{"id":930850,"date":"2026-06-28T06:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/930850\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T06:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:39:15","slug":"atlanta-falcons-zachariah-branch-on-why-he-transferred-to-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/930850\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Falcons: Zachariah Branch on why he transferred to Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated June 27, 2026, 4:34 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

The Atlanta Falcons<\/a> made their fans happy by selecting University of Georgia<\/a> wide receiver Zachariah Branch in the third round of the 2026 NFL Draft. While Branch began his college career at USC, he transferred to Georgia in 2025 and led the Bulldogs with 81 catches for 811 receiving yards and six touchdowns last season.<\/p>\n

The speedy wideout made an instant impact during his lone year in Georgia, but why exactly did he transfer from USC in the first place?<\/p>\n

Branch appeared on the popular “St. Brown Podcast<\/a>” last week and gave an interesting answer when asked what caused him to leave Southern California. The Falcons rookie said it all came down to the Trojans’ weight room restrictions, which stemmed from a recent lawsuit.<\/p>\n

“I guess they had a lawsuit back then somebody was lifting in the weight room and the weight fell on their chest or their neck,” said Branch. “The jugs machine was only in the weight room, so you know at USC, they got the gate that comes down. So the gate was closed, and I’m like, ‘Hey, can I get in there – just let me in to get some jugs or whatever?’ but it was the lawsuit so they couldn’t really make any adjustments.”<\/p>\n

Branch went on to explain that he isn’t big on going out and prefers to stay in the facility when he has downtime. However, that became an issue when USC started limiting the amount of time that players could be in the weight room.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I don’t like to go out for real, so I’m always at the crib” explained Branch<\/a>. “Then whenever I get tired of doing certain things, I might just go up to the facility, go up there and do some extra little stuff to help polish myself or might go watch film. I might get in the cold tub like just to help my body, but the fingerprint don’t even work after a certain time, so I’m like dang I can’t even do that.”<\/p>\n

With NFL aspirations, Branch felt that was the sign he needed to transfer to the premier college football program in the country. The rest is history.<\/p>\n

Watch Branch’s full interview on the “St. Brown Podcast” as shared via their YouTube channel below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Falcons will be back for training camp in late July. Branch and the rest of the rookies will report for camp on July 24, while veterans will arrive on July 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated June 27, 2026, 4:34 p.m. ET The Atlanta Falcons made their fans happy by selecting University of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[95878,223,254,2554,224,7,6,119355,96607,96608,95882,96609,95946,97216,96027,103973,98588,95896,95888,95895,95899,96099,95883,98199,102038,98212,95881],"class_list":["post-930850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-falcons","tag-accessfree","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlantafalcons","tag-falcons","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sourcefalcons-wire","tag-sstssportsnflfalcons","tag-sstsnfalcons","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagatlanta-falcons","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-taggeorgia","tag-taggeorgia-bulldogs-football","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsec-conference-football","tag-tagsports-news","tag-taguniversity-of-georgia","tag-taguniversity-of-southern-california","tag-tagusc-trojans","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}