Good guy Leonard Warner

ATLANTA - When Rivals250 outside linebacker Leonard Warner decided to visit the University of Georgia recently, he knew that the trip was not for himself. He was fine with that. Actually, Warner’s intentions for the visit had little to do with being a highly sought after football prospect.

No, Warner wanted to do something special for one of his close friends.

“My last visit wasn’t so much about me as it was our manager, Jacob Oldknow,” Warner said. “He suffers from cerebral palsy and he is a big Georgia fan. So, I wanted to take him down and see the campus and see the coaches, meet the team and stuff. It was just a great experience.”

The relationship that Warner and Oldknow have dates back to the beginning of middle school, when they became fast friends.

“We’ve known each other since middle school, I consider him a brother,” Oldknow said. “He’s family to me, I love him. We’ve known each other for a long time so that was great for me to be a part of that whole day.”

Through Warner, Oldknow was presented with the chance to not only visit Athens, but to see the Georgia program from the inside out - an opportunity afforded to very few people. Access like that is usually limited to major donors or highly coveted football prospects - and in this case, their friends.

“It was fun. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet Coach [Kirby] Smart and be on the field and interact with the players,” Oldknow said. “We got to go into the team meeting and got to see the first scrimmage, so that was pretty cool.”

Oldknow was able to spend some quality time with Smart, and he walked away feeling like he was part of the family.

“He [Smart] is a very energetic guy, and you can see how he is such a great recruiter, he talks to everybody and he is very outgoing,” Oldknow said. “He treated me like part of the family, so I love him for that.”

Smart would undoubtedly like to treat Warner as part of the family and land the commitment of the 6-foot-3, 220-pound linebacker.

“A lot of the staff is staying in contact with me, Coach Lukman [Abdulai], Coach [ Smart], Coach [Mel] Tucker, and Coach [Glenn] Schumann," Warner said. "There is a lot of contact coming from Georgia.”

So what is the staff's message to Warner?

“They’ve seen a lot of my film and they understand that I try to control my team and I try to lead and they are telling me that I have an opportunity to come in and play early and even be a leader on the defense,” Warner said.

Warner told UGASports that he will be planning his official visits shortly.

“I’m going to be planning my official visits soon, but right now Georgia will probably get one, for sure," Warner said.

The No. 11 outside linebacker in the nation will have to quickly decide on the other four official visits as he already has a commitment date in mind.

“I probably won’t still be uncommitted by October, I think,” Warner said. ”I’ll probably be done by October.”

If the Georgia coaches are able to land a commitment from Warner, they might as well add two new chairs in the linebackers’ room, because Oldknow will be right there with Warner the entire way.