MoMass was one of my favorites when he was here. Today it was a surprise to learn that he’s lost a hand because of a severe accident on an ATM ATV.
If you haven’t seen this yet, be forewarned, it’s devastating to watch.
I can’t begin to imagine what that must be like. If he’s found peace, that’s great. It’s also great that he had plenty of support from folks at UGA.
Filed under Georgia Football, The Body Is A Temple
Good news for Georgia and bad news for the SEC:
Georgia’s national team recruiting title was the 10th in a row for an SEC school, but for the second year in a row, the SEC’s share of the 100 best players dropped.
Georgia became the fourth SEC school to win a recruiting title in the past decade; LSU wore the crown in 2009, Florida in 2010 and Alabama every year from 2011-17. But the SEC saw a precipitous drop in the number of top-100 players it signed, mostly because of a resurgence by Texas on the recruiting trail. The league’s percentage of five-star prospects dropped for the second year in a row, as well.
In the team rankings, the SEC had just two schools in the top 10 this year, Georgia and No. 7 Alabama. Consider that in each of the past five years, the league had two teams in the top four; in four of those years, it had two schools in the top three and twice the SEC had teams finish 1-2.
My favorite part of that is Texas’ role in the overall decline, because Smart still wound up getting a four-star receiver out of that state.
Like I’ve said, in the short run, conference life is looking pretty good for Kirby Smart and his program.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting, SEC Football
Tony had to wait a few days to make sure it was safe to post this.
Can’t wait to hear about spring ball. Indeed, why should I wait? Please take a minute to share Barnhart’s likely thoughts in the comments section. You can do this!
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UPDATE: He’s just getting warmed up.
Filed under Mr. Conventional Wisdom
Just a reminder I posted this reader poll a year ago.
I wonder how many of the 24 who picked the fourth option really expected it to happen.
Filed under Georgia Football
Some of you may remember a some data and observations I sourced a year ago about Georgia’s recruiting that originated with Henry, a reader of the blog. (You can find them here, here and here.)
Well, he’s back with some more number crunching and some thoughts about what that suggests:
Top 10 Players in Georgia (based on the 247Sports composite rankings)
Year UGA Bama Auburn Clemson USCe FSU UF UT 2018 6 — — 2 — — — 1 2017 5 1 — 1 1 — — — 2016 2 — 3 1 — — 1 1 2015 5 — — 1 — — — 1 2014 3 — 2 2 2 — — — 2013 2 2 2 — 1 — 1 — 2012 3 3 2 — 1 1 — — 2011 5 1 2 — — — — — 2010 3 1 — — — — 1 2 2009 5 — — — — 1 — 1 Here are some thoughts I had after looking at this data:
— Alabama’s current success on the field is not tied to their success recruiting the top players in Georgia. A look at their signees show that Alabama recruits nationally.
— The biggest growing competition for the top players in the state increasingly is coming from Clemson.
— Until the last two years, Auburn had been the biggest competition for the top in-state players.
— Top in-state players, for the most part, didn’t go to FSU or Florida.
— Georgia Tech was not included in the data because they have not signed a Top 10 player from Georgia in at least 10 years, which I think is amazing.
— If a top player is going to leave Georgia, he is going to go farther afield than adjacent states. A look at each year’s signees shows success from top academic schools such as Notre Dame, Stanford, Cal, etc. So much for the argument that Tech can’t sign the top players in Georgia because their academics are so high
Signed Recruits from Georgia
Year UGA Bama Auburn Clemson USCe FSU UF UT 2018 14 0 8 5 8 7 4 4 2017 16 1 5 4 7 5 0 3 2016 16 1 6 4 7 1 2 5 2015 15 3 11 4 10 2 5 6 2014 10 2 12 5 5 1 0 4 2013 19 3 4 5 8 0 6 3 2012 11 8 6 0 12 0 3 5 2011 19 3 7 1 11 3 0 7 2010 14 4 11 7 6 3 3 7 2009 11 5 5 2 8 2 1 4 — Georgia is signing about the same amount of in-state kids, but the quality is higher.
— Except for 2012, Bama does not sign a lot of Georgia players, although this was the first time in 10 years they din’t sign any kids from Georgia.
— Clemson is on a consistent trend to sign about 25% of their class from Georgia with the quality being very high.
— Auburn and South Carolina, of the adjacent states, seem to rely on recruiting Georgia kids the most.
— Tennessee consistently signs Georgia players. They were successful in Georgia under Fulmer and Pruitt knows the state and the school, so that bears watching.
