Jeremy Pruitt wasted little time getting into negative recruiting mode against his old program.
Now add Alabama to that list. He got a call on Sunday night from former UGA defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. He asked if he’d heard from anybody at UGA since the changes.
“Not besides Kirby,” Laguins told Pruitt. “Twice.”
Alabama’s new defensive coordinator then asked if anyone from UGA had been to see him yet.
“Nope,” Laguins said. “He was like ‘Wow. Are you kidding because you were one of our top guys at Georgia? We thought we were good at inside linebacker with you there’ and he couldn’t believe it. Pruitt was like ‘Bring your butt down here to Bama on the 23rd.’ I guess he reinstated the offer I had at Bama like Kirby reaffirmed the offer I had from the previous UGA staff.”
Think things might be a little tense in that office those two are sharing now?
Get The Picture 
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
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What a nasty business.
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I don’t think Kirby wants 6’1 210lb backers. Laguins plays for Oconee County and lives literally 10 mins from campus. If Kirby wants to reach out to him he would have. He is letting recruits that don’t fit his blue print go. That’s just my two cents.
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Hammer head applied to nail head. We are looking for Ben Davis type ILB’s not converting what should be a Strong Safety to play ILB. Kirby is on the right track.
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+1
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The drama continues.
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I’ll be surprised if this arrangement makes it thru the supposed duration.
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This first year of recruiting could be a little bit rough. Kirby’s guys he wants — if they are committed anywhere — are probably committed to Alabama.
Yes, there may be a few that he wanted that committed to Georgia, but if they said no to Kirby, well, they may have said no for a particular Kirby-related reason.
It is no reason to panic, though. It’s just a reason that the open contact month before NSD is going to be interesting to see.
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Its not improbable Smart was sitting in the office with Pruitt when he made the call.
Recruiting is a business with these guys.
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No, really? With getting fired if they don’t ten games and losing that million-plus salary at stake?
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You mean Pruitt?. …actually 12 is the win number at Bama. Smart has nothing to worry about, Georgia never fires a coach before his time..and sometimes after.
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Disagree with that 10 wins not good enough any longer
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I know Kirby wants to take his time with setting up his staff, but this is getting ridiculous. If Sherrer and/or Rocker are staying in Athens, they need to be getting after it. For all the supposed “great publicity” the Georgia program is going to get from Smart in the CFP, it sure feels like we’re getting the short end of the stick.
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Yeah, the “UGA gets great publicity when 2 times every minute the announcers talk about Kirby Smart to UGA” myth is just that; a myth.
I drank that Kool-Aid in January 2001 when I excitedly watched FSU and Oklahoma play in the BCS championship game. My memory is that the only mention of FSU’s offensive coordinator going to UGA was one comment about whether his split duties was the reason the FSU offense struggled. Hardly a great recruiting ad.
Ever since I have paid attention to telecasts of games where a coordinator is leaving for a head coaching job elsewhere and I don’t ever hear anything that could be used in recruiting.
The Alabama v. Oklahoma game is about those two teams. The announcers are going to talk about topics related to those teams, not about assistant coaches’ future plans.
We get zero benefit from Smart coaching Alabama. I understand why he feels he had a commitment to UA and is duty bound to fulfill it. Alabama gets 100% of the benefit and Georgia gets 0%.
I also get that a rookie HC makes rookie head coaching mistakes and Smart is making his first head coaching mistake.
I hope that in December 2035 he will have a 298-0 record, never leaves UGA and never has to learn from that mistake.
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Especially does anyone think Fowler or Herbstreit will go out of their way to talk about what a great job Smart does and what that will mean to UGA? If you do, I have some lovely waterfront property in Ware County to sell you. If it goes well, they’ll talk more about how Saban has such control over the Alabama program that he was able to convince Smart to stay to help him win another championship. If it doesn’t, it will be more about how Smart’s lack of focus lost the championship for Little Nicky.
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According to the linked article Jaleel Laguins will not be swayed by Chris Fowler saying, “Alabama’s DC is going to UGA” every 30 seconds, even if by some miracle ESPN decides assistant coaches future career choices are the most interesting things to millions of viewers nationally.
