The Best Tight End You've Never Heard Of
Always be closing.
- Alec Baldwin, Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
I’ll start this one off by saying that I’m a big fan of Georgia State head coach Dell McGee. As a supporter of their in-state counterpart the Georgia Bulldogs, I knew his name tangentially in the 2010s—mostly for his great work at the RB position as the RBs coach.
Later on, as I began following the sport more closely, I learned that he had something of a more important role on Kirby’s staff. McGee, being from Georgia himself, was a designated ace recruiter for specific prospects, and for certain areas within the state.
The list of his five star signees goes on and on… QB Justin Fields, OT Jamaree Salyer, RB Zeus White, RB James Cook, EDGE Brenton Cox… Christ Almighty, the 2018 class—Kirby’s best of all time from a rankings perspective—was practically single handedly bootstrapped by Dell McGee. This guy put in more work than the entire sales team of Glengarry Glen Ross combined.
Indeed, I find it necessary to tell you a quick story about Coach McGee before delving into today’s feature player (skip to the text after the gif below for discussion on Camden Overton). It was the summer of 2021; borderline five star defensive end/EDGE Mykell Williams plays ball near the western border of the state near Alabama—specifically, Columbus, GA.
Now, I know this type of thing has become damn-near almost an annual tradition at this point, but USC pulled off a surprise commitment from Mykell in the spring (believe it or not, this was not a common occurrence back then).
This was the first time I could recall USC even recruiting a kid like that in Georgia, so it was a pretty big shock. It also happened to be the first class where NIL was live (think: Texas A&M’s 2022 class), so all manner of strange things started occurring.
Nonetheless, there was a quiet optimism as the summer came through that Mykell would end up changing his mind in favour of the in-state program. The man assigned to this task? Why not the RBs coach?
Well, it goes a little deeper than that; I later discovered that McGee is a legend in the Columbus area (which is where he’s from) and thus him being assigned to recruit the defensive linemen started to make sense to me. He also had a reputation as being ‘that guy’ on staff who would be assigned to high profile recruitments regardless of position from time to time (every elite staff has this guy as far as I can tell).
Kirby can only be in so many places at once—ditto for the GOAT, Nick Saban when he coached. Understandably, you need to have an ace as your right-hand man who can pull major work when needed.
McGee remained steadfast in the recruitment of the big West Georgia kid, who was surging up the recruiting rankings toward the end of summer and into fall. Around this time I remember reading a quote from McGee from some recruiting news site (maybe Jeff Sentell?), and it went: “Mykell Williams is a Dawg; he just doesn’t know it yet”, which I found to be a very cool quote. That’s the type of personality you need to be successful in that business, I imagine.
Williams did end up flipping later that fall, in October, to the in-state Dawgs. And look, I knew Williams was good, but I didn’t know he was that good—he ended up finishing as a top-10 rated player across most services and UGA’s highest rated prospect in a class that included four other five star players. Good on him—he would have been wasted at USC anyway (undrafted/seventh rounder maybe? Whatever happened to his classmate Bear Alexander??).
Unfortunately, and it brings me pain to write this publicly, but it has to be said that McGee did lose some of his juice in the latter years on staff prior to his departure to Georgia State. The poster-boy recruitment that most Dawg fans will remember is the Georgia legacy, RB Justice Haynes, who committed to Alabama in the class of 2023.
Furthermore, I don’t think any Dawg fan would consider McGee as the ace recruiter on staff in 2022 or 2023 (this distinction would probably pass to Fran Brown, Will Muschamp, or Glenn Schumann, take your pick).
The fact that UGA had to take in a transfer at RB this past offseason speaks to some of the deficiencies experienced in the 2022 and 2023 classes.
Though a large part of that is also due to injuries, which are more a matter of sheer bad luck. Side note, McGee’s marquee signing in 2022, Branson Robinson (who suffered multiple knee injuries at Georgia), is now reunited with him in Atlanta, so keep an eye out for him too.
Nonetheless, today I want to talk about a player at the TE position; Camden Overton transferred into the program this offseason in December after spending three seasons at FCS program Gardner Webb.
In 2024, he caught 42 passes for 453 yards and one score in 11 games. If you hover over to his name on Fantrax and click on his bio, you’ll see the following update from 247 Sports:
Overton continues to impress in spring camp and could set set up for a large role during the 2025 season, Ben Moore of 247Sports.com reports.
