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On the Beat: Kirby Smart’s next move amid Georgia staff and NIL changes
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On the Beat: Kirby Smart’s next move amid Georgia staff and NIL changes
ATHENS — Georgia coach Kirby Smart will be looking to hire his fourth defensive backs coach in the past five years, but don’t expect anyone to get nervous.
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I can see Beck leaving. Stet, I hope will be in a dog fight with BV for starter and that won’t be decided until Oregon week so Brock is going nowhere. I doubt Gunner will transfer with less than a year in the program and Stet being gone after this year.
I don't think competition will be the issue. Bennett will be gone after this year and Vandagriff will either be the start for his Junior year or will be transferring. Stockton will be a Sophomore.
The bigger problem is just that Smart doesn't WANT the QB to be a dominant position - he wants them to be the game manager and feed lots of smaller plays to TEs and hand offs to RBs. I've come to accept that this is not necessarily a "good" or "bad" decision despite whatever we may think, but I do not believe that we will get the High Profile QBs that other schools can. Bama doesn't have the drama - they get the ones they want, those players wait their turn but then they get it and always have the best WRs in the nation to throw to.
Georgia won't be able to recruit/retain a superstar DB position coach, including "one in the making", until/unless Kirby delegates that job to that person and truly empowers them. An elite coach doesn't want, or need, his boss breathing down his neck, telling him what to do, and even inadvertently taking over meetings, huddles, the room, etc. It's as simple as that. Yes, Kirby has tons of DB experience and knowledge to impart; but along with his personality type, that combo would probably get a little old fairly quickly for a fully capable coach. The good news is that Kirby has already learned to delegate and empower other elements of the program that he used to feel compelled to control... so there's reason to think he'll get there with DBs. In the interim, between him, Muschamp, and anyone else they happen to hire for the role, our stable of stud DBs will be just fine. Go Dawgs!
Kirby won't be hiring anyone unworthy, so I have zero concerns regarding the replacement of Addae, whom I have chosen not to attempt to make up a reason to belittle in order to make myself not feel bad about him leaving (talking to you, BA).
I don't know what Arch is going to do. I honestly don't know why he'd even seriously consider coming to UGA (except for Monken being here, which most people in the biz think is unlikely to continue beyond this next season) when there are many teams out there with 'throw first' offenses where a QB can put up big numbers, which all QBs obviously want to do. I'm not saying it's impossible for a QB to put up big numbers at UGA under Kirby Smart, but it's true that Kirby can't point to an example. Yet. The future isn't known. But, we do know that Manning wants to make his college decision before his final high school season begins, so the hay is in the barn when it comes to having a season's numbers to show to a QB recruit. We'll see what happens, both with Arch and with the future of Kirby Smart's offense.
I know right? Just look at the list of scrubs he's signed/pursued since coming to Athens. Eason, Fromm, Lawrence, Fields, Newman, Daniels, Vandagriff, Stockton, Manning. Just a parade of mediocrity. If he would just set his sights a little higher for the quarterback position, this program might be elite one day. We can dream, right?
Sarcasm aside, this claim just doesn't hold water. If he really was only interested fielding in some so-so QB with average ability to choreograph the offense around him, there are plenty of guys he could sign with relatively little time and effort - time and effort that could be redirected toward the runningbacks and tight ends that he supposedly cares so much more about. (As an aside, it wasn't long ago at all that people were convinced that Smart had no interest in using tight ends. Funny how that's played out, eh?) It's been well established that completeness is what Smart strives to instill in his program - high performance at every level. This means that the emphasis is not necessarily always on quarterback play. It does not mean that he's not interested in high-level quarterback play
Indeed.
AFTER this coming season and before the '23-'24 season , BV will be a RS Soph not a Jr and Stockton will most likely be a RS Freshman. Preserving eligibility is in the best interests of young QB's until they have matured to being ready to play. Allows them the most development AND individual career flexibility. THAT is how college football works.
