ESPN SEC Blog

	Stephen Dunn/Getty Images and Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
	Freshman phenom receivers A.J. Green, left, and Julio Jones will face off this week when the Crimson Tide visits Georgia.

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

If you find yourself staring at the twin No. 8's Saturday night in Sanford Stadium, it's not just you.

A.J. Green and Julio Jones, who share the same jersey number, tend to have that effect.

They're true freshman receivers in classification only. They look more like NFL receivers, and with each snap, they're starting to play that way.

"Honestly, I went back about five classes and have not seen two wide receivers be this ready, this good and capable of an impact this early," said Tom Luginbill, the national recruiting director for ESPN Scouts.

Alabama senior safety Rashad Johnson went one better.

"It's unbelievable what those two guys are capable of," Johnson said. "They're freshmen, but they don't have freshman bodies. You see some of the things they've already done in games and practice, and you're like, 'What's next?' "

Indeed, Green's 300 receiving yards lead the SEC. He's also averaging 18.8 yards per catch for Georgia, which is best in the league. Jones leads Alabama with 132 receiving yards. He's caught 11 passes in the Crimson Tide's first four games, and three of those have gone for touchdowns.

"If there's a freshman receiver better than Julio right now, he must be really, really good," Johnson said.

Green was that and then some at Arizona State last Saturday. He dominated the game in the first half with seven catches for 150 yards and had a hand in all three touchdown drives in his breakout game for the Bulldogs. The Sun Devils simply couldn't cover him down the field.

"We got a good little showing last Saturday," quipped Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford when asked if that was the Green all the recruiting craze was about last year. "That would be huge for our offense, to get that kind of performance from him on a consistent basis. We need to get him the ball."

As many of the high-profile recruits do these days, Green and Jones became rock stars during the recruiting process, bigger-than-life figures that fans couldn't wait to get on campus.

According to the ESPN Scouts ratings, Jones was the No. 2 overall prospect in the country and the top-rated receiver. Green was the No. 5 overall prospect and the second-rated receiver behind only Jones.

Green, who played for the legendary John McKissick in Summerville, S.C., got his recruitment over early and never really wavered. It went down to signing day for Jones, who chose Alabama over Oklahoma.

The madness of it all was almost too much for even Jones' high school coach in Foley, Ala., to handle. Todd Watson said he had upward of 100 calls and messages on his cell phone every day.

"When we got into January and February, my phone holds 100 calls, and it would be full by the end of the day," Watson said.

In this case, the hype was justified.

Alabama fans were leaking closed scrimmage videos of Jones making deep catches down the field before he'd ever played in a game. Alabama coach Nick Saban, who plays it extremely close to the vest with his freshmen, thought enough of Jones to start him in the Tide's first game against Clemson.

"The thing about Julio is his work ethic," Johnson said. "He came in the first day determined to work harder than anybody and hasn't let off since. None of it's gone to his head."

Jones and Green are similar type playmakers. They're both 6-foot-4 and both have that instinctive ability to go get the football.

"A lot of people compare [Jones] to [Terrell Owens] and me to Randy Moss," said Green, who first met Jones at the Under Armour High School All-Star game last year.

Jones did not speak to the media this week, as Saban doesn't allow any of his freshmen to do interviews.

Still, the buzz surrounding seeing these two guys on the same field so early in their careers is just one of the things that makes Saturday's Alabama-Georgia showdown so intriguing.

Even Saban says it's not every day that you see two players of this magnitude coming out in the same class at the same position.

"I think both of those guys are fantastic players," Saban said. "A.J. Green was outstanding in the last game at Arizona State especially. The guy has great size and speed and has great hands. He's a real difficult vertical threat to deal with. I think he's a fantastic player. I'd say maybe it is unusual, but it does happen on rare occasions where you get a couple of great guys coming out at the same time."

The best part about both players is that they're just now starting to get fully acclimated to the speed of the college game and up to speed on the playbooks.

The translation: Sit back and enjoy, because you're about to see them both take it to another level.

"It's going to be scary how good these guys are a year from now," Johnson said.