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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
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- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
What social media is saying after a very busy Georgia football recruiting weekend
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What social media is saying after a very busy Georgia football recruiting weekend
Georgia football wrapped up a very busy recruiting month this past weekend.
Comments
Excited to see these guys get after it! They have some big shoes to fill, but I know Saturdays are going to be exciting watching these guys make things miserable for opposing teams! GO DAWGS!
We are definitely putting together a great class, but I’m concerned about our RB recruiting classes. Am I the only fan who has noticed that Bama signed the #2 and #6 RBs in 2022 and this year they have commitments from the #2 and #3 RBs along with a spectacular transfer from GT who is on the Heisman watchlist? During that same period we signed the #4 and #42 RBs and none so far this year. That’s not very impressive for a school that considers itself RBU. Anyone have thoughts on why we are whiffing on so many RBs? Go Dawgs!!!
Kirby needs to get on DE Jaybron Harvey out of Durham, NC. Dawgs can flip him from North Carolina cause he's got a lot of family in Georgia. Watch his tape YouTube, he looks like Will Anderson did in high school.
And . .
I think fans get enamored waaaayyyy too much with recruiting rankings. Seems that's become the new off-season Fandom game. But, it doesn't have as much to do with maintaining a successful program as many seem to believe.
When you look at "rankings", you're looking at an "experts" opinion of a player's perceived potential based on, physical attributes, man-made hype and HS Stats. Nothing more. I believe UGA has a building full of proven experts, capable of performing the same task...and I would trust their opinions, long before Rivals, Sports247 or ESPN's so-called experts. Most of whom, never strapped on a pair of cleats and have been wrong more than they've been right. They...ranking sites and Kirby's scouts...definitely don't always agree. LOL I think Trayvon Walker, Jordan Davis, Ladd McConkey and Stetson Bennett have proven there's much more to it than that.
If a player like Herschel Walker or Bo Jackson comes along, we'll all know it. But, those guys are rare. And, I don't see any of those on the horizon...yet. UGA's gonna get what they need out of every class. The attributes Kirby values, may not always line up with the experts, but, they don't have to. He just won a Championship, doing it his way, with several guys that didn't rate that coveted 4th or 5th star.
Oh well...it gives Fans something to do in the off-season. LOL.
Georgia does have the top-ranked class in the SEC at the moment, though Alabama’s recent run of recruiting has the Crimson Tide right on the heels of Georgia. Alabama does have the top-ranked class in the country based on the average ranking of a committed recruit in its class, with a 94.89. Georgia comes in with a 93.05, which is fourth in the country.If this makes sense to you please explain it to me. Georgia has the top ranked class in the SEC, but Alabama has the top ranked class in the country? Alabama has left the SEC?
Go, Dawgs!
While technically Georgia is higher ranked as a class, therefore tops in the SEC, Bama has a higher player average rating meaning the individual player average is ranked higher than Georgia’s.
Most astute recruiting followers pay closer attention to the recruiting average more than the class ranking.
It could’ve been worded better.
@BigDawg61
Mark Richt generally signs classes ranked 7 to 12 and after Jim Donnan's (better) recruits left averaged 10 wins a year. Richt never won the SEC or lost fewer than 2 games after D.J. Shockley and the rest of the last Donnan guys left. Richt never recruited a single first round pick at DT, only once did so at QB and WR, didn't start regularly recruiting elite RBs until his UGA tenure was half over, rarely recruited them at OT and only occasionally did so at CB.
Meanwhile, Kirby Smart generally signs classes ranked 1 to 4. You just saw the results in the January title game and the following draft.
Finally, I want you to consider how in the 2010s Clemson parlayed their way into a national powerhouse - surpassing first Georgia Tech then UGA, Miami, Oklahoma, FSU, Ohio State - by recruiting a string of 5 star QBs (Tajh Boyd, Deshaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence) and WRs despite the rest of their classes being meh. (It is what Auburn tried to do after Cam Newton but couldn't maintain primarily because none of their other QB recruits panned out.)
