No instate school to compete with but Auburn is basically in-state for these kids, Bama is right next door, and Clemson is a short drive.
This isn't Miami where the next big time P5 program is a 6-8 hour drive away. For instance, Sammy Brown is 1 hour from Clemson and 35 minutes from Georgia. There's no distinct home town advantage to that.
A couple things happening here:
1 - Georgia's staff is as tight with their in-state HS coaches as any school in the country with their respective in-state coaches - they get fed almost all of the information that they need to make an evaluation. Typically nothing held back to decipher like South Florida HS coaches do to UM. They might not want every top 10-15 kid in their state for various reasons, based on what they know or don't know.
2 - They recruit nationally. Big on fit in their program and scheme no matter where they come from. It has rubbed some HS coaches wrong, sure. But until they stop winning it won't matter.
3 - They landed the top QB in the country so you can count out 2 others in the top 10 - of course they're going elsewhere. Similarly at TE. They missed on Thomas and then pulled the 2nd best TE in the country from Missouri. Hartley doesn't miss and there isn't a better TE coach than him in America at any phase of coaching - identifying, recruiting, developing, coaching, etc. If Thomas chose FSU over that.. there's something else there.
Almost every GA high school head coach is die hard for Georgia or Auburn and probably went to one of those schools 50% of the time. Lots of Clemson influence in North Georgia and even into the suburbs of Atlanta - Cartersville for instance.
