I don’t want to claim any great insight into the heart of an eighteen-year old football recruit, but I had a very strong feeling for a while that DeAngelo Gibbs would be putting on a Georgia hat yesterday when he made his commitment announcement.
Again, it’s not because I followed his every twitch on social media, or read the services to get their take on things. It’s because I did the math. And the math in this case was pretty obvious:
- Four juniors announcing their surprising returnfor the 2017 season
- Toneil Carter’s de-commitment in response to UGA yanking the offer to sign early
With Georgia having to adhere to the 85-man scholarship limit at all times, there suddenly wasn’t room at the inn for Carter. What triggered the decision by Carter, who Smart, as we recall, ran out to Texas to make a personal plea to stay the course just a few days before?
Simply this.
“Georgia is the place for me,” Gibbs said. “I think it is the best fit for me. A perfect opportunity.”
The Bulldogs held off a strong late push from Alabama and coach Nick Saban for his commitment.
“I’m more than ready right now,” Gibbs said. “I’m so happy about the decision I just made. I had it in the back of my head for at least a week now.”
At least. He’s already signed all of his financial aid papers to enroll early at UGA next week. It’s not so much that Gibbs made Carter expendable as it is that he sucked all the oxygen out of the tent, numbers wise. You may not like seeing the sausage being made, but Gibbs was one of Smart’s highest priorities in this class and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass.
Get The Picture 
Got to give it to him, Kirby is a helluva recruiter…relentless. He addition of Solomon would make this an incredible class, the best I have ever seen on paper. Gotta get’em all signed and back it all up with wins….
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And Monty Rice. Kirby is recruiting at the same level of his former boss.
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Ask and you shall receive. Just flipped him this morning!
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I never get excited about recruiting, but I actually tuned into the Under Armor game yesterday to see the Gibbs announcement.
Kirby is hammering the shit out of the rest of the SEC East (and really everyone in general other than Bama) as far as recruiting. It’s something to behold…
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We have more ESPN300 recruits than Florida has total recruits. Amazing. Kirby is gathering the talent, that’s for sure.
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I have to say that turning away a four star recruit because you have to make room for what some consider a 5 star kid is unknown territory for UGA. Maybe there is something to this “process” thing.
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My concern is whether the coaching talent is going to be at the same high level as the player talent. I rarely agree with the ajc’s Jeff Schmultz, but he had a point when he wrote “the OC and OL can’t get any worse next year”. I’d add the STs can’t get any worse either. When it comes to the Carter situation, one would wish Kirby was equally ruthless about filling his assistant coach spots with top talent and jettisoning underachievers.
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If Kirby, et al, don’t end up working out, at least he will have stocked the heck out of the cupboard for the next guy.
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Couldn’t agree more. Best class I have ever seen UGA assemble, but not too sure about running Carter off…..always seem to be more fallout than expected. But while I didn’t like the way it was handled, we have plenty of talent, and depth at RB. But it is your point about the OC problem that bothers me most, we don’t need to bring in Secretariat level talent and hook them up to plows.
I watched Gibbs play in the HS championship game last month, and I hope he is utilized as a WR. Know we need tall DBs but we seem to have good depth there. Gibbs looked silky smooth at WR, if we have someone better than him I just haven’t seen him/them.
Also, Rice is only rated 3 stars by the gurus but has LSU, Auburn, and UGA fighting over him. Don’t care what the rating is, he must have something we need to draw that kind of attention. Glad to add him this morning, we need someone that can stack ’em up in the middle.
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This level of talent can make a lot of coaches smarter.
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Speaking of ruthless, Alabama’s offense scores 17 points and Lane Kiffin gets processed.
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Gibbs is a game changer and future first round draft pick barring some unforeseen circumstance.
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In the last 24 hours we flipped two players formerly committed to LSU/Auburn and beat out Alabama for Gibbs. It’s a new day on the recruiting trail. This may be the best class we have ever signed. We have 19 4/5 commitments. The rest of the east has 20 total.
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I don’t see how this class doesn’t go down as the best in UGA hisrory. The ’98 and ’03 classes were special, but this, on paper, trumps both fairly easily.
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Certainly it may be the best class in the past 35 years. The class of 1980 would give it a run. Parade magazine’s back of the year (Herschell Walker), Parade Magazine’s Lineman of the Year (Winford Hood), Terry Hoage, Clarence Kay, Tommy Thurson, Mike Weaver, Scott Williams, Barry Young, Warren Gray, Joe Happe and Jimmy Harper were in that class. It was 43-4-1 over 4 years.
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Guy McIntyre was in that class, I do believe. Many years with the 49’ers. I do believe the entire 1980 offensive line played in the pros.
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Yes, McIntyre was in that class. I thought I listed him but obviously I did not.
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No doubt this class is an absolute program changer — that’s how impressive it is. I rarely follow recruiting but have quite a bit more in recent months due to how special the ’17 class is shaping up.
From what I’ve heard, Solomon is an almost lock to Bama, though we should get Bryant. There also is rumor of a big time surprise flip to us on the horizon as well (not Jaymest Williams, btw).
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Who? Jacoby? I can’t think of anyone else besides he and Jamyest that seemed to be almost Dawgs who are committed elsewhere, unless it’s someone totally off the radar.
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I think Jamyest is the one we will regret missing on. All the concern about the height at CB completely misses that you could put a 16 on his jersey and plug him into the IMac role, would be like getting 4 more years of the Joystick.. Kid is a baller and will hurt us at some point if he stays with SC. He will regret leaving home and missing out on being a part of this signing class.
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I’m a bit puzzled about the EE count. Carter’s EE offer was pulled because of the numbers. I assumed the numbers only allowed for one more EE, and that was being held for DeAngelo Gibbs. Now Rice is also added as an EE, apparently. Did JoyStick’s announcement make this possible? Or was it always possible once Carter was out of the picture…and that being done simply because the need at ILB is greater than RB this class?
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Sony and Chubb returned, it is that simple re Carter…
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How so? They only have one year left, and we have one RB coming in. I understand that affects EE for Carter but he was denied coming in during the summer. Makes no sense to me, we know the depth needed at that position. Doesn’t seem simple to me.
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I agree. What gets me about Carter is that it’s like he thought the cupboard was gonna be bare and that he was going to get immediate playing time, no matter who did or did not return. Maybe we expected Chubb and Michel to leave and told him as much. So many of these high school kids now think waiting one season is asking too much.
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In defense of Kirby, it has not been determined if Carter could have come in the summer. From various comments, it appears he was deadset on arriving in January wherever he went. He did not have that option at UGA. We’ll likely never know the real answer to that question
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How I feel about this staff’s coaching is still up in the air but what they’re doing in recruiting is pretty incredible and it’s not just Smart either. He has a couple young coaches who are making a name for themselves, too. It’s crazy how a couple major recruits commit and the dominos start falling in line.
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Me thinks Fromm and LeCounte are doing alot of this themselves. Guys are relentless……………
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Definitely a couple recruits helping out a lot, too.
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You could make the case those two recruited McBride.
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You know the Dawgs are doin some serious work ‘cruitin if the Senator’s writing about it
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