Mark Richt has an eye for talent.
Mark Richt on recruiting Deshaun Watson to UGA: “I told (OC) Mike Bobo, this guy is going to take someone to a national championship.” Richt said he was convinced as soon as Clemson signed Watson, they’d be great. His take on Watson’s TD pass vs Georgia in his first career game: “I was glad they took him out after that.”
Hey, at least they talked about it!
Get The Picture 
SMH
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He blames Bobo
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LOL.
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Well played Sir
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^^^ this ^^^
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The mishandling of Watson’s recruitment by Bobo and Richt is one of the most frustrating things about the Richt era. He was in our backyard, grew up a Georgia fan, and would have been a perfect fit as a dual-threat QB for our pro-style offense. Sure, we weren’t going to start running a bunch of zone read option, but he had the same skill set as DJ Shockley and may be a better pure passer. It was a case of a day late and a dollar short and probably ended up as a contributing factor to CMR’s departure from Athens.
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Probably? Most definitely. Not singing an SEC caliber QB after Murray was Richt’s biggest mistake.
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Saban thought Brice Ramsey was an SEC caliber QB after his commitment to Georgia.
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Exactly, Ramsey was supposed to be SEC caliber but didn’t develop. He has the arm. Park also had big name offers, which transferred when Lambert came in.
Bobo did not adapt to a dual threat. Murray was supposed to be more of a run threat than we saw, and he did have some big runs at Tenn. and Auburn. Murray did very well but I think he could have done more with his legs.
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They made the right call with that. Murray is a tough kid but he isn’t built for running — he’d very likely have gotten hurt.
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Saban tried to sign Jacob Park as well.
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I didn’t know that – thanks
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I will say it. UGA cannot sign every star that comes out of Georgia. Not all stars in Georgia want to play in Athens either. This is just Richt pimping an ACC Star…nothing more, or less. He was high on a Vandy QB a few years back…
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What you say is all true but Watson was a Georgia fan and a special talent player. Richt and Bobo were either lazy or dumb in waiting to recruit him and letting Dabo get him locked down like he did. While it’s true Georgia can’t sing every star in the state, we should easily sign the ones who are great players AND are lifetime Georgia fans.
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I follow recruiting pretty closely. I never recall hearing anything about Watson growing up a UGA fan. if anything, he initial interests were with Clemson due to a family friend. His interests were playing in an offense tailor made for his skill sets, which was what he was offered at Clemson by the OC that left after his freshman year to get a head coaching gig in texas.
Richt and Bobo whiffed on signing him, but they certainly made every effort to flip him. Heck, Bobo was at nearly ever home basketball game he played in his senior year trying to flip him. He was there often his junior year trying to get him.
At the end of the day, they thought Brice Ramsey was an SEC caliber quarterback with the skillset to be a starter(they were wrong). They planned to triangulate efforts on signing Ramsey first, then Watson second, as Ramsey was a year ahead.
Ultimately, Watson committed his sophomore year to Clemson and could not be swayed. That is to his credit. Richt and crew needed a QB the year Ramsey signed. They were afraid if they went all out for Watson before Ramsey signed, he’d flip to Bama or elsewhere.
this story is akin to the Cam Newton as a tight end story that just won’t go away. Cam Newton was recruited as a QB to UGA until the day he told them he’d never come to UGA to sit behind Stafford. He thought he could beat out Tim Tebow so that’s where he went. We tried as a last ditch effort to recruit him as a tight end just to get the guy in Athens.
The Watson decision decided Richt’s career in Athens, but to blame lack of effort as the reason behind it is asinine and typical of comments.
/rant
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How about blaming Richt’s stubbornness? Watson was well aware that we would never deviate from running the same old pro-style, stand in the pocket offense that we always ran. He was wise to make the decision that he did.
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He left out a few words…
“…this guy is going to take someone to a national championship while playing defensive back.”
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Ah the Dooley Way.
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then WR, back to DB, then maybe as a last resort as 3rd string punter
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That was a beautiful pass. Who says true freshman can’t play QB?
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LOL!…..the comments should be fun to watch on this.
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Deshawn threw one pass that was impressive BUT on the series when Clem’son scored with him at QB he threw into double coverage and was lucky it wasn’t intercepted. Rushing stats …. 5 rushes for minus 3 yards, and yes I know that includes sacks but it indicates he clearly held on to the ball too long. I don’t change to a read option offense just to land him. The pro-style offense is why kids who hope to go pro come to Georgia.
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This is sarcasm…right? Please say yes…
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UGA vs. clemson was a HUGE game for both programs. Watson not only played in his first game as a tiger, but threw a TD too.
