Every once in a while, I’ll be accused by a commenter of posting something purely for click bait purposes. Hey, you know what? If I really wanted to post stuff merely to drive traffic here, I’d be writing will he or won’t he recruiting pieces ’til the cows come home.
But I can’t do it. Not if it means trying to climb inside the heads of seventeen-year olds and speculate about their decisions. (As the father of three delightful daughters, I can tell you that the inside of a seventeen-year old’s head is a mystifying place, both to the adult and to the kid.) And especially if it means winding up in a place where we label the likes of Ray Drew as “overhyped”.
There’s a market for it, no doubt. People spend lots of money subscribing to recruiting services. But I just can’t do it.
Get The Picture 
I totally concur with everything you just said.
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+1
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Recruiting skeeves me out. Kind of like your own conception–vitally important, but you’d just rather not think about it. I hope we do well, and I’m sure I’ll read some headlines next week. But every time I read a recruiting article with grown men drooling over the physique of a 17 y/o and coaches pandering to moms and girlfriends on social media, I feel like I need to take a shower.
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The whole recruiting scene is comical IMO. Why would a fan base “meltdown” or “unite” over any particular recruit flipping. Commitments and class rankings and stars are meaningless. Most kids who get even a letter from Bama will get a 4 or 5 star ranking even if they can’t play a lick.
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Well, considering the fact that one of our 3 star WR commits just flipped to WVU, expect the sky to fall for some. It’s dumb. Up the with the “does less with more” and “too nice” nonsense.
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The problem Bright is the kids are just playing the game that we adults created…. the media, the fans who crave recruiting (I get it, its at least football talk when there is no football being played at the college level. And yes I have peeked myself !). But we cant get ticked off at the kids for running with the limelight. It would be easy to end – just stop paying attention, stop paying for sites like Rivals, etc…
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I agree, it’s all drivel to me. They all recruit the same guys, if we get our share of the pool, we should be competitive with our peers. So far, so good.
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I look at recruiting on signing day……..mostly to see if we fill our needs by position. The rest is a recipe for big heads and entitlement mentality. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in today. sigh.
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I stopped following recruiting many years ago, and I can’t tell you the name of even one of UGA’s 2015 recruits. The only name I’m aware of is a highly touted QB (Eason?) that is verbally committed for next year, and that’s due to some piece I stumbled across on ESPN a few months back that mentioned him.
Particularly considering the plethora of 3 star types that went on to be outstanding players along the many 4-5 star busts we’ve also experienced, IMO its pointless getting wrapped up into something that’s a total crap shoot. That is, unless you’re retired with absolutely nothing else better to do other than do cross word puzzles, play with the grand kids, and plan your next cruise.
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I’m retired without absolutely nothing else to do ..wife does crosswords, the grandkids get down once a year, and my next cruise is planned, so I watch the recruiting of young men from the state of Georgia and any others we can grab that fill our needs. I recognize that it’s a big decision for these young men. One that will impact their future lives and I’m happy when they choose/are chosen by the UGA. I track recruiting like I watch the games: vicariously since my playing days and coaching days have long passed. I cuss the players by name when they “false start” and praise them, by name, when they make a good block, run, catch, or tackle. Kinda like a lot of you on here coach, handle B-M decisions, and criticize the SEC/NCAA and other schools. Of course, that’s different from my piddling around watching recruits. You’re much more qualified to handle those chores and expound on this blog than I. So, excuse me, I’ll go back to reading the blogs with other recruitniks and clipping my coupons. Can’t wait for signing day, spring football and future editions of GTP. As Furman Bisher used to say, Selah!
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GTP should stick to your standards (not covering recruiting) or it loses its standard for quality. This applies to most things in life, except if you are the HC of UGA…then you are supposed to change your standards to meet the expectations of others.
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Agree 100% Senator. And anyone that badmouths Ray Drew is just useless to me. Ray is one of my favorite Dawgs and I love seeing him do well. He will be a success at whatever he puts his mind to.
