Four star Malik Herring includes UGA in loaded top seven|UGA Hot Topics|Team BattleGround|College BattleGround

Mary Persons (Forsyth, GA) defensive end Malik Herring has been on the radar of college recruiters since his freshman season, but so far hasn’t really narrowed things down. That changed (at least a little bit) this afternoon when Herring released a list of his top seven schools on Twitter.

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— Malik Herring (@HerringMalik) June 19, 2016

Georgia made the list, as expected by most recruiting experts. Georgia currently holds a commanding lead among analysts in 247Sports’ crystal ball predictions for Herring, who’s spent a good bit of time in Athens over the past few months and is close with multiple current UGA commits.

The ‘Dawgs won’t get Herring without a fight, though. Alabama, Clemson, Southern Cal, LSU, Tennessee, and Middle Tennessee State form the remainder of his crowded leaderboard. While the Blue Raiders of Murfreesboro are certainly the outlier in this group, MTSU has always recruited middle Georgia well and several of their current staff have long track records in the area. But in the end I think the Red and Black’s biggest competition is likely to come from Alabama and Clemson. Why all the fuss? Take a look at Herring’s junior highlights.

There are few more unblockable defensive linemen in the southeast for the class of 2017. Herring is a freakish combination of size (6’3, 260) and speed who most high school offensive linemen (including linemen from some state playoff contenders in this video) just can’t stop. Until later . . .

Go ‘Dawgs!!!