Mailbag wisdom

Seth Emerson had a couple of items in yesterday’s Mailbag that addressed topics previously raised by commenters here, so I thought I’d point ’em out.

First, about Marc Deas’ recent decision to leave the program for greener pastures:

We can all clearly see the depth evaporate in the UGA secondary, and it’s a punch to the gut to see talented players make bad decisions off the field.  A year ago, I understand why some players (e.g. Jakar Hamilton) would wish to transfer to get more playing time elsewhere.  Maybe I’m missing something, but why would Marc Deas transfer?  With the suspensions and transfers, wouldn’t Deas be guaranteed great playing time?  Is this more the case of Marc not fitting into the system?
– Rob Wright

Deas actually wasn’t guaranteed anything. That was obvious when you heard the coaches mention Connor Norman, a former walk-on, before they got to Deas…

The old expression “if you haven’t got anything good to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all” comes to mind.  Maybe some of us don’t want to recognize that in this case – although it’s worth noting that there wasn’t a single comment about Deas here at GTP until news of his departure went public – but Deas apparently did.

And on a topic that has gotten a lot more chatter than Deas, the size of Georgia’s next signing class, Emerson had this to say:

By my count Georgia is at 73 scholarships, counting incoming freshmen, for the 2012 season. There are 13 seniors. Jarvis Jones and Alec Ogletree will be candidates to leave early for the draft. For the sake of argument, and accuracy, I’ll keep it there and not factor in your estimate of further attrition. So that’s 60 scholarships committed to for the 2013 season. The NCAA limit is 85. Georgia can sign at least 25, and if it wanted to could sign 31 because of back-counting, after only signing 19 last year.  [Emphasis added.]

So there you have it.  I hope Emerson or somebody in the media will ask Richt after next Signing Day if Georgia signs something close to 30 kids with heavy back counting whether that was part of a deliberate strategy he pursued in putting the 2012 class together.

By the way, the funniest thing from his Mailbag yesterday was his response to a question asking him to compare Georgia’s fan base with others:  “I think I’ve said before that Georgia fans are a little harder on their teams and coaches than other teams I’ve covered; or at least South Carolina fans, some of whom had a conspiratorial tone: the media was to blame, the police, the NCAA, the SEC, etc.”