I’m always amused by the people who whine about this recruit or that one escaping the clutches of Mark Richt and agreeing to play for another SEC school. Why, oh why, the cry goes out, can’t Georgia put a fence up around the state and keep everyone else out?
Well, because the math is daunting.
As of right now, 736 high school seniors in Georgia have signed some sort of grant-in-aid to play college football. That’s according to numbers provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by high school historian and resident “numbers junkie” Steve Slay.
Included in that number are 183 players who signed on with Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly known as Division I) schools.
Amazingly, those numbers are slightly down from last year’s totals.
There’s a lot of talent produced in this state and there are only two in-state D-1 schools available to harvest it. That pretty much equates to a standing invitation for a lot of other schools to come in and take a shot at farming Georgia high schools.
If Georgia signs the bulk of those it targets, that’s all Richt’s really got control over.
Get The Picture 
Because the math is daunting, and people are stupid.
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be happy you dont live in athens and have to listen to Jeff Dantzler opine about this roughly 365 days a year. For what I believe has been 3 yrs he’s pissed and moaned (like so many others ) about Eric Berry (his dad went to UT and didnt give UGA much of a sniff), Morgan Burnett (who stated he wanted to do something different than Cap) and Eric Norwood. And even on signing day managed to complain we didnt have enough depth in this class at linebacker (yes, I know we signed 4).
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Jeff Dantzler loves Jeff Dantzler. He would solve all our problems if he were in charge!
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I’ll drink to that.
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Don’t forget that according to the bammers, Auburn is in West Georgia…to which I reply, “that’s a helluva lot better than being stuck in East Mississippi.”
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Ain’t that the truth. 😉
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For what it’s worth, my friends and I call Mississippi “Alabama’s Alabama” thereby killing two crap holes with one insult.
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Conversely, South Carolina has two in state schools with only 44 D-1 players signing this year.
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The state of Alabama = 86
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Fish stories, Senator. Fish stories. The one that got away is always bigger.
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If we played by the West’s recruiting rules, we’d have signed them all and still squeezed in under the rules.
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It’s got nothing to do with the raw numbers. It’s the fact that the coaching staff relied on taking X number of players at a position instead of going after the biggest fish.
Of course, sometimes player number 722 can wind up being an NFL HOF player, but still, most folks can easily identify the best players in the state, and it is getting the BEST players in Georgia every year that leads to championships, not just getting 25 players from Georgia.
This year’s class shows that Coach Richt has realized that getting the best in Georgia is much more important than getting players from Georgia. I still don’t think the Dream Team is complete without the two best defensive players in the state, AJ Johnson and Bryan Randolph, but still it was a much better result than the past couple of years.
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Neither of those kids is half as good as Ray Drew. There are many more AJ Johnson and Bryan Randolph type players in this state than there are dominant DE’s. Not to slag those kids, but it’s true.
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I understand state pride etc., etc., but Georgia isn’t isolated by hundreds of miles of corn fields like Nebraska and Iowa. Nor is the majority of D-1 talent in Georgia produced in small towns with a long history of allegiance to State U. Getting raided is inevitable, and all the players we need aren’t produced within the state borders.
It was a huge accomnplishment to get half of the Top 25 in-state recruits this year, and certainly preferable to do that, but it is an unrealistic benchmark to hold the staff to year after year, imo. I love it when we get who we want from the Georgia HS pool, but feel we should continue to mine other geographies. We have a lot of fans who feel we should get all our talent from in-state and are offended when any of them go out of state for any reason. Dantzler sounds fanatical and irrational. (I would particularly like to get more OL talent from the mid-west, cornbelt area.)
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183 D-1 players from Georgia? Wow.
Which begs the question, why did CMR and/or Garner feel the need to hit up defensive players from hot spots like Maryland and Virginia?
Nothing to see here. Van Halenger’s fault. Blah blah blah.
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I wonder that if in the future, the state of Georgia is going to have the same phenomenon that Florida had, which is the springing up of plenty of new D-I programs. Florida is also a state that has a glut of D-I athletes, but now they have a significant number of schools competing for those in-state recruits (USF, FIU, FAU, etc.). Georgia probably has a similar number, yet significantly less options for those recruits to play D-I in-state.
I don’t know who it would be, or even if it would be likely considering the new guidelines the NCAA is passing concerning teams moving up a level. I just wonder if the market would rise to meet the athletes in Georgia too.
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I imagine having a Randall Godfrey or David Pollack standing in the room when a GA school kid makes his choice makes the recruiting job considerably easier, and the outcome more reliable. I have no complaints about going out of state for recruits, but recruiting in-state should be fairly easy when compared to most of our competitors. UGA has a HUGE advantage for in-state recruits. I say use it.
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The real point is what a failure Tech is at recruiting in the state of Georgia. It is the only other D-IA program in Georgia, UGA is limited to 25 signees per year, and Tech can’t sign in-state kids. All the in-state kids who do not want to go to UGA or who are not signed by UGA because of the numbers limitation would rather go out of state than go to Tech. A horrible comment on the state of Tech’s football program. Are you listening Mark Bradley?
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No one cares where the kids come from if you win. No one ever said don’t take Stafford or Moreno or Green. And if you say “well, all things being equal, take the in-state kid,” –pointless comment; no two kids are equal. Recruit the best. That is all. If there is crazy talent coming from Cal, Tx, and Fl, we need to go there too. Don’t forget local. But go where ever good quality young men are.
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When your national spotlight is losing to Central Florida in an ugly game you have absolutely no pull with many out of state players worth recruiting. Get back on top not on SC because your coach is “on the hot seat” then go after the out of state 5 stars.
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The other thing that people forget is that GA is so big that the geography hurts UGA. People from the Columbus area are closer to Auburn and there are a lot of them. Folks from Augusta are closer to SCU. South Georgia is closer to FSU and even Gainesville. If you have been a fan since youth you are going where your heart is and not just to good ole UGA. The one area we should own is Atlanta but even there some of the kids are not UGA fans plain and simple. Georgia is a recruiting rich Div I poor state and everybody knows it so they come on down and up and it’s crowded.
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Seems to me the closer one gets to our borders, the more spirited Dawg fans become. But it’s always going to be tough going up against coaches who have won the mnc – even in our backyard. I agree about owning ATL area. Here in Cobb, it seems like every HS kid I bump into has UGA #1 as their college choice. If UGA expanded to 100,000 students, we’d still be turning kids/applicants away in droves.
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Your last comment raised a non-football issue that deserves considerable debate WCD. Perhaps another day.
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