It began about 4 a.m. when he and Treasure Coast High School teammate Jeff Luc arose in an Athens hotel room for the ride to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to make an 8 a.m. flight. By now he was back in Port St. Lucie, Fla. — just north of Miami on Florida’s east coast — driving to practice to begin preparations for a first-round playoff game Thursday night.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired,” said Rogers, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound linebacker who committed to Georgia this past summer. “But it was a really good trip. I really enjoyed myself. It was kind of like this summer. I had fun with Coach [John] Jancek and Coach [Mark] Richt and the other players. I’m loving Georgia and I’m feeling real comfortable there.”

That’s good news for the Bulldogs. Next to Frostproof, Fla.’s, Nickell Robey, Rogers is probably considered the shakiest of their commitments for the 2010 …

Georgia Tech came hard after Southwest DeKalb defensive end T.J. Stripling recently but the longtime Georgia commitment said he intends to stick with the Bulldogs. (Photo by me)

“Nah, I’m still Georgia,” said the 6-foot-6, 215-pound defensive end from Southwest DeKalb.

Rumor had run rampant over the last few days that Stripling not only was wavering on his commitment to the Bulldogs but that he was leaning toward flipping to Georgia Tech, which had just come forth with an official offer.

Stripling said neither was true. But he thinks he knows how the rumor started.

“Georgia Tech coaches came to the school last Friday and offered me [a scholarship],” Stripling said Tuesday night. “They said they wanted me to come down there [to The Flats] Saturday and I told them I’d try to but that I was committed to go to Tennessee Tech game up at Georgia and that’s what I did. I guess …

Plagued by hamstring problems in both of his legs this season, Brown underwent an accupunture procedure three days before M.L. King’s regular-season finale against the Wolverines.

Brown didn’t do much in the first half. But after deciding to take off his hamstring sleeves at halftime he ran like the Mack Brown of old in the 20-0 victory.

“I took them off and went to work,” said Brown, a five-star prospect who is committed to Florida. “I didn’t feel any pain when I ran. It was a blessing to be able to run without pain.”

That said, Brown said he probably won’t try it again before this week’s playoff game against Jenkins.

Here are some of the other top performances by area prospects of this past weekend:

• QB Blake Sims, Gainesville: The AJC Super 11 selection and Alabama commitment had 145 yards passing, …

Jeff Luc, a 6-foot-1, 240-pound linebacker at Treasure Coast High in Port St. Lucie, Fla., will be traveling to Athens with Rogers. Luc (pronouced Luck) is rated as a five-star prospect and the No. 1 middle linebacker in America by Scout.com. He is being pursued by virtually every premier program in the country, including the three major programs in his home state. Long considered a lock for the Florida Gators, he has visited Tennessee and Southern Cal and plans to take an official trip to LSU before  making a final decision. He will be an early enrollee in college.

Rogers is a 6-foot-2, 190-pound, three-star linebacker who committed to Georgia back in June. He is doing what he can to get Luc to follow him.

“Of course I want him to go to college with me,” Rogers said Sunday …

AJC Super 11 quarterback/athlete B.J. Bostic of Jefferson County, DT Shawn Green of Grayson and DT Denzel McCoy of Northview were invited to play in the high school all-star game Jan. 2 in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The game, in its third year of existence,  pits nationally-ranked high school all-stars from the East against others from the West. It competes with the UnderArmour (Jan. 2, Orlando) and U.S. Army (Jan. 9, San Antonio) All-America games.

Now for some other news and notes:

• Word is that Union Grove athlete Jordan Akins is about to land a scholarship offer from Georgia. Akins is a 6-foot-3, 190-pound multi-skilled athlete who plays quarterback, wide receiver, defensive back and kick returner for the Wolverines, depending on where they need him when. He received a scholarship offer from Georgia Tech last week and holds offers from Ole Miss, UConn, …

I asked Da’Rick Rogers, whose name I had heard pronounced a half-dozen different ways and had said at least a few different ways myself, “what is the correct pronunciation of your first name?”

