With National Signing Day bringing an official end to the recruiting process for 15 Georgia commitments, all that’s left to do is finish out school for another three months until they arrive in Athens in June.

Things will be much different for the three early enrollees who spoke to the media on Wednesday following Bulldogs head coach Mark Richt’s address of the “state of the 2012 class.”

Running back Keith Marshall, quarterback Faton Bauta and junior college offensive lineman Mark Beard have already graduated from their respective schools and have begun taking classes at Georgia over the past few weeks.

Freshman Quarterback Faton Bauta, along with fellow recruits Keith Marshall and Mark Beard spoke to the press during National Signing Day. CODY SCHMELTER/Staff

Most high school seniors are preparing for their last few months with their school friends, preparing for prom and working on being able to walk at graduation.

The three early enrollees don’t have the same agenda.

Instead, they will be living life as a college student an entire semester before their future teammates.

“Really coming in right now is going to help me out a whole out, especially with the weight program, and getting a chance to get familiar with the playbook for spring ball,” Beard said. “It’s helped me out a whole lot.”

Beard, who is 6-foot-4, 290-pounds, has three years of eligibility remaining after playing a season at Coffeyville Community College.

He credited Coffeyville in helping prepare him for the upcoming spring as a Bulldog.

“Junior college, they have some real good physical guys,” he said. “I competed against guys that were going to Arkansas, and a guy that went to North Carolina, it helped out a lot.”

The other two early entrants — Marshall and Bauta — are both recent high school graduates.

Marshall, who is 5-foot-10 and claims to weigh 199 pounds, knows how much of a benefit enrolling a semester early could potentially be.

“I can get used to the college life before the season, and physically I can get my body ready to compete,” he said. “They say I have the frame to be 215 [pounds] by my junior year. My dad, who was bigger than me coming in to college, got up to 220 pounds.”

His decision to enroll early also led to him making headlines in recent weeks when he took on one of the fastest players on the Bulldogs in a race and won.

“It was his [Malcolm Mitchell’s] idea actually,” he said. “I’ve seen people say I challenged him, but it wasn’t anything like that. We were working out and running routes, and then we got to talking about who was faster, and [we] went out and raced. All the guys thought he was going to win, [so] it was a good feeling.”

Bauta, too, has quickly bonded with an elder Bulldog teammate — starting quarterback Aaron Murray.

“He’s everything people say he is, he’s a great guy,” Bauta said. “The first day I got here I met him and said hello. He was really nice and happy that I came here. I ask him all the time to help me out with the playbook and he does. He’s great player, and there’s a reason he’s the starter at Georgia right now.”

Standing at 6-foot-3 and weighing 225 pounds, Bauta is an elite athlete at the quarterback position, and has already heard comparisons with one of the all-time greats at the college level in Tim Tebow.

“I guess it’s our body size, because everyone mistakes us as linebackers, but we’re not,” Bauta said. “It’s definitely an honor to be compared to someone like that.”

Tebow has been known as an extremely confident individual, and it’s an obvious trait in Bauta as well.

“My goal is to be better than Tebow,” Bauta said. “I watch Drew Brees a lot, too, and I would like to emulate both those guys one day. I just want to be the best I can be. If it’s better than Tim Tebow and Drew Brees, I did the right thing at the end of the day.”