Envy and jealousy: Brian Cook rocks my world.

After letting this chart sink in, you’ll never be able to look at a college football blog in the same way again.

I know I won’t.

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You mess with the Chanster at your own peril.

Does this mean that Corch Meyers will have to put off his leave of absence – again? (h/t EDSBS)

Except for Peyton Manning, Georgia Tech is just like the Indianapolis Colts.

Paul Johnson is a very good football coach, but if he truly believes what he’s shoveling with this comment, he’s dumber than I thought:

“The whole [recruiting] process has gone bonkers. You’re talking about kids who’ve never played a down yet. Nobody can pick who’s going to be the next great player. It’s all about how hard are you willing to work. There’s so many factors involved. I read somewhere that the Indianapolis Colts have one five-star recruit on the whole roster – Peyton Manning. They have 32 or 37 players who were 3-star or below. What does that tell you?”

Well, first of all, it tells me that Peyton Manning is one of the greatest players in NFL history.  But I don’t think that’s what Johnson is fishing for there.

What he’s really trying to claim is that recruiting ratings are total bunk and don’t matter, because there’s a Super Bowl team that isn’t totally comprised of five-star recruits.  That of course ignores the basic math (something you’d think a Tech man would be able to follow) behind the size of the talent pool.

Yes, there are a whopping 178 five-star recruits ranked so over the past five years.  That works out to roughly 35 per year.  There are 32 NFL teams.  You do the division.  (Tossing in the four-star players adds another ten or so per team each year, which still leaves you somewhat short of being able to field an NFL squad, Super Bowl-caliber or otherwise.)

Maybe I’m wrong here.  Maybe what Johnson is trying to claim here is that he’s so smart and his system is so effective that the quality of his recruiting classes isn’t very relevant to Tech’s success.  If so, I think Michael Elkon pretty much shreds that argument:

… The recruiting rankings tend to track the offers that a player receives. If Texas, Florida, and USC are all after the same player, then that player will get four or five stars. If the schools of the MAC are fighting for a player’s signature, then he won’t. If Schultz is right that the stars and rankings are meaningless, then he is adopting the position that the staffs at the elite programs do not know how to evaluate players. Care to defend the position that Urban Meyer doesn’t know the difference between a player and a poseur, Jeff?

And then Schultz’s crowing insult comes at the end, where he lists four players that Paul Johnson will have to replace this year: Derrick Morgan, Demaryius Thomas, Jonathan Dwyer and Morgan Burnett. Guess how many stars went next to Morgan’s, Dwyer’s, and Burnett’s names when they were recruits? Cue Moses Malone: fo, fo, fo. Guess how many stars went next to Josh Nesbitt’s name? The 2009 Georgia Tech team succeeded for a number of reasons. Good offensive coaching and good fortune come to mind immediately, as does Chan Gailey’s recruiting. The assumption that Paul Johnson can continue to win at the same level without recruiting at the same level is just dumb.

Like it or not, there’s a basic correlation between recruiting well and winning.  If Johnson is either stupid enough or arrogant enough to think it doesn’t apply to his program, as a Georgia fan, all I can say is go dog go.

Could Georgia have two 1000-yard rushers in 2010?

Don’t snicker, campers.  With the announcement that Richard Samuel is moving to linebacker this season, it’s a legitimate question.  If you breakdown Ealey’s and King’s 2009 stats, it’s not that farfetched, provided the injury bug doesn’t derail either’s season.

Take out the mid-season stretch when King’s play was limited as a result of the busted jaw he received in the LSU game, and you’re left with a seven-game body of work in which he carried the ball 96 times for 554 yards, for a 5.77 ypc average.  That pace over thirteen games translates into almost 14 carries a game and a 79.14 ypg average, resulting in a total of 1029 yards.

If you pick up with Ealey at the Tennessee game, when he seriously became a part of the mix at tailback, you get these numbers over the last eight games of the season:  113 carries, 684 yards, a 5.85 ypc average.  For a thirteen-game season, that pace works out to about 14 carries a game, an 85.5 yards per game tally and a total of 1111 yards.

Yes, I know all the standard disclaimers about past performance and future results apply, and, again, Georgia will have to stay injury-free, not just with the backs, but also with the line, to have a legitimate shot at this, but given the likelihood that the playcalling will be structured to protect a rookie quarterback, I tend to think there’s a decent chance of accomplishing this.  And if you’re a believer in running the ball and stopping the run as two big components in playing successful football, that’s a good start.  It’ll be up to Coach Grantham and his charges to do something about improving that 36th ranking in rushing defense to deliver on the other part.

Recruiting roundup: was it good for you, too?

Just a few items that jumped out at me in the wake that national signing day left:

• Chicken v. Egg:  is it the top schools that make the top recruiting classes, or the top recruiting classes that make the top schools?
• Deep breaths, Dawg fans… deep breaths.
• Seantrel Henderson is the second sanest member of the Class of 2010.
• The sanest member?  I’d have to go with Oklahoma signee Kenny Stills, based on this quote:  “I don’t want to name the school, but I’ve had one tell me that I’m already better than the kids they have there right now. What kind of recruiting are you doing where you’d say that a high school kid is better than juniors and seniors in college? I’m not questioning myself at all, but I have to think their kids are better than I am right now. Some of it is B.S.”
• Yeah, I know Florida signed the Greatest Recruiting Class Of Our Era, but how ’bout that Mack Brown?  Texas offered 30 scholarships and signed every one of the 25 kids who took official visits.  Wow.
• Have you ever heard players react to a last-minute rejection the way Bacarri Rambo and Jakar Hamilton did with their “Da’Rick, you’re dead to me now” comments?