I think your opinion is 100% wrong. Players on the roster and their health is how Kirby determines our offensive identity now and the offense we ran was not the plan for 2021. I believe you will see this when there is the combination of a good passer at QB who is not INT prone and a good receiving corp that is not decimated by injuries or that lacks experience. Monken is not here to be a one trick pony. But also and MOST important, you do not try to force a square peg into a round hole when you dont' have the horses to put on the field. If they had in 2021, UGA would not be national champs right now. 100% would not be. You must be able to adapt to the strength and weaknesses of the players you have, sometimes game to game or mid-season. Had we had the receivers and Daniels in 2021, Daniels would have been QB, not Bennett. I am sure of that. But we didn't, so the UGA brain-trust went with more of a dual threat so that while running a conservative passing game mostly(to keep the INT's low as possible!) the running ability could compensate for it, particularly with picking up first downs on the ground. And it worked. I wanted JT myself ASAP. I was wrong. They were right. I will now trust Kirby and his coaches on the offenses identity in the future...100%
@earl_m I agree with your thinking that Arch Manning is not likely to come to UGA. I don't agree with your reasoning. I believe the reason that he won't come is because everyone in his storied family -- with notable exception of Uncle Peyton -- went to Ole Miss. It's in their DNA. I think the only way the kid doesn't go to Ole Miss is if Lane Kiffin leaves and is replaced by a stiff. In that case, I think he'll go to Alabama where Saban can say, "come here and not only play for a Natty, but also be an automatic Heisman Trophy candidate."
Come to UGA and throw it 20 times and none in the 4th quarter unless we're tied or behind. I don't think so.
We need the QB room to ball out! If this can be done and SB can be a coach and a trusted back-up needed would go a long way for all!
I don't know if we're wading into semantics or something, but you seem to have completely missed my point. The claim to which I was responding is that there's an element of Smart's approach to running a program (quarterbacking) in which he not only accepts, he prefers mediocrity. Even putting aside everything else we know about him, his actions since becoming a head coach simply don't bear that out.
Eason: Left after two years because he lost the job to someone who was better at running the offense. I would ask you to look back on Eason's production when the job was all his, subtracting out the jet sweeps, and tell me what he ever did here to demand that Smart give him the keys to run a pass-heavy offense, but again, that would be missing the point. Yes, Richt originally recruited him. But Smart put in the effort, as well, to keep him, flying out to Washington at one point. If he wasn't interested in strong quarterback play, he could have just said, Nah I got my guy Lambert here, we're good. It's not like he was swimming in free time when he made that trip. But no, he made Eason the starter by week 2.
Fromm: Really productive at the Georgia high school level. His reasons for coming to Georgia aren't what's at issue here (putting aside your apparent assertion that he could predict the future), it's the fact that he was a highly regarded quarterback that Smart actively worked to recruit.
Fields: Good grief, what's left to say? Just staying on topic and pointing out that Smart wouldn't have bothered competing to reel in such a highly sought-after recruit if the quality of the quarterback position didn't matter to him.
Newman: I hadn't heard that about Smart's preference for Bennett at that point. Makes me wonder why Bennett didn't start against Arkansas? Again, beside the point.
Daniels: Was brought in by Smart as the Newman hype was growing. Had a lot more attempts per game than Bennett, but was severely limited by multiple injuries. Smart ultimately, and correctly, decided that Bennett was playing well enough that it wasn't worth the disruption to continuity to switch back to Daniels mid-season. However you might feel about that, it doesn't change the fact that Smart wanted Daniels at Georgia and let him throw it around when he was out there.
Manning: If you understood my point, you'd see there's nothing funny at all about including him in this list. Another high caliber quarterback recruit that Smart wants at Georgia.
I could go on but I think - well, hope - the point has been made. It doesn't make sense for a coach to compile this kind of track record over the entire course of his career as a head coach if all he's looking for is 3 star results. Just because he hasn't fielded a team that centered unequivocally around the quarterback, that's not an indication that he's uninterested in high quality quarterback play, or that that characteristic couldn't change at any time depending on how a team shapes out in any given year - see again: previous complaints/conclusions about Smart's level of interest in using and recruiting the TE position, and how poorly those have aged. I just don't see the sense in trying to read the man's mind, especially when it produces such a dubious result.