3-star DL Antwan McKoy commits to Georgia football

The young DL with an 85-inch wingspan had to be a Dawg.

“The culture, players and winning atmosphere, honestly, and I want to be a part of that,” he said.

McKoy now becomes the 17th commitment in the 2027 class for Georgia. He’s the third DL prospect in the class. The Bulldogs have now picked up four commitments since 4-star OT Kennedee Jackson flipped to UGA on Saturday.

He also becomes the eighth-highest-rated commitment in the class at this time. The 6-foot-3, 295-pound rising senior said he’s known he wanted to be in Athens for a while now.

“After the spring practice, I saw what I was looking for,” he said.

He described it in detail.

“I saw a lot of things that I liked,” he said. “From the coaching standpoints. The player’s standpoint. The way the players reacted to the coaches. They were all kind of hyping themselves up. Those were all things I really liked.”

His official visit to Georgia set the stage for this decision. He ate a “whole lot of chicken and a whole lot of shrimp” on his OV. He said he gained about 10 pounds on his official.

“But I dropped right back down after I put some work in,” he said.

When he took that official on May 29, the UGA players were brutally honest with him.

“They told me if you don’t love football, then don’t come here,” McKoy said. “That’s basically what they told me. That was the big message to me.”

The visit showed him something he wasn’t expecting

“What surprised me the most was something I was looking for,” he said. “Everybody had a one-track mind. Everybody was thinking the same and wanted the same goals. That’s what I wanted to see.”

Georgia defensive line coach Tray Scott met with McKoy at length. McKoy described it as an “NFL interview.”

“Just seeing where my head was at,” McKoy said. “Giving me some tips and tricks I can use when I am out there playing. Kind of picking my brain a little bit. Seeing where my (football) IQ was at.”

He said he impressed Scott with his knowledge of alignments and formations.

“I know a little bit about football,” he said. “I know linemen might seem big and dumb, but we know a little something.”

The Bulldogs see the 6-foot-3, 300-pounder playing up and down the defensive line, from a zero-tech to a five-tech.

Georgia veteran DL Jordan “Big Baby” Hall hosted him on that trip. What was the best part of that official visit?

“It was really just the time I spent around the players,” he said. “It was really what the highlight was. I was just surrounded by a bunch of smart, intelligent and really chill people.”

He had 60 tackles, 19 TFLs and 10 sacks as a junior. Check out McKoy’s junior film below:

“My film,” he said. “I feel like it portrays a lot of effort. A lotta effort. I have a couple of clips on my highlight tape where I’m running down wide receivers,” he said. “Running backs and stuff after a play had already gotten past the line of scrimmage. Just showing off a ton of effort.”

Credit: Jackson Collier/UGAAA

Credit: Jackson Collier/UGAAA

Antwan McKoy: Why does he play football?

McKoy shows up on tape with good bend, power and flexibility. He can take on double teams.

What is he like off the field?

Chill. Laid-back. Focused on the main goal. That’s how those who know McKoy well will describe him. He wanted to make his college decision as simple as possible. It was very close at one point. There would be one week he’d favor the Gamecocks at times. The following week, it was Georgia.

Connection. Relationships. That’s what he was always looking for in this decision.

Why does he play football?

“My original why was because I was angry,” he said. “I was an angry kid. There was some stuff I had going on. Growing up a big kid. Getting bullied and stuff like that. I had a size-17 shoe. I was just angry. Now that I’ve kind of seen what I can do with football and that bullying has kind of turned into praise, now my why for playing football is pretty much to help my family out.”

“I don’t want my people living paycheck to paycheck anymore. I want to really help my family out, man. That’s pretty much it.”

In case you missed it, he said he has size-17 feet. He slides his feet into battleships. Not cleats.

“When I was in middle school, when I was like chubbier and shorter, I had a size-18 shoe,” McKoy said. “So I actually shrank heading into high school. I think my shoe size has been bigger than my age for like probably two-thirds of my life until now. I just turned 17 like (four) weeks ago.”