Da'Rick "Da Freak" Rogers poses outside Phil Reeve Stadium in Calhoun. The 5-star wide receiver says he's "rock solid" on his commitment to Georgia. (Photo by Jason Getz)

“I really don’t know if anybody says it right or not,” Rogers says with a laugh. “My mom (Deborah Rogers), she says it was supposed to be like  David and Rick together, so she says DAY-rick. But I really don’t know how to pronounce it I’ve heard it so many different ways. I just know it’s everything but Derrick. Anything else is fine.”

Well, I asked, what do you say when you answer the phone?

“I say DAY-rick,” he told me. “But a lot of people want to say duh-REEK, because it rhymes with my nickname, ‘Da Freak.’ So I hear that a lot. It kind of depends on where somebody’s from. …

The respected Southeast region recruiting analyst put up a report this morning on Calhoun wide receiver Da’Rick Rogers, a five-star prospect, AJC Super 11 selection and a University of Georgia commitment.

It just so happens that I am heading up to Calhoun this afternoon to talk to Rogers, quarterback Nash Nance (a Vanderbilt commitment) and coach Hal Lamb in a previously arranged meeting. My father lives in Calhoun — starred for the Yellow Jackets in the mid-1950s — so I’d planned for a while to get up there and meet in person this phenomenal football player.

Simmons didn’t really steal my thunder, though. Rogers told him what Coach Lamb told me last week, that he remains “solid to Georgia” despite continued intense overtures from Tennessee, Florida and Southern Cal. Hopefully I’ll be able to glean a few more insights from Da’Rick today.

If there are some specific questions you’d like me to ask Rogers, …

How else can you explain Georgia’s recent success in the Sunshine State? The Bulldogs have infamously lost 16 of the last 19 in the series with Florida, including 49-10 last year. Yet they were able to pluck a pair of five-star recruits (according to Scout.com) in quarterback Aaron Murray and tight end Orson Charles and a four-star recruit in wide receiver Rantavious Wooten, right out from under the Gators’ noses.  Florida offered each of them, so it’s not like they were simply unwanted by the defending national champions.

Same thing this year. Georgia currently has commitments from seven players out of Florida:  OT Brent Benedict, Jacksonville; LB Demetre Baker, Orange Park; DE B.J. Butler, Kissimmee; DB Marc Deas, Kissimmee; DB Derek Owens, Jacksonville; DB Nickell Robey, …

Defensive coordinator Willie Martinez and running backs coach Bryan McClendon hustled down to Frostproof, Fla., this past Friday after word spread last week that Robey was having second thoughts about his commitment to the Bulldogs. Last week, Robey said rumors that Martinez’s job might be in jeopardy were of great concern and had him considering offers from Tennessee and South Florida.

“They met with Nickell and Nickell’s family for quite a while, for about an hour and a half, and had a good visit,” Frostproof coach Brad Metheny said. “I think all went well. Nickell still feels pretty good about Georgia and thinks that’s where he wants to play college football. All and all I think it was a good visit and good timing for the coaches to come down and talk to him. It went well. Eased his mind a little bit.”

Metheny said the four-star cornerback reaffirmed his commitment to the Bulldogs. “That’s where he …

Gainesville quarterback Blake Sims grew up dreaming of becoming a Georgia Bulldog but has been committed to Alabama since April. (AJC photo)

Georgia is making a major push to recruit Gainesville quarterback Blake Sims. And it has created a bit of a moral dilemma for the player and his family.

Sims, an AJC Super 11 selection and one of the early favorites for all-classification player of the year honors, has been committed to Alabama since April. But Bulldogs’ head coach Mark Richt, who has had a relationship with Sims and his family for four years, has taken a personal interest in changing Sims’ mind and convincing him to come to UGA instead.

“That was pretty cool,” Blake’s father, Sonny Sims, said of getting a phone call from Richt on Monday. “Coach Richt has been part of Blake’s life for a long time.  We’ve got pictures of Blake with Coach Richt as a 9th grader. That’s why we couldn’t understand why Georgia didn’t snag him early because he’d been groomed all his life for …