State of the state’s recruiting

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?