Riding the high of earning a bowl bid in his first season at Georgia Southern, head coach Clay Helton has now concluded his second early signing class. Wednesday afternoon the Eagles announced they have officially signed 19 players to scholarships for the 2023 season.
“We are excited about welcoming in a new crop of Eagles to Statesboro,” said Helton. “These are young men that meet specific needs for us for the upcoming season. These are guys who will help us as we move towards a championship season.”
Among the immediate needs for the Eagles is the defensive and offensive line where Georgia Southern will be losing four key seniors in Logan Langemeier and Caleb Kelly on offense and Dillon Springer and Justin Ellis on defense. Brian Miller and Khalil Crowder are both seniors but Miller is using a seventh-year medical waive to return and Crowder has an extra COVID year of eligibility. With the possibility of more losses on the horizon Helton signed 10 players on the offensive and defense lines and two tight ends.
“When you look around this signing class you see big men, and big men win championships,” said Helton. “That is one of the areas of growth we felt like we needed.'
Helton said he feels like recruiting is now three waves with the early signing day leading things off.
“Today is the first wave of players who can come in possibly come mid-term or in the summer,” said Helton. “On the first day of classes for spring semester you have players who have come in the transfer portal who can come in to the mid-year semester. Finally, you get the first Wednesday of February for the final signing period.”
Georgia Southern welcomed nine players from the state of Georgia, five from Florida, and one apiece from North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee and Australia. While his first signing class stayed a little closer to home Helton still feels it’s important to try and stay within the state for the most part.
“When you see the key members of last year and this year’s class, I think you see the state of Georgia,” said Helton. “We have said before we aren’t planning on being a transfer portal organization. We signed 22 freshmen last year and we have 16 this year, so that is 38 freshmen in the first two years. Things haven’t changed that much since coach Erk Russell was here as you can stay within the state and the footprint around Georgia and win championships.”
Not many skill position players were signed this period with the exception of one quarterback, one running back and a pair of wide receivers.
“We have a couple players with big shoes to fill at wide receiver,” said Helton “It hurts to lose guys like Amare Jones and Jeremy Singleton. We feel like the pair of receivers we brought in have the potential to do some of the same things. Last year we had to base a lot of recruiting on belief in what we were going to do. Now the players have seen what we are doing here and I think it helped in recruiting.”
The Eagles are expected to bring in a few new faces through the transfer portal but who they bring in won’t become official until the spring semester begins. The transfer portal is something all coaches are having to adjust to, including Helton.
“Obviously we now have a new window from Dec. 5 through Jan. 18 window of transfer portal players,” said Helton. “I thank God for Ryan Smith and Andrew Bevill to be able to manage a roster and we have been fortunate to not have a lot of attrition and we are in better shape than many as far as keeping up with what we will lose and what is out there to be able to address immediate needs.”
After the bowl game we will have a better idea of where we will need help at particular positions,” said Helton. “We will know better where we can fit a transfer portal player in for the first day of school. We are also still battling for players who have decided to wait until February to sign. Recruiting never stops it is a 365 day a year operation and there are still some battles out there we hope to win.”
The late signing period begins Feb. 1, 2023.