I like recruiting once everyone is signed. Before that, it’s too much like sausage making. I don’t want to see it.
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Neither of this year’s Super Bowl teams has a player in the two-deep that was rated a five-star coming out of high school. The average number of stars earned by their two deep is less than 2.5.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2015/1/21/7861989/super-bowl-2015-patriots-seahawks-high-school-recruiting-ratings
I know it’s comparing the pros to college, but seems like knowing when a kid is peaking is an art at any level of the game.
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Nice stat, Dolly. You just reduced the angst on this blog by tons. Your last sentence is on point; it is an art and if everyone would look closely at any player’s ability, they would see a great deal of worth and upside to all the “3-star” players we have on board. If you watched them play on their HS field, you couldn’t place a value on their athleticism using a star system. Validation of your last sentence would also show that differing values are placed on players depending upon the value system of differing recruiting sites. It’s all mox nix.
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Ray deserved to be remembered for blocking that XPT against Tech. That, not any sense of being a recruiting bust, would have been his legacy, I’d wager. A DGD, either way.
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7th circle of hell: the signing day party at the Blind Pig. Thank you for keeping this window into UGA football free of the cheap, superficial brand of bullshit that comes along with signing ‘hype’.
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I always thought that whole event would be rather bizarre: getting drunk in the morning while eating at a breakfast buffet waiting on fax receipts to be reported who knows how. While thinking about this I have nothing but more questions, but no interest in being in attendance.
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Tell Nate hello when you see him…
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I care about recruiting. Its important. I want us to get great players.
I don’t follow it anymore however. Just comes across as high school celebrity version of the Bachelor.
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I care about recruiting just not to the point of jumping from a ledge if a 17-18 year old decides to go play for somebody else. The Bear’s comment that you can’t make chicken salad from chicken $#!+ is true. The process is about filling needs with quality players not about some subjective rankings that the services make up.
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This blog is swell!
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I’m one the few that follows it pretty good. The experts, are some funny guys kissing up to the Shaq Wiggins out there. I can’t imagine having to beg these young egomaniacs for their time. I for hope you never start the recruiting threads GTP is the best of the best as is. Hey Senator I have two daughters myself isn’t it amazing the way daughter’s can wrap daddies around their fingers.
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One of my favorite things about this blog is the absence of constant recruiting updates and all the inherent melodrama that moves with it. I followed recruiting closely for a few years and tired of it quickly. I want us to get good players but I’m never keeping up with that stuff again and don’t like talking to people that are really into it.
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We’ll know you have resorted to click bait when you start doing slideshows with provacative teasers like:
Ten Georgia Lettermen you never knew are gay!
Or
The ten most infamous crimes by former Dawgs!
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Let’s hope Michael Carvell and Chip Towers don’t read this blog. They’ll have “articles” about these two exact things by Friday.
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Also, we will know you have resorted to click bait when you use head lines like, “HUGE UGA Football Update!” Only to lead the reader to something they either already knew or just don’t care about much. I access this blog through dawgbone and the blog that does that is the textbook example of click baiting. I told them so once in a comment and named this blog as an example of how it’s done. They essentially admitted that their blog is inferior.
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Well I feel dirty now. I follow recruiting this time of year. It’s the closest thing I have to college football. That and watching reruns of the games. I don’t pay for the news. I don’t mind waiting a few days to get the news free. Also, I realize that the star ratings are just someone’s opinion, which is limited to selected film, and means nothing to a kids potential. I guess I need to sign myself up for a recruit-a-holics anonymous class. 😦
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I try not to get to hung up on recruiting, but I do try and keep up a little.
I will agree that finishing 5th behind 3 SEC schools isnt that exciting.
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Thank you kind sir, simply thank you.
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….b….b…b…but Rico McCraw just decommitted from Bama after he committed to them earlier after he decommitted from UGA after he committed to UGA…….. God, I hope he picks us. And then there’s some guy named Shaq, or Shat, or Shaft or something like that, he’s going to be All Pro his freshman year and didn’t even have to go to class to graduate HS.
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