A little Sunday afternoon tea leaf reading

Here are a couple of quotes about Pruitt’s defensive strategy for you to ponder.

From 2014 cornerback commitment Shattle Fenteng:

He talked about his role with new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt on his Athens visit.

“We went over plays,” Fenteng said. “He told me that I’m the kind of DB that he offered. He told me that he wanted me still and that he liked me. … He’s all about playing man. He knows that’s my specialty.”

And from Garrison Smith:

… Smith said it’s his understanding  the Bulldogs’ will utilize a 4-3 look more than a 3-4 next season under new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt.

In the 3-4, he said, Georgia’s D-linemen had to be very rigid in carrying out their assignments and maintaining gap control. The 4-3 allows more for “free-styling,” which suits the games of Johnson and Thornton.

“That’s why I think Meatball is about to get his chance,” Smith said of Thornton. “I think the 4-3 defense is more suitable to him. He is a penetrator.”

All about playing man and “free-styling”… sounds aggressive.  Of course, Grantham sounded that way, too, when he showed up.  Is any of that moving you guys?

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“The class was not stacked with those elite guys four years ago.”

If you believe recruiting is going more smoothly now than it did the last time Georgia’s defensive staff blew up, Seth Emerson has a few reasons why you might think so.

Mostly, it’s about Jeremy Pruitt, but to be fair, Pruitt comes in facing a smaller change in recruiting philosophy from Grantham than Grantham did from Martinez.

That being said, boy, did that 2010 class turn out to be disappointing.

The best reason yet for a college players union

Per Mark Murphy, Green Bay Packers’ CEO and former Northwestern AD, in response to a question about the attempt to form a college players union:

If the players nationally are successful in unionizing, it will completely change the relationship that schools have with their players. The NCAA has been dealing with a similar issue with calls for payment to players, and the NCAA has increased the monthly stipends to players over the years, but unionization would take it to a whole different level. In terms of the NFL, the NCAA colleges have served as a great breeding ground for NFL teams over the years. If the college players unionize, there will be more pressure on the NFL to establish a developmental league. [Emphasis added.]

If that’s really, truly the case, all I can say is go, dog, go.

(h/t Kevin McGuire)

Georgia and JUCO transfers: now you see them, now you don’t.

Weiszer notes that Georgia will only sign one JUCO player in this year’s class, cornerback commitment Shattle Fenteng.  That’s a sizeable drop off from last year’s group of five transfers, but it’s actually a return to form for Richt’s recruiting.  As I noted at the time, last year’s JUCO class was larger than Georgia’s previous four combined.  Richt explained why:

“If you remember, we had some guys from the ‘Dream Team’ class that, you know, some DBs that ended up not being with us anymore. So those are guys that would’ve been ready to step into the role (as a starter next year with) a little bit more maturity. Since we had a void in that area, we wanted to make sure we brought in some guys that were a little bit older and a little bit more mature in their ability to play the game. But the other thing we knew is that we were going to try to sign a very large class. And the goal was to break up the class. We didn’t want every single guy to be a freshman. We wanted to break it up a little bit, where it we’d have enough junior college guys that would be two years old older than the other guys in the class.

“The other thing that really came out really well for us was the midyear enrollees. Having 13 come in (and enroll in January) was tremendous for us. All of those guys seem to be doing extremely well. And that broke up our big class as well. We have 13 guys now, and we’re indoctrinating them the Georgia way academically and physically — and they’re getting a head start on football, of course.

“So now that rest of the class is going to be closer to 20, instead of 32 or 33 rolling in all at one time. We’ve got it broken up because of the number of midyear players, which I think is working out very well for us so far.”

This year’s class is much smaller, of course.  But I think the single JUCO transfer indicates that Richt is more comfortable with the spacing of his team’s experience.  Hopefully, it’s another indication that he’s aware of the mistakes that were made managing roster size.

I hope it also indicates that Fenteng can contribute quickly.  Per Richt on JUCO transfers to Georgia, “A lot of times it is a need-basis issue,” Richt said. “If you need a mature player at a position, then you will do it.”  It’s not like they can’t use the help.

State of the art recruiting

Your fun fact of the day:  “A spokesman for LSU said signing day is essentially the only day the athletics department’s fax machine gets used.”

I always thought the old-school camping out to get a kid’s signature was more romantic, anyway.