Report: Rising-star OL Damola Ajidahun reacts to recent Georgia offer, visit

The Duluth (Ga.) offensive lineman recently earned a long-awaited offer from the Bulldogs.

Damola Ajidahun sat in Stacy Searels’ office with his mother last weekend, waiting to hear what the Georgia offensive line coach had to say.

They’d been building a relationship for several months since Searels and Kirby Smart had swung by Duluth (Ga.) during the January contact window. The message to Ajidahun then: Keep building your body, and an offer from Georgia was certainly possible.

So he sat listening to Searels who delivered the news

“They just wanted to see me. I knew I would have to come back to show how much bigger I’ve gotten and how much growth I’ve shown. So I felt like I would have to come back to see them again,” Ajidahun told Dawgs247. “Coach Searels gave me the offer. I had a talk with Coach Smart at the end of practice. After that, we went to Coach Searels office with Coach Ed [new assistant OL coach Edmund Kugbila], and we had a talk with my parents and my coach. It was just right then.”

Ajidahun’s mother might’ve been just as happy as he was.

“She was recording it. She was really happy for me, but that was probably one of her top schools she wants me to go to, so she was really happy about that,” Ajidahun said. “Everybody in the room was really excited.”

So what led to the offer?

For starters, Ajidahun answered Searels and Smart’s call. In the mid-200s when his junior season finished, Ajidahun measured in at 6-foot-6 and 280 pounds on his visit. His arms are just shy of 37 inches and has a wingspan well into the 80s.

That’s drawing obvious comparisons from the Georgia coaches.

“He said I had a great size. On my film, he said he compared me to Broderick Jones. He played our film side-by-side. It was me finishing blocks and him finishing blocks, just going to the whistle, playing football aggressively. He said he sees a lot of similarities,” Ajidahun said. “What stood out to me, on film, we look almost identical. He’s got a little more mass right now. For a guy that size to move like that, I could tell what kind of workouts they do at Georgia. For a dude to be able to move like that and block safeties in space, it shows how much work he’s put in.”

Ajidahun’s work isn’t done yet. Much like with Jones, Georgia is still asking the nearby offensive tackle to keep adding weight.

“Yeah, they want me to get to the 290s or close to the 300s. I should be able to get that before June. They didn’t give me a date, but they want to get me to 290,” Ajidahun said. “I’m planning to go back in June, so it would be good for them to see me at that weight.”

That trustworthy relationship with Searels makes it easy for them to be transparent with each other throughout this process.

“For me, I like when coaches are active in their players’ lives. I don’t want it to just be about football. If your coach really loves you and is willing to give time outside of football to talk and spend time with you, I think that’s really great,” Ajidahun said. “Not only does he care about developing guys as a group, but he also cares about you as a man. He wants to develop you as a man. That’s what I really look for, and that’s another great thing about Coach Searels.”

He doesn’t have an official visit scheduled to Georgia yet, but he’s in the process of coordinating one.

If it’s anything like his most recent visit, the Bulldogs are in good shape.

“When I visited Georgia, they took me around. I went to practice. They gave me a tour. I sat in on the meeting rooms to make sure I knew how it was going, how everyone is held to a standard. It was great, man. Everybody is held to a standard. They don’t chase nobody for nothing. Everybody knows where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do. So yeah, it was great,” he said. “For me everything is fast-paced. Everybody knows where to go. Everybody knows what play they’re running. The second-group guys know exactly what to do when I get out there because college is a whole different environment than high school. In high school, you’ve got kids on the sideline just doing whatever. In college, everyone is held to a standard. You know where you have to be. You know what you have to do. Nobody comes chasing after you. You do what you need to do. I felt like there’s a standard over there to be upheld.”