The latest recruiting fooferaw involves a quarterback from Illinois neither you nor I likely would have ever heard of, except for (1) he received an offer from UGA and (2) that offer set in motion a bizarre chain of events… well, maybe more curious than bizarre.
The story begins with the offer, and the kid’s polite acknowledgement.
From there, the going gets weird. Wisconsin, which held his commitment, didn’t take kindly to the news.
There’s a giant “wait, wut?” trying to emerge here. Surely Wisconsin wouldn’t yank an accepted offer merely because another school offered, would it?
Oh, yes, it would. And don’t call it Shirley.
Understand, this was unsolicited. There was no visit planned. No talk about keeping options open, let alone jumping ship. It wasn’t even his second offer.
This is the Johnson Doctrine on steroids. Or it’s the move of a program that grabbed the first shabby excuse it could get its hands on to jettison a recruit in favor of a better option. (“Honestly, communication with UW and my feeling of being a part of ‘the family’ has been subpart at times and during several visits,” is a pretty good hint Wisconsin lost its loving feeling.) Either way, you’d have to expect this little story is about to become weaponized on the recruiting trail. With good reason.
By the way, young man, you’ve done nothing to beat yourself up over. Better luck with your next college choice.
Get The Picture 
Of course, the other head scratching part is…….we offered a 3 star QB from Illinois after a total correspondence of just a few texts?
Seems like there’s way more to this story on multiple fronts. But yeah, sounds like UW was having some buyers remorse and jumped at the first chance they had to dump him.
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Mark Richt be long gone, man. This ain’t your father’s UGA recruiting philosophy.
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I wonder if it speaks to some difficulty on the recruiting trail right now specifically with QB’s. with two young guns on the roster, the bigger names might not giving us many looks until 2019.
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There’s absolutely no question this speaks to the difficulty we’re having recruiting 2018 QB prospects. We have 18 or more offers out to QB’s, the majority going to DT types. We’ve been rejected by every single top rated DT QB thus far and that trend will continue. There are three primary factors, including:
Jacob Eason
Jake Fromm
We don’t run a spread offense
The drama continues…
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Thanks. Was hoping that wasn’t the case, but hopefully 2019 will bring better things and Eason/Fromm can stay healthy in the meantime.
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To expand on what DawgByte wrote, we are going to repeat the same scenarios we did with Stafford and Murray. Top QBs want to play early. Having top rated QBs on your roster scares off the recruits. for this cycle and next, we will at best be able to get Cox / Mason type QBs. Damn Good Dawgs, but never had a shot at the NFL. Signing Fromm last cycle killed any chance of getting Lawrence this time. We will get a big armed 5* in the 2020 or 2021 cycle. Until then, we will have to settle for 3s that really want to be Dawgs. The other option is some 4 guy that will bolt after his RSFr year if he doesn’t beat out Fromm for the backup job as heir apparent for 2019.
Personally, I would life for us to sign a Blake Sims type guy. One that isn’t dead set on playing QB, is willing to play a different position if he doesn’t win the QB job, but smart enough to come back and compete at the QB job each spring.
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Cox was the #7 Pro Style QB. While not on the level of Eason or Stafford, he was Elite 11 and many schools would be very happy to have him. He was more highly rated than Colt McCoy and John Parker Wilson.
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Yep, D.J. Shockley, Matt Stafford, Aaron Murray, and Jacob Eason were pretty good recruits.
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The optics on this a just bad. Poor decision by UW with the timing. I get falling out of love but to do it right on the heels of a kid being excited about having a SEC offer.
As for the offer, I see Jay Johnson’s fingerprints on this one.
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Exactly…
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Wow, he seems to be a polite, well spoken, intelligent young man. If he can play a lick of football, I hope he comes to UGA. The UW coach appears to be a real douchebag. I hope things work out for Mr. Bryant.
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Yeah. This was a pretty chickenshit thing to do. I hope Wisky loses all their games next season.
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Whatever the motivations were by the UW coaches.. it’s just a real shitty thing to do to this young man. Alas, it goes on all the time..it happened to my son. Good Luck to this kid, maybe it will all work out in the end for him. And now I got my hate on for UW.
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I would love to see Jim Chaneys track record of evaluating QB recruits and future success. And it ain’t drew brees
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He salvaged Nathan Peterman’s career. Based on what I saw of Peterman in 2013, that ain’t exactly chopped liver.
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No kidding. That kid was abused (physically beat up and by UT fans) his freshman year. He did not end up like I expected he would when he finished his eligibility.
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Had to look that one up. Fair enough for a feather in cap
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Chaney is also the reason why “Beyond Crompton” is in the Lexicon. He coached Tyler Bray into a guy that beat out Aaron Murray for the backup job in KC. Also, Kyle Orton was a 4th round pick and stuck round in the league for a decade.
People need to face the fact that he has a long track record of being a quality coach despite the emotion reactions of of anonymous blog commenters.
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OK, OK Sherlock. I’ll leave the door open that maybe Chaney can develop QBs. But he can’t gameplan or call plays worth shit.
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I have heard that his reputation in coaching circles is that he is a great off-season coach and an average in-season one; also, that he is low maintenance and doesn’t need much direction – i.e. perfect for a first time HC.
There is a reason that Joe Tiller, Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, Bret Bielima, Pat Narduzi, and Kirby Smart all hired the guy to be their OC. The last three were all highly thought of DCs; the first two know something about offense. Chaney was also one of the guys Urban Meyer and his staff went to when he got the HC job at Bowling Green and were designing their spread offense.
I’m not trying to hype the guy like he is great, but fans keep shitting on the guy, but highly respected coaches keep hiring him away from other highly respected coaches for some reason. Give the guy some time (and an OL).
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Sherlock, man you have gonads of steel to post a positive comment about Cheney on here.
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It certainly looks to be a case of buyer’s remorse by Wisky, and poorly handled with their timing. They haven’t come out publicly, like Paul Johnson did, and said this is a program policy that extends to other recruits. The young man has handled this perfectly, there is no reason to beat himself up.
UGA has been throwing out offers for DT QBs like confetti in recent weeks. We are truly having issues attracting another highly rated pro-style QB with the two big names we have on campus and available for the coming years.
That may be why we are looking so hard for a DT option, but I haven’t heard anything at all about diversifying our offense. And I certainly have nothing favorable to say about Chaney’s ability to run a different scheme since he hasn’t mastered the one he currently has in place. Chaney may also be a contributing factor to our current offensive recruiting woes for QBs and WRs.
I have no opinion/knowledge on the worthiness of Bryant but I hope he sticks it to Wisconsin by signing with a Big 14 opponent and kicking their butts. The new offensive analyst from Minnesota may be the one who brought Bryant to the attention of our staff. If Bryant is talented enough to compete, I wish he would come to Athens, we will certainly need more QB depth should we begin using the QB to run more. UGA hasn’t had a true DT guy at QB since Shock in 2005, although Logan Gray was considered a DT guy, in addition to a punt return guru.
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Fair catch guru…!
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I think this means that we don’t want his commitment either….
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Unbelievable maybe he will visit now.
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