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Georgia Tech Football: OG Eli Rickey Is Commitment No.14

By Dylan Callaghan-Croley

CLEMSON, SOUTH CAROLINA - AUGUST 29: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets assistant head coach Brent Key meets with the Yellow Jacket offensive line during their football game against the Clemson Tigers at Memorial Stadium on August 29, 2019 in Clemson, South Carolina. (Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images)
CLEMSON, SOUTH CAROLINA - AUGUST 29: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets assistant head coach Brent Key meets with the Yellow Jacket offensive line during their football game against the Clemson Tigers at Memorial Stadium on August 29, 2019 in Clemson, South Carolina. (Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images) /
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The Georgia Tech football program received commitment No.14 of the 2021 recruiting cycle on Friday afternoon with three-star offensive guard Eli Richey.

Richey, 6-foot-5, and 280-pounds is out of Southern Academy in Greensboro, Alabama, approximately three and a half hours away from Atlanta. 247Sports’ composite rankings have Richey as a top 1,200-player nationally and a top-50 offensive guard in the country.

In terms of the Jackets 2021 recruiting class, Richey is the second offensive lineman joining Atlanta native Jakiah Leftwich out of Westlake High School.

Richey’s 247Sports profile listed 10 reported offers for the Alabama native headlined by two other Power Five programs in the SEC’s Missouri Tigers and the Big 12’s West Virginia Mountaineers. Other than those two and the Jackets, the remainder of his offers were from Group of Five programs.

Since coming to The Flats, Geoff Collins and the coaching staff have made the offensive line a priority and rightfully so. The offensive line in 2019 was abysmal for the Yellow Jackets. In hopes of making some big strides in the trenches over the next few years, the Jackets have now recruited eight offensive lineman in the last row recruiting cycles. In the 2020 recruiting cycle, the Jackets nabbed six offensive lineman. That number does not include the incoming transfers of Ryan Johnson (Tennessee) or Devin Cochran (Vanderbilt).

The Jackets 2021 recruiting class currently sits 25th in the country and 5th in the ACC per 247Sports’s team rankings. Competitively, the 2020 recruiting class finished 27th nationally and 5th in the ACC. The good news for the Yellow Jackets is they still have a solid amount of room left in the class with several top targets on the board. The bad news is outside of Pittsburgh sitting at No.4 in the ACC rankings, it may be hard for the Jackets to catch up to the likes of Miami (No.3), North Carolina (No.2), and Clemson (No.1).