According to the rankings, Gary Chatman Jr. is a three-star quarterback recruit from Snellville, Georgia.
The rankings aren’t everything, though, because “lesser-ranked” recruits blow up all the time once they reach the college level.
Baker Mayfield was a completely unranked walk-on at Texas Tech before transferring to Oklahoma and winning the Heisman Trophy. Another good example is the most recent Heisman Trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza, who was a two-star recruit coming out of high school.
Gary Chatman Jr. could be a steal for Auburn
This is not to say that Chatman is going to one day go on to win the Heisman Trophy, but he is being heralded as quite a steal for the Auburn Tigers and head coach Alex Golesh.
High school football kicked off in earnest this past weekend in the state of Georgia, and Chatman looked like a star for his Brookwood High School team.
Brookwood beat Cambridge, 52-7, and Chatman looked incredible. In limited playing time because of the blowout, he threw for 162 yards, two touchdowns and rushed in another touchdown.
Chatman and his team were playing in the Corky Kell + Dave Hunter Classic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta, and the three-star quarterback was named the MVP of the event by Rivals Director of Recruiting Chad Simmons.
“He was committed to Wake Forest at one time. Auburn came in to see him early in the spring, offered him, flipped his commitment,” Simmons said. “To me, this could be a steal for Alex Golesh and the Auburn Tigers.”
According to the 247Sports Composite, Chatman is ranked as the No. 65 quarterback in the 2027 class, so he’s certainly in the “diamond in the rough” category for the Tigers.
He’ll have to take his potential and translate it to SEC football, of course, and that’s easier said than done. He is a dual-threat quarterback, though, and a great athlete. Athleticism always translates in one way or another.
In his junior season for Brookwood, Chatman threw for 1,494 yards and 12 touchdowns (four interceptions) while also rushing for 418 yards and five touchdowns in just 10 games due to injury.
He’s already kicked off the 2026 season in a major way.
