KJ Bolden chose culture, development at Georgia over money per father
KJ Bolden didn’t start the first game of his Georgia career but he did the next best thing. While he wasn’t out there for the first play of the game, he was out there for over 90 percent of them and led all Bulldog defenders in snaps.
It didn’t look as if this would be possible this time a year ago. That’s because Bolden was committed to Florida State. He had joined the Seminoles class in early August and while it was well-known that Georgia was still in the mix, Bolden seemed solid in his decision.
Kirby Smart and his Georgia staff chipped away at the five-star prospect. They got him on campus for a game and they visited him in-home after the season. When it became a drag race in December, the Bulldogs won. They flipped him from FSU with Auburn posing the biggest thread in the days leading up to a final decision and signature.
That was that, Georgia won the battle and kept the nation’s No. 1 safety in-state. Bolden had his reasons for deciding to continue his football career in Athens. According to his father, Kai, money was not one of them.
“Actually we could have went to other schools and got more money,” Kai told On3’s Phillip Dukes on The Five-Star Flex Show. “Decisions, like I said, it just actually came down to where he wanted to be and the team he saw that gave him the best possibility to play on Sundays. But nah, Georgia definitely didn’t offer him the most money.”
Kai estimates that the his son left upwards of $200,000 on the table in choosing the Bulldogs. Name, Image, and Likeness figures and opportunities aren’t public information, making it impossible to find even ball-park dollar amounts.
But that entire 2023 football season when Georgia was recruiting Bolden and Smart taking a prominent role in said recruitment, there was plenty to sell. The Bulldogs were going to be losing multiple defensive backs at the end of the season. It didn’t have a safety committed in the 2024 class. It had a need at that specific position and especially for a guy who had the raw talent to help right away.
In the end, that simply appealed to Bolden more than anything else. The chance to play, do so close to home, and odds that Georgia could get him to the NFL was the offer he couldn’t turn down.
“At the end of the day, when we got down to the end, KJ really wanted to play SEC football and kind of wanted to be closer to home,” Kai said. “We just looked at the long game. The depth chart was appealing with him going in and playing safety. Georgia’s just got a winning culture and they have continuously proved that they can turn Saturday guys into Sunday guys. I think that’s what he really wanted, you know what I mean?So we went for the longevity of it. We just trust process that Georgia is going to develop him into the player he needs to be.”