— FSU has successfully recruited more Georgia kids in the last two years. It will be interesting to see if that continues under Taggart since there is more and more competition from in-state schools in Florida.
— Florida is up and down in Georgia, but Mullen recruited some Georgia kids in the second signing period this year and he faces the same in-state competition as FSU.
— South Carolina bears watching under Muschamp. I don’t think he will beat Kirby for the top kids, but those kids right behind that level who didn’t get an offer from Georgia could make this one of our tougher games in coming years. The same might be said of Auburn.
Some of what he finds tracks what Bud Elliott had to say the other day. I’d add a couple of points. The first is more of just an elucidation of what Henry noted. The big thing about these last two classes is that Kirby’s done something Richt never could — stacked loaded top ten groups back-to-back. Richt had his moments, but never sustained any recruiting momentum with the top-rated recruits.
Second, I don’t know what Dabo Swinney’s doing exactly, but whatever it is, he’s doing it well.
Third, South Carolina’s made as much of a living off Georgia talent as Auburn has. I agree with Henry that Boom won’t get the top Georgia kids, but with the way he’s going, if he can pull in enough numbers to build some depth, the years when he gets lucky to harvest great in state talent, like Spurrier did with Lattimore and Clowney, that program can be good enough to challenge for division titles.
Last, Alabama getting skunked in the state of Georgia with this last class is something. Almost makes me think Kirby had that on his to-do list.
(P.S. “Georgia Tech was not included in the data because they have not signed a Top 10 player from Georgia in at least 10 years…”. Time flies when you’re having a good time.)
Your thoughts?
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Can’t believe I hadn’t seen this cut before now (h/t), but here’s Bob Dylan performing “Like A Rolling Stone” with an all-star cast on Letterman’s tenth anniversary show.
When I say all-star, I’m not exaggerating. Check out the list of performers:
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Chrissie Hynde (guitar)
Syd McGuinness (guitar)
Steve Vai (guitar)
Carole King (keyboards)
Paul Schaffer (keyboards)
James Brown (horn)
Edgar Winter (horn)
Doc Severinsen (trumpet)
William E. Lee (bass)
Anton Fig (drums)
Jim Keltner (drums)
Roseanne Cash, Nancy Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Michelle Shocked, Mavis Staples (backup vocals)
Great googly moogly.
Filed under Uncategorized
Greg Sankey isn’t happy, people.
Greg Sankey made the SEC’s official position on a potential new Mississippi gun law very clear on Wednesday.
According to a letter Sankey wrote to the leadership of Mississippi State and Ole Miss on Wednesday, league opponents likely “will decline opportunities” to play at each school if proposed gun legislation turns into law for the state of Mississippi.
More specifically,
Given the intense atmosphere surrounding athletic events, adding weapons increases meaningful safety concerns and is expected to negatively impact the intercollegiate athletics programs at your universities in several ways. If HB 1083 is adopted to permit weapons in college sports venues, it is likely that competitors will decline opportunities to play in Oxford and Starkville, game officials will decline assignments, personal safety concerns will be used against Mississippi’s universities during the recruiting process and fan attendance will be negatively impacted. When similar laws have been introduced in the past, the SEC office has received clear statements of concern from our member universities due to safety concerns associated with the passage of such laws intended to allow weapons at our athletic events and sports venues.
You may think that means the SEC is anti-Second Amendment. You’d be wrong. Sankey’s not making a political statement. Sankey’s anti-liability. He’s making the only kind of statement college sports administrators make seriously. He doesn’t want his league getting sued by a shooting victim.
Arkansas backed down in the face of similar pressure. It’ll be interesting to see if the Mississippi legislature does, too. It’ll be even more interesting if they don’t.
Filed under Political Wankery, SEC Football
This is a helluva stat:
USC (4.28), Georgia (4.19) and Clemson (4.06) all averaged more than four-stars per commitment in their 2018 recruiting class but, more importantly, this year was the first time three schools averaged more than four-stars per commitment. The most interesting part of this statistic is that teams have averaged more than four-stars per commitment only seven times prior to the 2018 recruiting class.
USC, which holds the record for highest average star rating per commitment at 4.42, has had the highest average star rating per commitment more than any other school (five times- 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2018).
My Gawd — those of you bitching about Mark Richt never getting the most out of his recruiting classes, Southern Cal makes him look like Nick Saban.
Filed under Pac-12 Football, Recruiting
Get The Picture 