Overton has been observed making plays throughout spring camp after transferring in from FCD Gardner-Webb.
This is an encouraging update in my mind and especially so considering the Panthers need a #2 target to emerge alongside returning alpha receiver Ted Hurst.
The QB position remains a question mark, and so does the system—but then again, most TE systems across CFB are not very good. This is one position where you kind of have to take a chance on the talent of the player more than others in my opinion. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at this staff’s history at this position.
Coaching & System
TE1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 9.67 — OC: 6.471 (half ppr)
McGee’s TE average will look good at first glance, but bear in mind this is based on one season (2024) where he had now-Maryland TE Dorian Fleming, who had a good season (obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t have transferred up a level).
The new OC, Hue Jackson, has more data to look at but doesn’t have a great history at TE. Ditto for last year’s OC Jim Chaney, who still remains involved with the offence in 2025 (I know, this fact was strange to me too). Jackson doesn’t have any FBS play calling data to observe over the last six years.
Fleming (79 targets, 49 receptions, 558 yards and six scores) was Georgia State’s #2 receiver last year behind Ted Hurst; so naturally it’s logical to look towards who might fill that role in 2025. Of course, it’s possible those targets go elsewhere, like another WR, or the team simply runs the ball more (their transfer acquisitions at RB also signal this).
At QB, Christian Veilleux and Cameron Brown are apparently competing for starting duties per an interview on the G5 Hive.
That writer also mentioned that “Cam Overton had a spectacular spring game”, further highlighting that “he was an extremely productive high school player” and that Overton thought he should have been the #1 rated TE in Georgia for his class (it was Georgia signee Oscar Delp, someone McGee helped recruit, ironically).
For those interested, Overton reeled in 64 catches for 882 yards and seven scores in his senior season of high school.
On the plan for the offence in 2025, the above mentioned writer said this:
Find guys that can run, get open in space, and make guys miss. They want to be able to push the ball vertically. They had the opportunity to do that last year with Hurst… but it was kind of basically him and not much else. I think you’re going to have a more wide-open, attacking the middle of the field a lot more this year . . . TEs should have plenty of targets this season.
While you would expect that a team run by a former RBs coach would be ground game-oriented, the Panthers actually averaged 55% pass plays last year. I’d expect that number will come down closer to 50 this year assuming the Panthers find some RBs they like rolling with.
The Panthers averaged 67 plays per game, or 27 seconds per play, which puts them in the middle third of FBS teams in terms of pace of play.
Camden Overton (6’4, 235)
2024 STATS: 42 - 453 - 1 (FCS)
As mentioned in the intro section, Overton caught 42 passes for 453 yards and one score in 11 games last year at Gardner Webb. Originally from Marietta, GA (coincidentally, where the highest rated TE prospect of all time—Arik Gilbert, also played), Overton was an unranked recruit in the class of 2022.
His only offers in high school included FCS program Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC), Georgia State and some place called Southern University. He signed with the UTC Mocs. He played well in his freshman season, appearing in 11 games and becoming a TD merchant scoring three times on his total of six catches.
Evidently, he did enough to catch the eye of another FCS program—Gardner Webb, whom he transferred to in 2023.
Overton has the perfect build for the modern athletic college TE at 6’4, 235 pounds if you ask me, and he’s been productive everywhere he’s been thus far.
As a transfer prospect this past December, Overton was given a three star rating by 247 Sports.
In terms of concerns with this player profile, we have the typical one: we don’t know how the player will translate up a level. We also know that the QB position is in flux, and that it was not impressive last season. Though, to be fair, the TE and WR positions shined despite this anyway.
Which brings me to a larger point that I’ll say now: I don’t know that the QB play is always that important for the CFF value of WRs/TEs. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Ultimately, the variable that remains the single most important predictor of value is volume. Hurst got a lot of targets and thus he was productive. I think the same thing happened for Fleming. Can it also happen for Overton?
My bet is yes. I’ve actually acquired one share of his in Nate’s dynasty league already and I do think he will be one of the best CFF TEs in 2025. He’s a junior with what I believe is one year left of eligibility but don’t quote me on that. ◾
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Sample of data from 2018-2024 excluding 2020.
I had an article ready to go for this guy as well. But yours does him more justice great read my friend!