Georgia Football: 4-Star Safety Kendall Gant Will Reportedly Flip to Marshall

The Marshall Thundering Herd football program has the NCAA rules to thank for landing its top recruit in the 2014 class.

Due to the danger of not qualifying academically, 4-star safety and former Georgia commit Kendall Gant will reportedly flip to Marshall, via The Athens Banner-Herald’s Marc Weiszer.

Unlike the Thundering Herd, the Bulldogs can’t take NCAA partial qualifiers.

“Marshall can do some more things for him compared to what Georgia had plans to deal with him,” said Gant’s high school coach Keith DeMyer, per Weiszer’s report. “The whole bottom line is he really wanted to go [to Georgia] but he put himself in a hole academically and he felt more comfortable dealing with Marshall in that respect.”

The Lakeland, Fla. native needs to improve his ACT score by two points to qualify for Georgia. But even if he accomplished that, the school would want him to attend Georgia Military College or another prep school in the Atlanta area.

“They were not walking away but they were giving up his scholarship to somebody else so he would have been stuck,” DeMyer told Weiszer. “The only option was to go to a JUCO and he didn’t want to go to JUCO.”

Marshall will welcome in Gant with open arms.

The 6’2”, 185-pounder becomes the school’s lone 4-star recruit and 30th commitment of 2014. The class currently ranks No. 1 in Conference USA according to 247Sports' C-USA football team recruiting rankings.

Conversely, while they’ll certainly be disappointed in the news, the Bulldogs should be able to make due.

As it stands, the team currently has four commitments that play in the secondary. That list includes 4-star cornerback Malkom Parrish and a trio of 3-stars in safety Dominick Sanders and cornerbacks Shattle Fenteng and Shaquille Jones.

Georgia is also heavily in pursuit of 4-star cornerback Wesley Green.

Gant had initially committed to the Bulldogs last July over offers from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Ohio State and USC among others.

Unless otherwise noted, all recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.

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