 quarterback prospects, Jake Fromm, gave his pledge to Kirby Smart’s staff.
Fromm had been verbally committed to Alabama since October of 2015. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound Houston County (GA) signal-caller is rated the third-best pro-style QB in the country according to 247Sports.
An unreported visit taken by Fromm and family members to Athens last week laid the framework for the decision.
“I went up last Thursday, and I really enjoyed it, “ Fromm told 247Sports in an exclusive interview. “We told Alabama we were going and that is just what type of family we are. I just loved it up there, I loved the people, I loved Coach (Kirby) Smart. I love what is going on up there, the whole deal.”
For the four-star recruit, who grew up a Georgia fan, the decision is a dream come true.
“It is awesome, what a great chance to be home and play in front of your home state,” Fromm said. “The people you grew up around, it was tough to tell the in-state people I was going somewhere else (Alabama), but what a better situation now to tell those people why I am coming back and that is something I will not take lightly.”
New Georgia offensive coordinator Jim Chaney impressed the Fromm family in a couple of meetings that were also big factors in this decision.
“What a great teacher he is, the guy is a football genius, literally on that side of the ball,” Fromm said. “If there is any chance for me to play in the NFL one day, I feel like this guy can give me that chance to have a NFL-type education and something I can take on with me.”
The decision to decommit from Alabama weighed on Fromm.
“It was very tough, decommitting was not something I wanted to do, it was not something I thought I would ever do,” he said.”It was something I never envisioned I would be doing at any time. At the end of the day, I had to do what was best for myself and my family no matter how tough it is.”
The US Army All-American QB knows that the competition in Athens will be there when he arrives next January in Jacob Eason, another US Army All-American QB in the 2016 class.
“I have got a chance to meet him over the last week and he is a great guy,” he said. “He is someone that I respect but at the end of the day, only one of us is going to get a chance to play. I feel like both of us are going to work hard, I know he is a great competitor and at the end of the day, coach has to pick one guy. He is a great guy, and I will enjoy competing against him.”
Emerson Fromm, Jake’s father, said in the end, passing up an opportunity to play at Georgia was too much given the chance under the new staff.
“He only needed one opportunity to play at Georgia, it didn’t happen under (Mark) Richt,” he said. “To say he may be scared of competition with this decision, he is going to Georgia to go toe to toe with the number one QB in the country on a daily basis. When Kirby (Smart) got to Georgia things changed. In the end he had a comfort level with the coaches at Georgia and that is where he always wanted to play.”
Fromm is the sixth verbal commit for UGA in the 2017 class and the second US Army All-American for the Dawgs.
Chaney was the lead recruiter for Georgia on Fromm.
((Rusty Mansell discussed Thursday's big news with FOX 5 Sports Reporter Justin Felder))