Georgia
Georgia set to host Alabama transfer QB Dylan Lonergan
Georgia hosted a transfer quarterback late last week when Charlotte’s Deshawn Purdie came to town and it will host another this week. On3’s Pete Nakos says that Alabama transfer Dylan Lonergan plans to be in town. The news was first reported by Max Olson of The Athletic.
Lonergan, who played his high school about 45 miles away from the UGA campus at Brookwood, signed with the Crimson Tide in the 2023 class. He is in the transfer portal with three years to play three after appearing in three games over the past two seasons. Lonergan has completed seven of eight pass attempts for 35 yards in his career.
Georgia is clearly taking a long look at the quarterback position in the transfer portal, even with it’s likely starter potentially set to take over right now. Gunner Stockton is the odds-on favorite to win the job after three years in the system, but his time is likely now with Carson Beck‘s future in doubt due to an injury ulnar collateral ligament in the SEC Championship win over Texas.
The Bulldogs have Jaden Rashada and Ryan Puglisi in that room but it is unclear whether either will be in position to offer Stockton any competition this spring. Georgia also signed two quarterbacks in the 2025 class — Ryan Montgomery and Hezekiah Millender.
Dylan Lonergan’s On3 Scouting Report (2023)
“Talented passer who doubles as a standout on the gridiron and the baseball diamond. Highly touted baseball prospect who holds multiple Power 5 baseball offers, with the possibility of being a MLB Draft pick. Shows touch and accuracy as a passer at all levels of the field. Lonergan layers the football well, but can turn up the heat if needed on tight window throws. Productive while facing strong competition. Threw for nearly 3,400 yards and 32 touchdowns with just 3 interceptions as a junior.
“Mobile and creative with his legs. Ran for over 600 yards and 7 touchdowns as a junior. Has a stocky build, measuring between 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-2 and around 220 pounds. Lonergan’s mechanics can falter when the pocket collapses. Arm talent combined with his accuracy makes him one of the safer quarterback prospects in the country despite being on the older end for his class. Father was a quarterback at Penn State in the early 1980’s and won a national championship with them in 1982.”
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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