Paul Myerberg has this chart of the SEC, based upon using the composite standings compiled by 247Sports.com, tallying the average final class ranking for each Power Five team during the past five years, that serves nicely as a rebuttal to anyone out there who wants to push a throwaway year narrative about this coming Georgia football season.
At least in the context of the SEC East, that “cupboard is bare” excuse really isn’t going to fly, even taking into account what happened to the 2013 class.
And as far as the future goes, note that Georgia is only one of two SEC teams that managed to sign their best-ranked classes in 2017.
Get The Picture 
All this implies is that there is more to winning than just class rank numbers. A 7.2 average is good (though only ranks for 3rd best in the SEC). Also note that LSU has an average 4.8 and fired its coach too.
The issue will always be that we were left without a QB, no stand out WR, and a crap OLine. Those classes were full of good D talent, which is why we were able to field a solid D again last year.
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Because Alabama has a 5-year average of 1.
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Welp….they still won 50 games the prior 5 years (before Kirby). I could handle another 10 win season – preferably more, since that is why we made a change….”coaching matters”
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Yeah. Bama relied on a true freshman QB too (ranked below Eason in the recruiting rankings). They should probably fire their coach.
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So, we’re quantifiably more talented than every SEC team on the ’17 schedule. Good to know before the spin starts.
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I’m pretty sure it’s already started, budro.
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I seem to recall UGA was quantifiably better than every team on its schedule last season, too, except for maybe UT.
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Well, going by 247’s TeamTalentComposite, which we discussed a few weeks ago, we (6) were in a statistical dead heat with Auburn (7), slightly but noticeably better than Ole Miss (14), TN (15), and FL (16), and well ahead of everyone else, including Vandy and Tech. Lotta good it did us.
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That’s my point. We already had better talent than the teams on our schedule but still lost 5 regular season games last year. Did Vandy, for example, have better talent than Georgia? Is Tech more talented? The Dawgs just need to beat the teams that are not as talented as they are. Georgia is and has been for years a serial underachiever in football. I used to attribute that to CMR being a bonehead on game day and I didn’t see any improvement in that department last season out of CKS. Great!–we had a really good recruiting year in ’17. Let’s see what happens with the wins and losses going forward. I still think and have felt for years that the real problem with Georgia football isn’t the players–its the coaches and the admin people. We have shitty assistants (with certain exceptions, of course) and that is who really does the hands on coaching. B-M has more worthless hangers-on than I could imagine in one place. Plus the leadership is all about the bottom line and not dedicated to winning. A recipe for mediocrity that I haven’t seen change. We got a new face as HC and reshuffled the deck with different shitty assistants. So what’s really new?
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“N/A” LOL
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So we start the 2017 season ranked third in the SEC west? Sounds about right.
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This operates on the assumption that the recruiting rankings are exactly correct. They’re a good general guide, and obviously Bama has proven that being #1 year after year will take you places, but it was evident that Georgia was sorely lacking in either talent or experience at many positions. Rankings be damned.
To show in more relief, if I sign the top 25 WR’s in the country and call it a class, I’ll have the #1 ranked class in the country. Not sure I’d have a very good team, though.
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Not really sure I find that convincing. First, and most obvious, nobody recruits 25 receivers at once. (Not to mention that doesn’t necessarily translate into the #1 class.)
Yes, at any given time, there are gaps in most rosters due to attrition — unless you’re Alabama, that is — but that’s a general phenomenon hardly limited to UGA.
Second, I’m not offering this as a prediction, or a guarantee, but rather as information that makes it reasonable to assume that Georgia has enough talent to compete in the SEC East this season. For that purpose, I hardly think there’s anything wrong with this being a good general guide. YMMV, of course.
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Of course nobody would recruit 25 WR’s, but it definitely would land you 1 or maybe 2 at worst from a rankings perspective (you’d have 25 guys ranked in the top 184 players in the country according to 247). Point, which you alluded to, is that there are gaps. Name the position groups last year where Georgia had both talent and experience greater than that of most of our opponents. LB, Secondary, and RB by my assessment. Vandy loss is still bad, and Nicholls St near-loss is awful. My only point is that our avg. ranking over those years is not a reflection of what we actually had to work with last year. I know you’re not predicting anything.
Again, recruiting rankings are a good guide, just like the hit/stand/split/double down card for blackjack. They increase your odds, but no way what we had on the field (again, experience being a key component) aligned with those rankings, that’s all.
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Honestly, I have a hard time blaming the results against Vanderbilt or Nicholls on gaps in the team’s talent.
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I agree 100% there.
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That’s what worries me still. Good ingredients still require a great cook, or you can end up with a soup sandwich.
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Agree. The Dawgs were favored in just about every game last season during the regular season yet lost 5 of them.
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I blame it on trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. But the peg just got a lot more round.
