I guess you could say that Mark Richt recruits with an eye on the Fulmer Cup point totals.
“Well, I can’t tell you how many times we don’t bring [a recruit] into Georgia because we were concerned about [off-the-field issues],” he said. “… So that happens quite often and we just gotta make judgments on what’s best for the university. And we do that on a daily basis.”
I wonder if vetting the potential recruits through Jimmy Williamson is part of the process.
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UPDATE: Tyler suggests Richt’s doing an adequate job with retention.
Get The Picture 
Well, that explains the scooter obstacle course set up over at the track.
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Am I the only one who thinks Richt never would have made these comments if he wasn’t 15+ legitimate scholarships shy of a full boat? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t doubt these sorts of things are considered in recruiting. I’m sure they are. But I don’t ever recall Richt saying something like this publicly before. If I missed something, let me know.
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I lean towards saying you’re reading too much into the tea leaves…
However, ever since the “I know what the hell I’m doing” comment last year at the Bulldog Club meeting, it does seem like Richt’s grown some rabbit ears the past few years.
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You’re probably right. Richt’s public comments have been more candid in the last couple of years. Maybe this is just s product of that.
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Never heard that subject addressed publicly by CMR but I would question his capacity to be a HC if he didn’t address those issues. All coaches have to take that into consideration although many are pretty confident they can “control” the situation. I don’t think our coach can take that approach due to the “no tolerance” stance at UGA by Adams, and the aggressive position of law enforcement where even minor incidents are booked with a mug shot. It isn’t so bad, I can support those tough positions, but the playing field isn’t even close to level around the country. We all know the major problems that were swept under the rug at PSU and tosu, imagine was else is overlooked in those two places, or the other locations where a “culture of corruption” exists.
Richt has to evaluate character of recruits, and the input from HS coaches is critical. Our coaches are only with recruits for a few hours, anyone can act straight for a few hours so local input is needed. I do think the conversations with parents/family play a large role in this process. Until their are serious economic consequences for bad behavior, young men will continue to push the envelope. I applaud Goodell’s initiative in the NFL but it will take at least a generation to filter down deep enough to show up in the recruiting process.
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How’s about the kid who stole on the recruiting trip? We dropped his dumb ass right away. Other schools then went after him.
That may seem like an extreme example. But it at least shows that this screening process has been in effect for some time.
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I realize these sorts of things are considered, and they should be. My question was about why Richt is suddenly willing to discuss it. AuditDawg had a good point above. Maybe this is more about his general trend toward slightly more candid remarks than it is about making excuses – which was the first thought I had.
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As fans we will never know, or agree, on the recruitment of certain players. Some are just not good fits for physical reasons, or our staff simply doesn’t agree with the analysis of the recruiting gurus. This is unlikely on a 5 star but I think fans make way too much about selecting a 2 or 3 star. There are hundreds, and hundreds of examples of players under, or over, achieving the predicted level once they reach CFB. The mental and physical differences that occur in a 17 year old and a 22 year old can be remarkable so the ability to project accurately at such a critical time in life.
Character issues may explain why we don’t go after some highly touted players, but just an honest difference of opinion is very possible. It all comes back to the success of the program to determine how much second guessing is done. Our fans are more openly critical of our coaches than most top-notch programs, but there is just too many variables in the process to question why we didn’t go after specific players, likewise how we could go so wrong on an IC, or other programs with their elite recruits. Look at how many busts their are in the NFL draft, and they are looking at players at a different time in their development and and after watching them play at a higher level of competition.
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I think you may be misreading me, Mac. I’m a Richt fan. I don’t question why he does or doesn’t recruit certain players – mainly because I don’t know the details.
The only reason I made the original comment was to question why Richt felt like discussing it now. He’s been making these sorts of evaluations in recruiting for over a decade, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard him make such a candid remark on the subject. As AuditDawg said above, it is possible that I’m nit-picking, and this is just a product of Richt’s progression toward more candid remarks in general. However, my first thought after reading the comments was that he felt a need to explain a process that he never felt the need to explain before. Sometimes when that happens, it is because the speaker (Richt, in this case) is feeling a bit of pressure on the subject. Sometimed it isn’t. I honestly don’t know whether that is true in this case. I was just asking the question.
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No, I didn’t get the impression you were questioning him in your comment, just saying fans give too much credence to the rating services and assume the coaches missed out on someone. They usually question any 3 star signed by a top school, forgetting how many of them have exceeded the higher rated players. We simply aren’t in a position to judge, just 20/20 every move they make. At that time of life, facing the first time away from parental supervision, things can swerve off the road in a hurry.
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Or it could be a more general sense that he needs to more proactively defend himself given that the local media (read AJC) is constantly attacking him and his program.
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So what ever magic character screening process they use, somehow someway IC slipped through the cracks? Sounds more like a built-in excuse to use anytime one of the big fish leaves the state boundaries.
