USC’s loss is unofficially a personnel gain for the Georgia football team when it comes to JT Daniels.
In early December Daniels’ father stated that his son had no intention of transferring from USC. In mid-April, however, the quarterback entered the NCAA transfer database. Despite the portal entry, it was thought that there was a good chance that Daniels returns to the Trojans.
Thursday, that door was almost completely shut as Georgia earned a verbal commitment from JT Daniels. The transfer made the announcement on Twitter.
THANK YOU USC ✌🏻
— JT Daniels (@jtdaniels06) May 28, 2020
Excited for the future #GoDawgs🐶 pic.twitter.com/ewfhBG3ved
Barring the unexpected, Daniels will have to sit out the 2020 campaign. That would then leave him with two years of eligibility starting in 2021.
In 2018, JT Daniels became just the second true freshman (Matt Barkley, 2009) to start a season opener at quarterback for USC, going on to start 10 more games in 2018. The starter entering 2019, a torn ACL in this season’s opener prematurely ended Daniels’ sophomore campaign; that injury opened the door for another true freshman, Kedon Slovis, to grab the job and run with it — or pass with it as the case may be as Slovis has shined, passing for 3,242 yards and 28 touchdowns in nine starts (he essentially missed two full games with a concussion). In four of the past five games, he’s thrown for at least 400 yards, including a school-record 515 in the win over rival UCLA in the regular-season finale.
Daniels was a five-star 2018 signee. The California product was the No. 2 pro-style quarterback in the country on the 247Sports.com composite. As a true freshman, Daniels threw for 2,672 yards, 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He completed nearly 60 percent of his 363 pass attempts that season.
Daniels is the second high-profile transfer UGA has landed this offseason as Jamie Newman transferred to the school in January. The Wake Forest graduate will be eligible to play immediately in 2020.
