Georgia tight ends coach Todd Hartley knows he will never coach another Brock Bowers.
He’s positive-minded, but to think anything else would be too much glass-99-percent-full.
Or just greedy.
That said, there is a “but” to bring up in the case of 4-star TE signee Ethan Barbour.
Hartley did invoke the name of the best TE in Georgia history and the NFL right now while describing what he likes the most about the state champion from Milton High School.
“I’m not comparing him to Brock Bowers,” Hartley said. “I’m not comparing anybody to Brock Bowers, but Ethan wants to be great at everything. He’s always wanting to do so more and pushing himself.”
That is just like how Bowers was in Athens.
“Already so early on, he’s like, ‘Hey coach, when can we meet more?’ and ‘When can I watch more film?’ and ‘When can I do more JUGS?’ and I’m like, ‘Hey buddy, it is your second day on campus. I love that. You might have to slow down just a little bit,’ but you’d rather have to tell him to slow down with all that than to hurry up.”
“He is; from the very first time I met him at Alpharetta to his time at Milton, he’s always been a kid who wants to push himself to be great. If you have that quality that you are pushing yourself to be great, you’re going to be just fine. Especially at a place like Georgia.”
UGA calls it “competitive character” in the building. Hartley searches for that. Kirby Smart loves that. That’s what set Bowers apart more than anything. That’s even considering his generational physical talent with his size and speed combination and how he catches the football.
It sounds like Georgia has the chance here to have another special tight end.
For most schools, the term “special” is more than enough. But that’s the standard in Athens.
“I think the kid loves football,” Hartley added on Barbour. “I think the kid loves relationships and working and really investing in himself. I think Coach Smart did a phenomenal job of building a great relationship with him. I think our whole staff did a great job investing in a relationship with him and yeah, he loves Georgia, but he loves the people that are here at Georgia, too.”
“He’s going to fight for them just like we’re going to fight for him.”
Hartley got two incredible tight ends this cycle in Barbour and 5-star Elyiss Williams. Both were rated the No. 1 TE nationally by different recruiting services. When elite prospects watch No. 19 shine on the NFL stage, it likely gives him one foot in the door.
But Hartley clarifies that he’s not recruiting anyone to be the next Brock Bowers at Georgia.
“Listen, and I tell these guys, I’m recruiting you to Georgia to be the best tight end you can possibly be,” Hartley said. “I’m not recruiting you to come to Georgia to be the next Brock Bowers. There’s not going to be another Brock Bowers and that’s unfair to whoever I recruit or whoever is in my room to say, ‘I want you to be like Brock.’ It’s not going to happen. I don’t want them to be that. I want them to be the best version of themselves.”
“If I’m recruiting the right people and they become the best version of themselves, they will have every opportunity to have just as much success as Brock did.”
Barbour can be the first Ethan Barbour in Athens. The way he’s trending right now, that’s going to be very very good.
Ethan Barbour: The legacy he left behind at Milton High
The 6-foot-2.5, 230-pounder was an early enrollee for UGA. He’d been committed to the Dawgs since September of his junior year and never wavered. He showed less than 72 hours after his Eagles hoisted the GHSA Class 5A state championship trophy together at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
ESPN rated Barbour as the nation’s No. 1 TE prospect for the Class of 2025. Check out his season recap and senior film below.
- 15-0 GHSA Class 5A state champion
- 51 catches for 989 yards and 12 TDs (19.4 yards per catch)
- 8 carries for 34 yards and four TDS
- Under Armour All-American
- MaxPreps Senior All-American
- AJC All-State team
- TD Club of Atlanta All-State team
DawgNation reached out to Milton High offensive coordinator Stevie Jackson for his thoughts on the year that Barbour put together for the defending state champions.
It not only reinforces what Hartley believes he brought in for his room but more so jacks it up about two or three notches.
Consider the following:
- Milton had an SEC tight end commit in Ryan Ghea heading to Auburn in 2024. It also has at least one other future P4 college tight end in the program for this year. That meant Barbour was tasked with playing the “X” receiver for most of his senior season.
- The snap ratio went 75 percent at “X,” and then the remaining 25 percent of his reps were split between being a front-side or a back-side tight end, depending on the formation.
- “He was a wideout for me and a lot of that had to do with the fact that he could do it,” Jackson said. “I just needed a wideout more than I needed a tight end.”
Jackson has a definition of what Barbour meant to Milton that I won’t soon forget.
“What defines Ethan for me is professionalism,” Jackson said. “I didn’t know him. At all. I’d only played against him, but he was an offensive player so I didn’t really have to scout him when he wasn’t here.”
But he knew he was a big-time prospect. He also immediately saw him jump in with his former Alpharetta High teammate CJ Wiley as a hard worker.
“When it got to spring practice, I was asking him to learn a new offense. I was asking him to play three positions: A front-side TE, a back-side TE and a wideout and he learned it that same day. He never really had any questions. He just did it right.”