Meanwhile, in CMR’s mind he was:
A) questioning why clemson didn’t redshirt Watson. How could he be of any use without at least a year and a half of learning the O.
B) wondering why Watson was playing QB and not TE.
C) postulating whether Watson could catch the ball in the punt safe position.
D) lamenting that if we only had an open roster spot we could’ve signed Watson. Oh wait…
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e) Make a great scout team DB
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e) wondering why Dabo didn’t opt for a field goal every time he smelled the red-zone.
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Right,
Because Richt hated black quarterbacks and still can’t live with himself for ever playing DJ or Charlie Ward at QB. He is also still kicking himself for playing Stafford as a freshman as well as Gurley, Chubb, Keith Marshall, and Malcom Mitchell.
I love how Richt bashers take one example of an error run with it. Richt had his faults but the QB position wasn’t one of them. He also learned from the mistake of redshirting Knowshon.
Now OL recruiting and roster management, those are different stories.
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Who said anything about black quarterbacks?
And you claim that the QB position was not one of Richt’s faults yet the last 2 years were pretty freaking bad.
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Hutson Mason finished tenth nationally in passer rating in 2014.
I do not think “pretty freaking bad” means what you think it means.
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I don’t think it means what you think it means (I’ve been wanting to use that little piece of condescending snark for a while). Not being a threat to throw the ball downfield means “pretty freaking bad” to me.
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The NFL was so impressed with Mason that he lasted less than a month in the league. Then he lasted a little less than a month and a half in the CFL.
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Why do I give a shit about the NFL?
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I have no idea what you give a shit about or why. But most objective people would see the fact that those leagues had almost zero interest in Mason as additional proof (beyond his play at UGA) that we were subpar at QB that year.
However, it was largely covered up by 2 absolutely dynamite running backs. Take those guys off that 2014 team and we would have had QB play similar to we had in the 2nd half of last year.
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I see. So it really doesn’t matter if the offense moves the ball, just whether the QB can bomb it.
You would have loved the Raiders’ offense back in the 60s. 🙂
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The offense moved the ball because we had 2 of the best RBs to ever play at UGA on that team.
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What does that have to do with his passer rating?
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You don’t think passer rating is somewhat dependent on the offense’s ability to run the ball? It’s a hell of a lot easier to throw the ball if the defense has to key heavily on limiting an explosive running game.
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Somewhat dependent is a pretty amorphous measure. Here’s the 2014 top 100 in passer ratings – some had good running games, some didn’t.
I get your point about Georgia’s running attack, but think you’re judging Mason too harshly.
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I might be. Wouldn’t be the first time.
I think a really good QB will usually have at least a decent passer rating, regardless of his team’s ability to run the ball. But a mediocre-to-bad QB can have wild fluctuations in passer rating based on his team’s ability to run.
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I mean – questioning Richt is a time honored tradition here, but what a stupid Dabo was in leaving Cole Stoudt in over Watson after that ridiculous throw he made.
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Kevin Steele should have fired him
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1 for the Masters reference.
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+1
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Watson’s not coming to UGA changed the course of two programs and two coaches. Imagine Dabo and Richt if Watson had come to UGA. Colossal failure to recruit our state that had major ramifications.
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in that case I’m thrilled he signed with Clemson–you must have long term vision
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Wow, that’s pretty much like cheering for your team to lose, so your coach can be fired. Please go be a fan somewhere else.
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Kind of the like the butt hurt Richt defenders hoping that Kirby doesn’t “win 10 games” so that they can get their self esteem back.
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I haven’t seen anyone actively cheering for us to lose or hope for recruits to go elsewhere. Comments like anon’s are the ones we should all call out as ridiculous and make our fan base look like a bunch of entitled babies.
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By the way, if that was directed at me, I guarantee you I want this program to be highly successful regardless of who leads the program.
Can we eliminate “butt hurt” from our lexicon? It’s so StinGTalk.
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You can’t hide “scum”, he is just a little man. Exposed exactly what he is, and is not.
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From reading some of these comments above… I’ve come to the conclusion that human being’s must not be capable of making any decisions of their own until after they get to college, and that CMR was the worst coach in the history of UGA and just didn’t like Watson for some reason and didn’t want him at UGA…. Got it.
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We have to realize that if the Senator wrote that CMR used his left hand to take a leak there are a couple posters on here would have some lame comment that he was lazy for not using his right.
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Okay, now he’s just trolling us.
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Richt most definitely recruited Deshaun and wanted him at UGA. He just lost the recruiting battle. It happens.
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Well Clempson does have an indoor practice facility
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At least he didn’t try to make him a tight end
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