Being Georgia

I once wrote about the program when I was in one of my blacker, existentialist moods that, “The reality is that Georgia is a program that believes it’s better than it is.”  Some of that was reflected in a sense I had on occasion of a coaching staff that rested on its laurels.  Here’s an example of what I’m referring to:

Schools offering players scholarships earlier earlier in the annual recruiting calendar has also helped the industry get a head start on finding the best of the best.

“Five, 10 years ago, in-state schools usually waited to offer their best in-state players until the end,” Kennedy said. “So the old saying was: offer the guys you’re not going to get first. And that still happens to a certain extent, but if I’m in the state of Georgia, as soon as Georgia offers a guy, that sends a signal that this is the guy — who’s going to know the state of Georgia better than Georgia? So, basically, as soon as Georgia would offer a guy, then everybody else in the world would offer a guy.”

And in turn, that causes the recruiting analysts to go out and attempt to find the players earlier than ever.

“Well, Georgia can’t afford to wait anymore, because there’s 10 scouts working for media companies telling everybody how good this kid is,” Kennedy said. “The in-state schools can’t wait to offer the in-state guys the way they used to.”

In other words, talents like Thomas Davis don’t fall through the cracks anymore.

Sure, there are always those kids who will come to Georgia, come hell or high water.  But we’re in a day and age when talented high schoolers expect a high energy effort made by a coaching staff as part of the recruiting process.  They expect that early and often.  And these days there are plenty of coaching staffs who are prepared to deliver just that.

Richt’s old recruiting strategy of sitting back and making offers carefully no longer meshed with the new competitive reality.  Combined with inefficient roster management, it wound up biting him in the ass.  Yes, he began making course corrections to that, but it wound up being too little, too late.  You can bet he’s not going to repeat that mistake at Miami.

I doubt Kirby Smart will follow that path, either.