But he had a different sort of engagement with Jackson.
“His questions were ‘Coach, how can I do it better?’ and like ‘Let me know why you are doing this about this and I can promise you it will be better’ and that part is his professionalism for me and then inside of the season there was a moment where I had to move him around a bit for some injuries. I’m also trying to figure out what role he serves best and he comes to me and he wants to talk about why I am doing those things and he wants to talk about his thoughts on if he does it like this or plays this position more often or do these other things and he feels like he could help the team better. It wasn’t about him getting targets or touchdowns, it was about him understanding his fit in the big picture.”
Jackson said that was a “very mature” approach for a highly rated prospect. He told Barbour that he appreciated his professionalism and that he would talk to him like a professional.
“To be honest with you, both of us were better after that moment,” Jackson said. “I think he’s got that skill set about him to bring a hard topic and not make it difficult because his goals are in the right spot and he doesn’t approach it with an attitude. That’s not normal for a very good player. That’s not normal for a high school kid, but it is probably very normal for professionals.”
He left that conversation with Barbour and told him that, hopefully, one day, when he is in the NFL, he will need to talk to “his boss” like that.
Jackson enjoyed that part of their relationship.
“You saw the production increase after that,” Jackson said. “Not because I was threatened by his need or involvement with the ball. It was none of that. I understood where he was coming from and he understood where I was coming from, so we both produced better.”
The first marker of what Barbour meant to Milton was his professionalism. The second marker was his versatility, which allowed him to play all over the field, whether at receiver, tight end, or even running and throwing the football.
“I could’ve asked that kid to snap the ball,” Jackson said. “He played wing. He played the slot. He played wideout. He played quarterback. He ran the ball. He played upback on punt team. He could’ve played D-end or center or guard or any of that. The only thing I don’t think he would’ve done as effectively as anyone else on the team would’ve been left tackle.
That’s not a knock.
Milton just happened to have 6-foot-7, 330-pound Brayden Jacobs at left tackle. He signed with Clemson as the nation’s No. 12 OT in the Class of 2025.
“The kid is super versatile,” Jackson said. “He’s a football player. We don’t have too many more of those. The game used to have just a million of those. Kids who would play both sides of the ball and minor in everything. Now, they’re just majoring in their one position. That’s not a bad thing, but when you get one who can do so many different things effectively, it stands out.”
A$$KICKER: The other big thing to know about Ethan Barbour
A$$Kicker.
That phrase circulated around the Milton team this year. It was the quickest and most effective descriptor for Barbour.
Simply put, it meant that he would whip the tail of the man in front of him what ever he needed to do. Catch a first down on third down? He’s got that.
Run for a short gain on 4th-and-short? Goal line? No problem.
Catch a post? Or a deep shot? He could do that.
Perhaps the part where he earned that label the most was in the run game. Former Alpharetta coach Jason Kervin coached Barbour for the first three years of his high school career. He told me stories upon stories about how Barbour would just like to settle in for a series and just “bang” on the defense.
He loved the tone setting to that. He loved working on the physicality of his game in those times, too.
That carried over to the Eagles.
“I don’t think we played anybody that wanted to taste what he brought,” Jackson said. “People did. Because they are trying to win. But nobody would just sign up for it. He brought the noise every single game.”
Barbour made so many defining plays for a team that finished ranked No. 2 nationally in many national ranking polls.
He had two defining plays against American Heritage in Florida early in the season. Milton snapped it to him and he scored on a 3-yard run against a future Florida state championship team.
But he also caught a long touchdown pass and outraced a very fast secondary to paydirt.
He finished the game with seven catches for 131 yards, including a season-best 72-yard touchdown catch.
“The fact that he made those moves at 235 or 240 pounds was pretty much a shock to everybody,” Jackson said.
Milton tried to get him involved early in games. It not only amped up his play, but he was such a popular first-year player on the team it also jacked up both sides of the ball.
“He has a genuine joy for the competition which permeates around the rest of our team,” Jackson said.
Or there would be a play where he’d lead the blocking for a screen.
“His pulse turns up when he puts another person on the ground,” Jackson said. “It feeds him differently. I think he knew, at least in high school, that he could get open and catch a ball on just about anybody. But when it came down to showing people that are just as big or touted in the same ways, that he could put them in the ground, that turned him up, I think, maybe a little differently.”
He seeks it out. He’s very good at it. That will probably always jack him up differently than catching a big first down or a red zone touchdown.
“I think if I had to make a choice,” Jackson said. “I think he enjoys the contact and the punishment better than catching touchdowns. Everybody wants to catch touchdowns, but he likes affecting the game more than doing just that.”
Barbour was just that type of “tone setter” for a squad that will rightfully go down as one of the best teams in GHSA football history.
“He played his best games in our biggest games,” Jackson said. “That’s just what and who he is. He’s a damn dude.”
