Georgia commitment Ryan Puglisi's arm strength compared to Heisman Trophy winner
The nation’s No. 1 prospect per the On3 Industry Ranking, Dylan Raiola, committed to Georgia 15 days ago and the buzz is just starting to simmer down. But Ryan Puglisi, a four-star signal caller in his own right, has been on the Bulldogs commitment list for awhile, too.
Former Georgia director of player personnel Matt Godwin joined DawgsHQ’s Bark After Dark where he discussed the recruitments of both players. He talked about how Raiola made it onto the Bulldogs’ radar and what made him a top target. Godwin also revealed the same about Puglisi while providing interesting commentary on the quarterback’s raw talent.
“Ryan was a relative unknown,” Godwin said. “I think it was Spring 2022, coach (Todd) Monken went up to see him throw in Connecticut, went to a practice. You could just see the arm talent. The ball jumped off his hand. After that, we didn’t offer him, but we started recruiting him pretty seriously. Then we got him to camp last summer, June 2022, and just seeing him throw in person, my reaction was this guy is going to get someone hurt.
“The ball just pops off his hand in a way that I’ve only seen it come off Caleb Williams‘ hand. We had Caleb Williams in camp. I guess that was Summer 2019, and Ryan has that kind of arm talent where the ball just jumps off his hand. He has a compact delivery. He’s a good baseball player which, usually those baseball players their deliveries are a little bit longer but Ryan’s got a really compact deliver and just straight… He can throw it. From that workout, we knew he was a guy that we wanted to recruit. We knew there was a good chance that we were going to need two in that 2024 cycle.”
Both Puglisi and Raiola will be out in Los Angeles this summer to take part in the Elite11 quarterback showcase. Puglisi, who gave his pledge to Georgia in October, is currently ranked as the nation’s No. 150 overall prospect per the On3 Industry Ranking. He’s also the No. 12 quarterback in the country and the No. 2 player in Connecticut.
Those two are expected to join Georgia in January where, if everything holds up, they’ll be part of a five-quarterback room. Carson Beck is UGA’s projected starter for the 2023 season and he’s effectively a redshirt sophomore since the 2020 COVID-19 season didn’t count. Brock Vandagriff is also a redshirt sophomore in 2023 while Gunner Stockton is a redshirt freshman.
