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Stacy Searels picks up a meaningful win in landing four-star Ekene Ogboko
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Posts: 12,494 admin
Stacy Searels picks up a meaningful win in landing four-star Ekene Ogboko
BREAKING: Priority OT target Ekene Ogboko commits to Georgia football
Comments
Quit writing about the NOISE dawnation. Makes you look foolish backing such a small contingent of UGA people. In Kirby dawg fans trust.
This article is full of so many halting typos, it's hard to read. Have some pride.
Getting Ogboko WAS a big win for UGA recruiting. UGA OL recruiting was starting to feel very much like UGA OL recruiting under Mark Richt. Who was the OL coach then? Did you know that the UGA OL coach is on his 8th job since 2001? Never been more than 3 years anywhere since Y2K.
Based on the video clip in the other Ogboko article, I can see why he is rated higher as an "IOL" candidate. Not the most nimble guy. May be able to work into a RT role w/a lot of work. I see IOL in his future.
It’s not just OL recruiting that reminds me of the Richt/Searels years. OL performance last year gave me flashbacks from those years. Those OL’s tended to underperform—to put it nicely. I remember thinking Richt’s lines (on both sides of the ball) just weren’t big enough or good enough. Hopefully, the OL will drastically improve this year and prove us old doubters wrong
Perhaps I’m too optimistic but the amount of injuries, and the timing of those injuries, meant there was really no comfort with a consistent group to work so a temporary step back in performance makes sense. I’ve still got faith in Searles and his ability and the recruiting success seems to support that. Could be guilty of Dawg vision but I see it more as a temporary blip than trend. Go DAWGS!
@JayDog—JayDog—You are certainly correct—they did underperform. At times these OL's looked like they were standing still. Hope Freeling and Greene can play up to their potential.
Matt Luke
" and the Clemson Tigers are reeling in blue-chip offensive linemen at a high clip"—from Rivals. How did we let this guy get away from us?
he quit bc he couldn’t handle the stress at Georgia.
he’s also not swimming in the same waters Georgia is. Clemson wasn’t in it for Cantwell. Don’t believe Malakai Lee has Clemson in his top group. I believe Ogboko is higher rated than anyone they have.
Always the case with DN. Especially embarrassing when the writer happens to be a UGA School of Journalism grad!!! Auto correct I no F'in excuse.
😂😂 he says with a typo in his post
In fact, according to Rivals, Clemson has 3 OL commits that are rated higher than Ogbogo. Clemson has 6 OL recruits. All 4*. UGA has 4 OL commits including a 3*. Is UGA done recruiting OL? Probably not. But there is no denying that, much like the Richt years of OL recruiting, UGA is not valuing (paying up) OL talent as much as other programs.
It will be interesting to see what impact the new NIL rules have on CFB free agency. Can it be policed or do teams/boosters just return to paying players under the table?
Attributing Matt Luke's departure from UGA due to "stress" is a misrepresentation. Officially he took 3 years off to spend more time with his family. Unofficially, working as an assistant coach at UGA is a 24/7/365 job. Luke was looking to spend more time with his family and then find another position with more work/life balance than that offered by UGA. That is a pretty common desire for most people that comprise the work force.
We all have a very interesting scenario to watch play out this year. The Clemson method of running/building a program vs the UGA method for running/building a program. The differences are pretty well documented. Is Clemson's method (build around 5* QB and WR, no transfers) sustainable? Is UGA's method (big, high rated recruiting classes, young teams, transfers) sustainable? One problem with recruiting mostly young players is that, now days, these young HS players want to be paid when (or before) they step on campus.
Matt Luke also recruited the pupu platter of recruits in the 22 class that have left us scrambling a bit. So it’s revisionist history to think he was some legendary recruiter or great coach. He was fine, but just because he’s doing well at Clemson who have had bad OL play the last five years and he can sell immediate playing time.
I agree this year is a make or break year for Searles on the field. If he and Bobo can’t improve the offense, they both need to be gone. But to believe that Luke is somehow miles better than Searles is a fallacy borne out of recency bias.
It was difficult to judge Luke's recruiting ability while at UGA because the program was loaded with highly ranked prospects from the prior OL coach (Pittman). The elite guys were not as willing to come to a program where they were expected to ride the bench for a couple of years before seeing the field. Hard to assess and hard to hold it against Luke.
Wasn't it '21 and '22 (under Luke) that UGA's OL was runner up for the Joe Moore award? Again there was a lot of talent there but certainly coaching played a big part.
The '22 OL class you mentioned had 5 recruits. Greene and Bobo are expected to be starters in '25. The other 3 were Hood (TP -weight issues indicate work ethic wasn't up to UGA standards?), Bah (TP - in '24 "Started all 12 games at right guard. Blocked for the No. 3 passing offense in the Big Ten.") and 3* Scroggs (TP - sometime starter at App St at OT. Recruited to UGA to be OC).
Of note, Luke also recruited Mims, Morris, Fairchild and Wilson in the '21 class.
What I’m reading is Matt Luke didn’t leave Searles much depth since 60% of the class left to transfer. Also, if it was hard for Luke to recruit at Georgia bc of all the in house talent it means it’s easier at Clemson bc they don’t have any talent?
If elite guys aren’t willing to come wait their turn then how did Searles manage to nab Gaston and Calhoun?
Those Joe Moore finalists OL were populated with Sam Pittman guys. Has Matt Luke had any Joe Moore finalists at Clemson? Searles had the 23 OL in the finals…so he did something right that year.
We can agree Searles had an off year in 24. Both he and most of the offensive staff are on watch this season. But it’s not like we lost Bedenbaugh when Matt Luke quit either.
What you missed reading is that Luke left Searels 3 starters on the '25 OL (Green, Bobo, Morris) . What has Searels been doing for 3 years? You also apparently missed that 2 guys (40% of the '22 class) left UGA (under Searels) for productive careers elsewhere.
I think the jury is still out on how "elite" Gaston and Calhoun are. Gaston was rated 93rd overall an the #13 OL in his class. Calhoun was rated #145 overall and the #10 OL in his class (Rivals). Clemson has 2 OL guys in this year's class rated higher overall and 3 guys rated higher in the '26 class positionally than either Gaston and Calhoun were coming out.
"Has Matt Luke had any Joe Moore finalists at Clemson? " Really? You mean in his 1 year at Clemson? Weak.