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Here, here. A good coach will disguise the gaps in his team’s makeup. I would argue that it is easier for an offensive coach to do that than a defensive coach because the offense by and large sets the terms of the encounter on the field. (It decides to play slow or fast, to run or to pass, to stretch vertically or horizontally, etc. The defense has to react to what the offense does.) Chaney could have changed blocking schemes, dialed up more sweeps and bubble screens, etc. if he had chosen to do so. It seems like Kirby was more concerned with setting the tone for 2017 and beyond than winning in 2016. Since that season is in the can, we just have to accept that decision. But now it’s 2017, and the sacrifices we have made need to bear fruit. I think it’s vital that Kirby comes in with a double digit win season this year. Otherwise confidence will suffer, recruiting will suffer and we’ll have a bit deeper hole to dig ourselves out of. After all, this year’s recruiting should fill in most of the gaps and he does have a marked talent advantage over the rest of the SEC east.
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Wait a minute. Did the recruiting rankings just get Dawgraded? Can we do that?
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That phenomenon is usually reserved for UGA Basketball fan forums when discussing UGA basketball recruits.
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Kirby is turning the ship in the right direction..
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Aubuurn recruited all those players that got away from Richt over the last 3-4 years. Damn shame or UGA could of been the LSU of the East 🙂
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If you were building an aircraft, you could have a great parts score..Two 5* engines, a 5 * cockpit, Two 4 * wings, A 4 * vertical stabilizer,…etc. You could get great kudos for assembling such a fine collection of parts. But landing gear? We don’t need no stinkin’ landing gear. We can pick up some used ones off of a Yacht up in the NE.
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I know I’ve said this at least ten times here, but something’s rotten in Tuscaloosa, and the whole state of Aladamnbama. Nobody gets it that good without being crooked.
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I don’t see those numbers and worry about expectations. I see them and get pumped. That number would be much higher if you knocked off the 13 class; we’ve got talent and we’re going to be good. Do we have a 5 year trailing average of 1? No, neither did Clemson. We’re going to be good and we’re going to be getting even better over the next couple of years.
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Climpson, friend. CLIMPSON. Jeez, get it right. 😏
Also bear in mind that Climpson needed a generational player, who grew into his stature in college, to get their trophy.
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My point is that some (most) people around here need to learn to enjoy football during times other than the brief moments right after a national championship victory. I swear if 90% of Georgia fans were Clemson fans they’d already be fretting over the state of the program by now.
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Understood. I was mostly wise cracking. My schtick is weird.
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Furthermore, as I live in South Carolina, I can vouch that Climpson fans are now turning livid that Lamar Jackson won the Heisman trophy instead of Deshaun. Talk about hubris! Oy!
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Most of us fans want to feel like we did after the sugar bowl against Hawaii. The majority of casual fans just will not enjoy Georgia football unless we have a good team that lays waste to a team that the tv “experts” pick as a favorite over our Georgia team from the mighty SEC.
So, being the east favorite with possible playoff contention doesn’t fit, the fans need to feel disrespected.
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It’s that whole southern pride thing, where one can’t be seen as cocky, confident, or vocal. It’s all about winning as long as other people can look over at you and tip the cap saying nothing and by all means, the Georgia fan can’t utter a single sound, just crack a little smile at most. Understated humility.
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2016 was the “Mulligan Season”, the loss to tech was the notice that the honeymoon was over. The clock is running now. Kirby has four seasons to win a championship of some kind or he will be sent packing along with McGarity, unless McGarity has been tarred and feathered and run out on a rail before then.
Georgia football is playing for keeps now.
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Smart got burdened with unrealistic expectations from before he was hired. The only thing that will satisfy the “Demand Excellence ” crowd will be a national championship by 2019. The original due date was 2018, but it appears many have given him an extension. He wa not hired to compete for the SEC East. He was hired to beat Saban and win the playoff. Thus, if Saban remains king of the SEC and UGA is second, Smart will have failed to meet the job description that crowd has.
One of the greatest recruiting classes in UGA history by potential helps him not one bit as the leader he is chasing put more recruiting space between him and Smart. Tough spot for the guy to be in.
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I did a rough count of current blue chip(4&5 star) talent on most SEC rosters. Keep in mind this is before any post spring defections and counting all signees before actually enrolling. Naturally there will be some transfers and non-qualifiers. Last season we had the 4th most, just barely behind Auburn. Currently we are at number two.
Bama- 69(16 5 stars)
UGA- 59 (10)
LSU-56(4)
AUB-50(4)
aTm-39(3)
UTK-35(2)
UF-29(2)
Ole Miss-27(3)
USCe-25(0)
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Thanks, but we do not know which roster has the most guys who talk trash during corn hole competition.
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Thanks for doing this work, interesting to know. I’m amazed that we’re actually within spitting distance of Bama. If 6 5 stars and 4 4 stars is all that separates us, you have to think that a little better player development and scheming than them might give us at least a puncher’s chance in the SEC Championship game. Assuming we win the games we’re supposed to win and get there, of course.
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It’s still the coaches. We have close enough talent to Bama to beat them on a good day or night.
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I judge talent by production, and Georgia had 0 first team all SEC dudes. Not a lot of offensive production at any position overall (tight end was pretty productive made 1st team all frosh sec).
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If you look at the offensive talent last year, not much production at wide receiver, the oline really struggled, the Qb finished near the bottom statistically. Not one guy made first team all sec. Got to get bigger, faster, and better after this recruiting haul. Things lookin up, one of the worst talented UGA teams I’ve seen in a while. Vandy was improved, beating UGA, Auburn and TN is no joke.
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