This pretty much blows my mind.
Globally, however, [Andrew] Thomas is the first in-state Top 100 offensive tackle to sign with the Bulldogs in modern recruiting. That’s an amazing failure by previous recruiting regimes.
Oh, and one more little thing…
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Get The Picture 
Yep, for whatever reason, the prior staff really did poorly in recruiting/developing OL. Someone posted the other day that, in CMR’s 15 years as HC, he only produced one OL who was taken in either the first of second round of the NFL draft — and that was Cordy Glenn back in ’12. Extending it out another round (round 3), you would only add 1 additional OL taken (Jenkins/’13). That’s it over many, many years.
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I can’t think of a single reason other than this why Richt could not break through more than he did…and why we failed to capture a down east these past few years. I wish him the best and hopefully he took that lesson to Miami, where he steals Gator o-line recruits forever.
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I think his ranked 17
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To be fair, Sturdivant probably would have been a #1 LT had he not had issues with knee injuries. Not many guys can come in and start LT day 1 as a freshman like he did.
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1st round LT*
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Agree, but over a 15 year period, its still very slim pickings overall, with hardly any OL taken in the upper rounds of the NFL draft. CMR’s DL didn’t fare much better — the last UGA DL taken in the first round of the NFL draft was David Pollack way back in ’03, and he was a Donnan recruit if I recall.
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Richt signed Pollack.
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The DL was never an issue about personnel. There is a reason that 4-5 DL players from UGA over the past several years are playing on NFL rosters right now. The issue was that Garner was not very good at coaching up those DL recruits he got.
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Sully (6th in 2003) was taken higher than David (17th in 2005). Sometimes the pros get it wrong. Houston and Charles Johnson and Gene Atkins were all better players albeit not first rounders.
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Charles Johnson was better than David Pollack? I want soe of what you are smoking.
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Sorry I meant better than Sullivan.
I could maintain that I meant the three were better candidates for the NFL but I wasn’t thinking that at all at time I posted but I was thinking about the bust sully was. As it is the injury cut the prospect of any comparison to David off. I do think David would have struggled at that level just as Jarvis Jones has.
IMHO David sits just behind Herschel Walker in my pantheon of Georgia players. Hines Ward and Terry Hoage come next…
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Too late. I called and Cojones has bought his entire stash.
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If I was smoking anything you wouldn’t hear from me at all. One reason it never was a thing for me was the apathy it seemed to instill. If there’s one thing I’m not it’s apathetic. For me, and you may have noticed, I prefer “apoplectic.”
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Besides,’tater chip crumbs get all down in your keyboard and cause problems.
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That conveniently glosses over guys like Jarvis Jones and Leonard Floyd, who spent about as much time on the defensive line as they did off of it, and a guy like Justin Houston, who, but for a DUI, was a first-rounder as well.
Having said that, I do get the point on the larger scale, particularly when you talk about interior defensive linemen.
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I agree with the overall stats on OL but would add: check out the number of UGA’s former OL playing in the NFL today…it’s a fair representation.
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When does Legge say the modern recruiting era began? The answer could make the fact more “Wow” or less “Wow.”
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OL recruiting is one of the biggest reasons why we’re the only house in the neighborhood without a BMW.
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“first in-state Top 100 offensive tackle”
How many has the state of Georgia had? I’m guessing Cosey Coleman was one. And there was some huge guy from Cedar Grove that went to Auburn during the Tuberville era.
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It’s actually a decent point…Georgia doesn’t seem to produce as many top OTs as other talent rich states like Texas, Florida and California…but there were guys like Mitch Hyatt, Jawaun James, Brandon Greene, Antawan Greenlee, Marcus McNeil…all misses. That’s what makes signing Thomas and even Netori Johnson so special…and honestly, that’s not just a victory for Kirby the recruiter, it’s also a victory for Kirby the CEO. Whatever you think of Chaney…having Chaney means having Pittman which made it possible to recruit this kind of talent in the O-Line. As a program builder, Kirby is making a lot of the right moves.
The two highest ranked OL recruits from GA Richt signed I believe were AJ Harmon and Kiante Tripp.