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Bama is playing Michigan State
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My bad. Thanks for catching that.
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Gee golly..I can’t believe we are getting out bama’d by Alabama. Imagine that. Saban has seen the SEC east coming from a mile away..
A fool and money and all that.
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Unbelievable … I think we all know who the fool is and he’s a poster child for bad hair dye.
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It’s the goofiest hair coloring ever. And where I live I see a lot of hair jobs. His makes me cringe.
OK now back to regular programming.
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I imagine in sunny south Florida you see some bad dye jobs and comb-overs. 🙂
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I thought that (Just For Men) black was a new wave in hair coloring.
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It makes him look 15 years younger (eye roll).
DiF, we need your embedding creativity!
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In other news:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14399127/will-grier-transfer-florida-gators-amid-one-year-suspension
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I saw that. Is Treon Harris the most unlikely 3 year starter at QB in TWLOCP ever?
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If they win next year, he would probably get a spot in the WLOCP Hall of Fame some day … imagine that
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Since it is a dead period when did this happen?
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Dead period only means no in person contact…
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That is right and apparently Saban cancelled Kirby’s cell service, and our AD is waiting until UGA’s cell plan expires to give Kirby an android.
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I saw this over a week ago.
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I am convinced they ALL recruit this way, pump up your school, run the other guys into the gutter. It is well known that Bama spends more money doing this than most. They are what they are.
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Like Captain Renault above, I’m shocked, shocked that Pruitt would do such a thing!
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I was kidding when I mentioned that they could share the same recruiting board in that office. Now I am pretty much not kidding. What an odd, odd situation
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Yeah, Jimmy Sexton threw out the smokescreen that Smart wanted to leave Alabama for South Carolina, we bit and created an opening. Then, someone on the athletic board (I strongly suspect his initials are TJRPDOAGM) explained that the move “was all about Kirby Smart” before we hired Smart, giving Sexton all the leverage in the negotiations. Saban leaned on Smart to promise to stay at Alabama through the playoffs and we had no leverage to say “No.” During that period South Carolina still had not hired Muschamp and Sexton told our ace negotiator that, “Kirby really likes SC at Tanner will let Kirby wait until after the playoffs” and that, I will bet, is how Smart and Pruitt came to share an office. Saban was wily in his assignment of office space, too, wasn’t he? I wonder if anyone on our side told Smart or Sexton, “we will agree to Saban having you through the playoffs if you bring back to us a commitment that Alabama will not attempt to recruit any of the guys who have already committed to UGA?”
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“I wonder if anyone on our side told Smart or Sexton, ‘we will agree to Saban having you through the playoffs if you bring back to us a commitment that Alabama will not attempt to recruit any of the guys who have already committed to UGA?’”
Yeah, that same guy who did such a great job negotiating with the NCAA on AJ Green and Todd Gurley’s suspensions to violating a rule that no one else has been severely punished for … what a tool.
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You sure got it all figured out.
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No one cares whether I figured anything out. What you should worry about is whether McGarity has figured out how to transition from one head coach to another. The evidence is that he has not mastered that strategy yet.
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I guess in the incestuous world of CFB coaching, non-competes are rarer than engaged fans at a Colgate-Northeastern game. In the part of the business world I’m in, the Smart-Pruitt arrangement might even earn a sanction for (at least the appearance of) collusion. Divvying up of recruits, sharing confidential information, and such. (I’m not saying this is happening, but it sure could.)
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The calls are coming from inside the house
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This is news? Everybody with a lick of sense knew Pruitt would hurt us on the recruiting circuit and on the field. Smart could’ve made his life easier by keeping our top assistant & best recruiter. Saban didn’t make that mistake. Master saban teaches soon-to-be ex-apprentice a lesson about running a program.
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Pruitt is a asshole just like Saban they should get along just fine
cheek to cheek….with them in the middle.
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As long as Saban gets what he wants… which is all that’s really happening here. UGA’s head coach is an assistant at Alabama.
Let that sink in.
Now, realize our AD agreed to that deal. (Or that our HC even wanted it).
Such bullshit.
Kirby has a lot of work to do.
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