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Blake Baumgartner, ESPN Staff Writer
Joseph Jonah-Ajonye is the latest addition to Georgia‘s stellar recruiting class, committing to the two-time defending national champion on Thursday night.
Jonah-Ajonye is ranked No. 21 overall in the 2024 ESPN 300. The four-star defensive tackle from Oak Ridge High School in Texas becomes the 10th top-100 prospect and 16th ESPN 300 pledge for ESPN’s top-ranked class.
He chose Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs over Brent Venables and Oklahoma after taking official visits to both schools in June.
“The visit was amazing,” Jonah-Ajonye told ESPN of his time in Athens. “Definitely my most fun visit since my whole recruitment kicked off. I didn’t want to leave but had to. The conversations with [Smart], it wasn’t too serious. We weren’t even talking about football that much.
“We talked about football for the first two minutes and we just started talking about other stuff. He’s a great guy, great coach. Loves to be around his coaching staff and his players and the supporting staff. That’s one thing that I saw and I took away.”
In each of the past two seasons on the way to winning back-to-back national titles, Georgia ranked at least second nationally in scoring defense — first in 2021 (9.5 PPG) and second in 2022 (12.8 PPG).
In addition, four Georgia defensive linemen have been selected in the first round of the NFL draft over the past two years, with Travon Walker, Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter all going in the top 10.
Calling Georgia his “dream school,” Jonah-Ajonye moved his commitment date up nearly a month from Aug. 1.
“I think I’d fit in better than I would at Oklahoma because [I’m] primarily going to play end because their interior guys are huge — 310-plus,” he said. “Talked to Smart about it, and he wants me at a cool 275, 280 — the perfect way to sit on my frame. And I agreed. So I’d mostly play end, and then on some certain packages, I’d get moved down to tackle. Their playbook [was] not really that hard to learn. I learned it in a couple of hours. I know the whole thing.”
Jonah-Ajonye also has bonded with fellow 2024 Georgia commits quarterback Dylan Raiola (No. 2 overall), running back Chauncey Bowens (No. 136) and wide receiver NiTareon Tuggle (No. 162).
The 6-foot-4, 255-pound Jonah-Ajonye recorded over 60 tackles with 7.5 sacks, 15 tackles for loss and nine quarterback hurries during his junior season.
Jonah-Ajonye moved from Nigeria to Texas with his mother, Omovigho, and sister in 2015, and it took two years of persistently displaying his love for football to win his mother over, before she allowed him to play beginning in his freshman year of high school.
Jonah-Ajonye, whose father had been a professional basketball player in Nigeria, then moved up from JV to varsity within his first two weeks after transferring from Conroe to Oak Ridge in his sophomore year, a decision his mother described as the best of her life.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Jonah-Ajonye said. “God is great. I would not be in this position that I am without Him. And most athletes, they say that just to say that. But I mean this from the bottom of my soul — if it wasn’t for God, I wouldn’t be here. There are times that I really thought about quitting football, but the Holy Spirit just kept me in it.”