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Whatever you think of Chaney…having Chaney means having Pittman which made it possible to recruit this kind of talent in the O-Line.
This is the most important sentence in your comment. Folks just want to act like that never was the case, but it absolutely was the case.
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Chuma ogoda (sp?). There was also a guard we missed out on a couple years ago that just buried people. Can’t remember the name though.
Then you’ve got Hyatt at Clemson as well.
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EJ Price last year was the one I was thinking of.
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That’s another one that isn’t quite fair to Richt…EJ Price was locked in to be a Dawg until Richt got fired. It was only then that he decommitted and ended up at USC (and he has since transferred).
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I might be blown away more if I knew how many Top 100 OT’s the state has produced in “modern recruiting”. Or how many overall Top 100 OT’s have been ranked.
For example, in the 40 years of the McDonald’s High School Basketball All-American games there has been 936 total Men’s honorees and GA has produced 38 total participants which is tied with Maryland for the 9th highest total amongst the 50 states. California (93) NY (68), IL (65), VA (64), TX (58), IN (45), FL & MI (40 ea) have more.
UGA has signed 7 total McDonald’s All Americans since 1977. 6 were from the state of GA (Terry Fair, James Banks, Donald Hartry, Melvin Howard, Carlos Strong, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope). 1 was from NY (Vern Fleming.) UGA has only signed 2 McDonald’s All Americans in the last 25 years. They signed 5 in a 4 year period from 1979 – 1983.
The 2017 McDonald’s team has 3 players from GA high schools which is the most GA players ever in the game except for 1991 which also had 3. Currently no one from the 2017 will play at UGA. UGA did not sign a player from 1991 team either.
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Agree, we could have done better but your point is on target. The state of Georgia produces a lot of D1 football players but we are not the deepest pool when it comes to OL success. We may have been fishing in the wrong waters for too many years. Thomas looked very promising all week in San Antonio, and Wilson from NY is impressive on tape, I am optimistic we are in for an upgrade at OL soon but I hope we are focusing on developing relations in other locations (specifically the mid-west.)
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You did note that the discussion was on football OTs, didn’t you??
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Yeah I was aware, I was just trying to illustrate that Legge’s point didn’t have any context around it so the statement doesn’t have any meaning.
Of course, it was also an opportunity to point out that our basketball program has been terrible at recruiting the best players from our state for about 40 years.
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While a bad stat, as others have said, how many Top100 tackles from GA has he missed on? In the last 5 years, I can only think of three:
Chuma Edoga, Mitch Hyatt, and Andrew Thomas. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but Hyatt was clemson legaacy. Edoga was a weird dude who ended up playing Center for USC as a back up and I believe is transferring.
i’m too lazy to look it up, but my understanding was that one of the main challenges to UGA/Richt and OT recruiting was he had to go out of state for almost all of them.
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Richt did recruit two undersized kids from 1A schools and turned them into centers and NFL players. One is playing in the Super Bowl.
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I think CMR’s philosophy made it hard to get “elite” OT’s. Richt’s goal was to get tall, athletic guys and beef them up. Think of some of the (relatively) slender guys like Inman, Roland, Theus. Others that were injured and never able to contribute like Trey Chandler, Tommy Gainous, Sturdivant were also long and lean for OT.
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Max Jean Gillies was not svelte.
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No. The trend to the smaller guys came near the end when we wanted to augment our physical style with tempo. At one point during the CMR era we had the largest line in all of football, pros included. People often are fact resistant for some reason.
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We do have an OL starting in the Super Bowl, fwiw.
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Factually.
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Malcolm’s gonna be our 4th Super Bowl MVP!
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I believe that Georgia’s problems with both lines of scrimmage most years was a lack of depth.
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Ja’Wuan James was the one that always blew my mind…#2 OT in the nation, #3 player overall in Georgia, and we never even had a chance with him. Of course, who was the offensive coordinator/offensive line coach he committed to at UT? Jim Chaney.
Who knows what happened with guys like Hyatt, Edoga…EJ Price actually would have ended the streak but then Richt got fired.
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