If it were still the 80s, 90s or even 00s I would say that you are right. Back then programs took variable approaches to developing talent and building football teams. Nebraska, for example, relied heavily on walk-ons ... guys who would have gotten scholarships and been starters at mid-major and FCS schools walked on at Nebraska (which has surprisingly cheap tuition for a flagship school plus NU is very generous with financial aid to athletes) which is what allowed them to build their legendary depth. And they ran the triple option, which meant that they didn't need 5 star WRs, pro style QBs or OTs. Even a lot of the guys that they played at CB, safety, LB and WR were tailbacks and QB in high school. You also had Don James do neat stuff to find talent at the University of Washington in the 70s and 80s, Bill McCartney did the same at Colorado in the 80s and then there was Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech in the 80s and 90s, along with Don Nehlen at West Virginia. Because no one in college football is willing to do anything different anymore - everyone just runs the spread RPO with either a 3-4 or 3-3-5 defense to defend the spread - that makes winning the recruiting rankings game way more important than it used to be.
I remember when Virginia Tech came one in-game injury from beating FSU for the national title when Michael Vick was their only 5 star player, and their All-American defensive end was actually a 2 star recruit. Sadly that doesn't happen anymore.
You seriously discount Clemson’s DL recruiting in addition to the QB/WR recruiting. I’d also add they needed two all-timers at QB and a charmin soft schedule to win it all.
I get what you're saying. Maybe I overstated my point, so, let me clarify. My issue isn't with class rankings, it's with player rankings. Now, obviously the school that gets the most top 100 composite players is ranked higher. The top 7 schools do that very well, and it's usually the same top 7.
There are a lot of elite players that get left out of the conversation and Kirby's scouting and player evaluation department, are 2nd to none at finding those players and developing them. That's what I was trying to say. So, when UGA apparently "misses" on a top recruit or a recruit flips to another school, I don't get too bent about it, cause I know there was probably a good reason. Maybe he didn't have "the right stuff". And, that's okay.
Everybody that wants to be a Navy SEAL, doesn't have the mental and physical toughness or intelligence to be a Navy SEAL. You feed 30 highly qualified (talented) guys into the SEAL program after a detailed vetting process and 15-20 SEALS come out of the other side. Same with Kirby's Dawgs. He is more selective than the ranking services with respect to the intangibles, such as how a kid handles the pressures of schoolwork, how he relates to the people around him...basically, looking for a psychological profile that is compatible to the locker room atmosphere he has meticulously created over the last 6-7 years. Those are things "Ranking Services" don't and can't completely quantify.
In general, the top 150 ranked players are very talented players, but I don't always agree with the order they're ranked in. Since a school's recruiting rankings are based on where their committed players are ranked in a composite, there is room for debate over which school is ranked #1 and #5. There is most definitely a "talent difference" between a #5 ranking and a #20 ranking, but, the difference between the #1 and #5 team, is debatable, just like the difference between the #1 RB and #5 RB is debatable.
Recruiting services make a Coach's job easier in narrowing his focus. They used to have to rely on media bird dogs, field scouts and HS coaches to alert them to a talented target and send them film. Those methods are still used in addition to recruiting services.
Bottom line is, the "fan" and media aren't always privy to the whole picture, so they panic on a loss of what they think is a #1 recruit. For instance, when UGA had to take a pass on Zack Evans...the narrative was, that Evans flipped his commitment "from" UGA right before the UA All America Game. That just wasn't "the truth".
I'm not buying that Clemson's QB/WR recruiting, alone, is why they were so competitive during those years. It was defense, just like their teams of the late '70's to early '80's.
Mark Richt had some pretty impressive QB/WR talent himself (Green, Stafford, Murray, etc.) and a very potent offense...but, he didn't have a defensive coordinator worth a flip, until Pruitt...which was too little, too late for him.
UGA has always had "talent" on both sides of the ball. What they lacked since the Dooley/Erk Russell years was coaching on "both" sides of the ball. They have that now. A Junkyard Dawg defense, as it's being played now, will always keep UGA in the game. That makes me happy. LOL
"Michael Vick was their only 5 star player, and their All-American defensive end was actually a 2 star recruit. Sadly that doesn't happen anymore."
Recruiting Services didn't exist or were just getting off the ground, when Vick was in High School. So, who gave him a 5 star rating? Just curious.