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The excuse thing is there, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people complain about GA “not even recruiting” some guy who goes elsewhere. There are usually reasons why we don’t recruit some guys who have stars next to their names, but it’s not always character.
Also, I don’t want to pretend I know anything about his background, but isn’t it correct that Crowell did not have an arrest record until he was arrested for the gun charge and kicked off the team? I know one person who had an arrest record when he went to GA-sure am glad they didn’t halt my recruitment. Still, maybe there were rumors around Columbus I don’t know about.
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First, just because IC got in trouble doesn’t mean there were reasons to believe that would happen prior to his recruitment. College is a pretty eye-opening experience, and you can only control so much when you’re in charge of 100+ young men in the prime of their life in peak physical condition who have spent the past couple years hearing nothing but how godlike they are and are now exposed to all the things that make most men want to attend a southern college in the first place. That’s a hell of a cocktail.
Second, Richt said it was a judgment call, which makes me believe he thinks certain risks are worth it. For instance, he took Christian LeMay. Doesn’t make him a hypocrite, it just makes him a man who’s trying to find the right balance between winning and accountability — two concepts that aren’t mutually exclusive.
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I think evaluations of recruits roughly follow this formula:
Talent + Need +/- Character = Player Rating
IC was so high in talent and need that we were willing to take a calculated risk on character. And he produced! We got one year of production out of him and he helped us win the SEC East. Despite his ending, he was well worth the scholarship.
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I heard much the same comments on a different sports talk show yesterday. Richt also said there were times when following a recruit’s on-campus visit, the player assigned to him might come to the coach and say the recruit may not be a good fit for the program (assuming this means if they are stealing from lockers or asking where the best head shops are in town).
I’m sure that comment and the rest have a good deal of truth in them, and I also think it’s nothing new or radical. Plus it’s also a bit of coach-speak thrown in for good measure.
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One thing we do not know is the conversations that the coaches have with the recruits. That’s fine with me and if CMR feels like the youngster might be a problem I’ll let him decide that. His quote is a non answer, cause if he had not been doing so, I think we’d be in a lot worse shape.
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I don’t have a complaint about CMR’s recruiting ability – he’s tough to beat when he sets his sites on a recruit. I think most recruit’s mamas would consider him the ideal coach. But our rules are very strick, maybe too strick, since we’re clearly tougher than just about every other D-1 program. My only complaint is that CMR has a terrible habit of not considering our attrition and under-recruiting the number of players we need. It’s not a fatal problem, but its much more serious than he seems to think. Looking at this year’s verbals (26 as I write this), perhaps he’s come to his senses on this issue.
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excuse me, spelled “strict’
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Do you want to be good Danny? Goood Gooooood . . . . .
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The Bama retention rate of 58% contains the players that Satan…er…Saban ran off on purpose, too. Right?
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If you look at Tyler’s numbers you will see that basically all of the “attrition” at Alabama, LSU, and USC is a basically roster management, meaning they had lose that many players just to get to the scholarship limit. It’s easy to be tough on crime, when you are forced to cut players to make the number.
Team Cuts to 85 total attrition % of players lost to scholarship cut
Georgia 22 40 55%
Alabama 54 57 95%
LSU 38 39 97%
Auburn 49 59 83%
Florida 23 29 79%
South Carolina 47 48 98%
obviously UGA should have signed more than 107 players though.
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It should be noted that the real issue isn’t signing fewer than 25/yr the past two years, it is only signing classes of 19-20 in 2008-10, when LSU, Auburn, and Alabama were signing classes closer to 30.
My point was that attrition happens: See Tyrann Mathieu or four Auburn players last year for armed robbery. Call it roster management or whatever, those programs are in much better position because they signed more guys. Not signing enough should be the complaint, not that Coach Richt can’t keep players in the program.
Also, don’t forget there is a legitimate debate to be had on the ethics of the renewable scholarship, as well as how Alabama will handle the new 4 year scholarship purport to be giving out now.
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Exactly. After Matheiu was dismissed from LSU last week, I sent Jeff Schultz a sarcastic tweet about whether he had an article coming up about how Les Miles overlooked the red flags in the the honey badger’s recruiting process. No response from him as of yet.
It’s lazy to attack Richt for players leaving the program, even though those tend to be the most sensational news stories. The real story should be that he hasn’t been signing to 85 the last few years which has gotten us in the current depth chart pickle.
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Schultz doesn’t have time for that shit. He has snark to write.
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UGa will only sign up to their scholarship limit. There is no oversigning. Richt has said that he thought gray shirting would be ethical if the kid knew in advance and accepted paying his own way. However Adams and the AD said there will be no oversigning at UGa. There may be as many as 10 EEs in January so the Dawgs may sing as many as 34 players in 2013 and do it legally.
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