EDITOR’S NOTE: Since 2002, the Times Free Press has highlighted the top 12 college football prospects among Chattanooga-area seniors with its preseason Dynamite Dozen. The countdown of this year’s list concludes with No. 1.
After more than two decades of coaching in one of the country’s most competitive levels of prep football, Bryant Appling has developed a keen eye for identifying elite talent.
He has spent 21 seasons, including the past eight as head coach, at perennial powerhouse Buford High School, an Atlanta-area program that won its 15th Georgia High School Association state championship overall (and fourth under Appling) last fall. Appling has lost count of the number of power conference college prospects he has faced during that time, but he admits he can almost instantly recognize the players gifted with a skill set that puts them in the category of being special.
It took only two plays for Appling to realize the hype surrounding Baylor School senior running back David Gabriel Georges — one of the most acclaimed high school athletes to ever come through Chattanooga — was real.
On his first carry of a scrimmage at Buford earlier this month, the Red Raiders standout nicknamed “DGG” created a buzz throughout Phillip Beard Stadium that spilled onto social media, where video of his 54-yard touchdown run had gone viral within hours of being posted. Later, on his only other carry of the night, he was met by a defender at the line of scrimmage but continued his leg drive to push a pack of Wolves forward for a gain of nearly 15 yards.