I know he’s the AJ-C‘s recruiting reporter, but this Michael Carvell observation about Todd Grantham’s recruitment of Jordan Jenkins strikes me as overly dramatic:
… However, a top assistant coach hasn’t really “arrived” as a big name until he can use his reputation to make a big splash in recruiting – either flipping a top defender committed elsewhere, or secure an elite recruit against fierce competition. Jenkins is an opportunity for Grantham to do the latter.
Really? I can think of plenty of big name coordinators who never have had much of a reputation as recruiters. There’s one coaching in the title game tonight. (Indeed, Grantham is chasing another such coach for the title of best defensive coordinator at Georgia since Erk.)
I will say I’m impressed with how much Grantham has involved himself in the recruiting process, both last year and this year. I just find it… I dunno, maybe a little creepy to suggest that his coaching reputation is so strongly tied to pulling in a particular recruit.
Get The Picture 
Carvell is an ass. He takes uninformed shots (i.e. the scholarship/offer revocation with the Wichett kid out of Washington H.S. last year is most egregious example). Also, he seems to have a fetish about casting every non-UGA commit being an indictment of UGA’s recruiting misses. Every kid chose Fill-in-the-Blank U over UGA, whether Georgia offered or not. Apart from his parroting other recruiting sites and his belief that UGA has a unique scholarship limit of 170, he does a great job.
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Agreed. Carvell often makes snide remarks regarding UGA on his twitter feed.
And did anyone else see Jeff Schultz’s column regarding Kirby Smart yesterday? Smart talked about his desire to be a head coach soon and Schultz praised him as being ready for it. Apparently Shultz thinks it’s bad form for a defensive coordinator to discuss his possible future plans during an off week in the middle of the season, but it’s great for a DC to discuss such plans a couple of days before his team plays for the BCS title.
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Schultz, as always, is a buffoon.
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With mentors like Schultz and Snark Fadley what do you expect?
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+1000. I’ve noticed his prick-like attitude, it’s almost as if he fancies himself the all-knowing guru. His work is disgusting, imo.
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Did Grantham not recruit Ray Drew last year? And wasn’t he one of the main reasons Jarvis Jones (a) decided to come to UGA in the first place and (b) is deciding not to enter the NFL draft early. I’d say the NFL is pretty “fierce competition.”
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+1
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Ever since Jarvis made his comment about staying to be coached up by Grantham-there have been a lot of comments from recruits about how much they like him-I think Jarvis got this ball rolling and I don’t mind it a bit-Jarvis Jones DGD
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+100
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Carvell makes me want to have Festivus in January so that we can truly have an airing of grievances. As others have said, he repeatedly makes snide little comments about UGA. Too many to list here. I hope that Jenkins is a Dawg commit tonight but I have a feeling that all of Carvell’s hints that it might actually happen are simply the prelude to an article tomorrow about how UGA “lost another one.” Carvell sucks. Period.
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I dunno if Carvell’s statement is creepy or not, but I do know that it’s hyperdramatic. It seems he saves most of his hyperdramatic statements for negative (or potentially negative) stories on UGA.
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Think H-Town Dawg said it well and spoke for me. Carvell’s attempts at being snarky are worse than mine and he is getting paid for it. I haven’t read anything original from him for some time and even then he screws it up. What kind of grad and fan tests the water before writing about the Dawgs? He does not deserve the column nor the platform. He is not a candidate for the Cojones Award.
Grantham has thrown his loyalty hat into the ring where I respect him most- he takes responsibility publically when his unit doesn’t perform to standard. He states that the last two losses were on the D’s back, including pointing out that MSU drove 85 yds on his group who were left to win or lose the game. He doesn’t blame other coaches nor players. He gets passionate in defense of his players and is open about their mistakes. He also defends players not in his group (Walsh, etc.) He belongs in our coaching staff and not to be separated above other coaches. The improvement on D is higher each year along with the players. The next year should be a defining one for the D under his tutelage and I reserve premature accolades about his coaching until then, principally because not drawing attention toward him helps keep him in our cupboard for a while . As a person he has nothing else to prove to us.
I was surprised to see that McGarity was talking contract with him since I thought he reported to Richt and that’s where the responsibility for hiring, firing, raises, etc were ensconsed with his staff. Thought McGarity only handled Richt’s and other head coaches’s contracts. I know responsibility resides in an admin group that actually works out the details and signings and they all represent differing depts, but was surprised McGarity said he was configuring Richt’s D Coach’s contract.
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+1000
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I feel compelled to state the obvious. When UGA starts winning 12-13 games in a season including winning SEC Championships and/or BCSNCs these bozos will STFU because saying stuff like that will make them look stupid. You don’t see things written on blogs about how sh!tty Bama and LSU recruit, do you? The cure for all this is winning.
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Completely agree. Good post.
It’s obvious, yet many Georgia fans complaining about the media’s lack of respect for our program don’t realize that simple truth.
The media fawns over big winners of late and we haven’t been big winners lately.
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Van Gorder to Auburn? For a year?
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“Defining moment” has been achieved. Welcome to the Dawgs Jordan Jenkins!
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