Wait three years or whenever, if you’re a Georgia Tech fan, the breakdown of where the state’s top 25 players went Wednesday can’t be good news:
Here’s who mined the state’s Top 25 players for signatures:
12… Georgia
3… Auburn
2… Alabama
2… Tennessee
1… California
1… Florida State
1… Georgia Tech
1… Notre Dame
1… Stanford
1… Junior College
And that, mind you, is in a year when the state produced a bumper crop of talent.
I don’t care how much of a genius Paul Johnson is, there’s no way Tech prospers over the long haul signing the same number of top in state players as Cal.
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UPDATE: John Pennington makes an interesting point in a follow up post about where this year’s SEC signees hailed from.
For the second year in a row, Georgia produced more SEC signees than any other state despite the larger talent pool in Florida. So what gives? In Georgia, SEC schools are recruiting only against UGA and Georgia Tech. In the state of Florida, recruits have the option of staying clost to home to play for FBS teams: Florida, Florida State, Miami, South Florida, UCF, Florida Atlantic and Florida International.
Get The Picture 
Oddly enough they have always recruited heavily OOS. But the best years they have are when the get studs in state. Getting only one of 25 shows a real problem for sure. There is no spinning it. Long Live Paul Johnson.
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Once Chan started listening to Giff Smith’s advice, Tech really stepped up its in state recruiting. That ’07 class that ESPN just re-ranked as 6th best nationally had plenty of local talent on it.
Chan really screwed Tech when he hired Smith for his staff at Buffalo. CPJ has yet to recover from that.
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The success achieved by Tech in 2008 and 2009 was done with with Chan Gailey’s players. Now that Johnson has to recruit his own that no personality asshole is going to have even more problems fielding a competitive team.
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I get the feeling, kidding aside, that Paul Johnson lacks the patience and disposition necessary to recruit. Recall him yanking offers from kids who showed signs of wavering. The post this week, that Blutarsky borrowed from, shows Johnson gets frustrated easily with recruiting. He acts like an ornery cuss in general. Regardless of strategy, he’s not going to last long if I’m right.
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Paul Johnson has out smarted Mark Richt once again. It’s obvious that Johnson has LET Mark Richt get all of the top talent in the state. While Richt celebrated what seems to be a great recruiting class, Johnson sat back and smiled knowing once again that he has Richt’s number. Paul Johnson knows that a coach can’t underachieve if he doesn’t first achieve. It won’t be until Richt consistantly lets top talent leave the state and loses to tech on a regular basis that he can hope to be as good a coach as Paul Johnson.
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CPJ might even let us score again in next year’s game.
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Absolutely right Mark. Anybody can win with great talent. It takes a really GOOD coach to win with mediocre players. Paul Johnson has Mark Richt exactly where he wants him.
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Paul doesn’t stay in one place longer than 4-5 years. I am convinced his recruiting skills have a lot to do with it.
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I’m pretty sure he could have stayed in Annapolis as long as he wanted.
While I’m all for piling on North Avenue and Johnson, he’s not a bad coach. You don’t beat Notre Dame with Navy if you’re not pretty good.
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The service academies are a different animal. Kids go there because they want to go there, not because of who the coach is. Paul Johnson’s recruiting deficiencies were masked at Navy. Leaving Navy is probably going to be the biggest mistake of Paul Johnson’s life. “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, 1971.
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Another point here is that he’s facing coaching staffs and athletes that are light-years ahead of where some of the teams he faced with Navy and Georgia Southern were. He’s got a gimmick offense that is really, really tough to get ready for. He can even out the talent gap quite a bit by just having a hard-focused and drilled team run that thing. Well, where do you find focus and discipline in greater supply than at one of the service academies? I don’t think for one minute that Notre Dame’s coaches spent a great deal of time in spring or summer practicing for the triple option. They should be able to walk over Navy, and they probably saved the bulk of practicing for that game until game week. Now, he’s at a BCS school where other BCS schools have to contend with him for conference titles, postseason bowls, and in-state bragging rights. Willie Martinez had him more or less bottled up in 7 of the 8 quarters in which they squared off. The ACC seemed to catch on as they spent more offseason time planning for the triple option. Now that the talent gap has started to widen a bit, I think that’s a trend that you’ll see continue. Tech’s not going to be north of 28 points in most games they play against quality defensive football teams anymore. Paul Johnson can whine all he wants to about the fact that he lost Nesbitt (and he has, in explaining what happened last year). Sorry, Paul, it’s not like you lost him on the first series of the year. He made that trip to Kansas and played every offensive snap.
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Gtu only has really good teams when they are beating UGA head-to-head for a couple of recruits. They managed to snag some guys UGA wanted during the Jan Kemp fallout and the Dooley-Goff transition that contributed to them winning the ACC title in 1990.
They managed to snag some guys UGA wanted during Donnan’s first couple of years that led to their alleged ’97-’99 run when they used vast amounts of ineligible players.
Of course we all remember ’97 and UGA’s great whiff of a class in state. Missing Berry, Bailey, Burnett, Dwyer, Roddy Jones, Nesbitt, Cam Heyward, etc. That was the class responsible for UGA’s step back and was also the only class in recent memory in which Gtu beat UGA for some kids.
If Gtu is not beating UGA for Georgia talent, then they are not going to have really good seasons. I believe that they did not get one, single Georgia kid that UGA offered this year. That is not good for the Jackets.
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2007
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I am not sad about missing Roddy Jones. He had one great game, and it was against us. Otherwise he is an expendable player on their roster.
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Also not sad on missing out on Nesbitt in 2007. Mr. Incomplete did not need to play at UGA
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I think CPJ is doing a fine job myself.
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Yeah Tech. Keep him forever. Please.
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One certain school missing from that list. Hope Will keeps that up.
And this is the part where Tech fans explain to us that, as much as they’d love to recruit homegrown talent, they are forced to recruit out of state because of its poor education system.
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No Gator signings from Georgia was indeed a pleasant surprise.
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I’m more worried about Tennessee getting back into Georgia than Florida, honestly. UF doesn’t really *need* Georgia like Tennessee does.
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Very true. Has always been Auburn and Tennessee we have to worry about. And lately FSU for some damn reason. C’mon guys can’t we just hate Uf together? Watching Reid destroy things in the Chik Bowl was hurtin.
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Ga was late coming on for GR, as they traditionally have been for a lot of SoGa talent. But that wasn’t at all the case this year and they’ve already made a lot of headway with several guys for next year. In the short run, I don’t see the mass exodus of T-ville & Dosta talent to FSU as we’ve seen for a while.
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I’m one who has always said we should be great simply because we have a great state of football talent, 10 million people, and only 2 D1A schools. That being said, we’re also bordered by FIVE football crazy states. (arguably) Tech simply can’t compete with Auburn on kids who live in Columbus. Can’t compete with SC on kids from Augusta.
So yes, we are richly blessed with high school talent. But Georgia also seems unique in that it is sort of the Yugosouth with all sorts of regional ties to bordering states. In my neighborhood, there are Tennessee fans, LSU fans, Auburn, Bama. I don’t think the rest of the south has that quite as much.
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Very perceptive and right on the money, Toom.
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agreed
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Tech is operating in the red, which means that it is hard to upgrade facilities and staff. Also, money to be used in recruiting is short. It is a double edged sword, not having the money to keep your program top of the line results in less support, which means you go further in debt. Johnson faces the same challenges that Chan faced, only worse. I have no ill will toward Tech and I wish them the best.
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… in Hell!
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+1
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