I haven’t taken the chafing dishes out in a while, so here goes…
- No matter how you slice it, Georgia’s 2018 signing class is stellar.
- Which makes it no surprise Kirby’s decided he can live with the early signing period.
- Gene Smith bitches about head coaching salaries out of one side of his mouth, but talks a very different game when it comes to assistant coaches. Again, it’s not what you think your guys are worth that matters. It’s what your competitors think your guys are worth.
- Looks like Jim McElwain’s got himself a new gig.
- It’s amazing to see the level of navel gazing going on in the Alabama media with regard to the Tide’s 2018 class. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Kirby’s really got those folks shook up.
- “Who’s been the top recruiting team of the entire internet rankings era? The answer will probably surprise you.” Number two on the list certainly did.
Get The Picture 
Dang. Look at that top 9 in recruiting and you have a “one of these is not like the others” moment. I know, I know we’re going places, but dang.
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Georgia actually stacks up okay by total wins from 2002 to now:
Ohio State – 178
Oklahoma – 171
Alabama – 168
USC – 164
LSU/Georgia – 159
Florida State – 151
Texas – 143
Florida – 140
The only difference is that Georgia didn’t win a national title, which is not everything. Georgia actually has more division and SEC titles than Florida over the period, thanks to last season.
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Keep winning SEC Titles..the other will follow..
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The Georgia Way®: Doing Less with Moar 2002-2016
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Senator: don’t be too hard on Bama for navel gazing. Your loyal compadres here are navel gazers too. 😉
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Bullshit! I…I….I was just checking my waistline. And making sure my testicles were centered on the floor scale.
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Robert Gillespie respectfully suggests his name be added to the menu for the “Thursday morning buffet”. Place him in the dessert section and serve him with the Jeremy Pruitt razor tongs.
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Evaluating recruiting by position may be a more precise way of measuring recruiting success. I can envision a scenario where a team signs a flock of four and five stars but still has holes on one side of the ball which would predict a less successful season. Might even be better to do an evaluation of recruiting by need if anyone has the time to do that.
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I agree. I’m a big Richt fan, but his top recruiting classes always seemed to have a hole somewhere. Kirby’s last two classes (and especially this one) seemed to fill all the needs. And there are no “fillers”. It seems like Kirby fills out the class with more highly rated blue chips.
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True, the rankings by position is the better way to go, and we had some notable misses under Richt, OL specifically. We also had some weak OL coaches and some injury problems )mysteriously with shoulders of all things) under Richt.. There is just no way to look at these last two UGA classes without your jaw dropping. Not only did we dominate/lead in a few categories, had they listed the 2nd or 3rd best in the other categories you would seen UGA by almost every single position group. We didn’t lead last year at Tight Ends, QB, DBs, or Punter, but would have been near the top in all of those. Only position group we may have fallen short in would be DL, and we aren’t awful there and you can bet that will a position of emphasis next year.
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Shoulder problems with O-linemen is nothing new. Wynn just had an operation for torn labrum after his Senior Bowl performance and won’t be participating in the NFL draft workouts.
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I have never seen the number of shoulder problems like we had for 2-3 years with our OL. I really believe it was a S&C issue in lifting weights, but who knows? Was strange.
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^^This. CMR never fielded complete teams. There was always something missing even on teams that were pretty good. You are right about the OL being a consistent problem but every year some other position group would be deficient. One year it would be a RB–remember 2011 when the SEC East winning Dawgs were down to walk-ons at RB at the end? The next year it would be at DB. The next–LB. I think roster management was CMR’s biggest failure and it all went back to his inability to use all the available scholarships.
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I always enjoy your buffet.
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I am not so much surprised UGA is ranked highly as UGA’s downturns were not as deep as most nor did it have a probation or a terrible coaching transition.
Oklahoma being down at 9 surprises me. Michigan being in the top 10 surprises me.
Nobody does less with more than Tennessee and Tx A&M.
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#2…really? McGarity should call Richt and tell him he is fired again after reading this.
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Haha damnit Dude. I got a good belly laugh reading that!
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I’ve already sent the email.
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How bad were Bama’s classes in the first half of those years to drag down the recent domination in recruiting to #8?
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Well…I scrolled down and read the answer in the rest of the article!
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Lol, I did too and that was a long scroll for my phone.
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StingTalk is going to be in a tizzy! They didn’t make the list of hardest power-conference jobs.
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Well unless you’ve got a burner email-registered account over there, you’ll never know, because they’ve locked it down to outsiders again. I would like to believe they did it out of pants-pissing shame, but I know better.
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Reading those new statistics about who actually had the most talented rosters in the internet recruiting era has made me irrationally angry this morning.
Angry that Mark Richt should’ve been fired following the 2010 season.
Angry that Greg McGarity remains a feckless idiot, yet will likely keep his job in perpetuity because big money boosters forced him to finally fire Richt, and now he’s getting all the credit for “hiring” Kirby.
Angry that all of the sports in our entire cursed state just can’t seem to ever put it all together and win some damn rings. The freaking Braves should’ve won 3 straight World Series from 1995-97, but due to horrendous manager decisions in the postseason (no one told Bobby Cox to stop managing October like April) and some players choking, they’re known more for wasted potential. The Falcons in 2016 (effing Shanahan). The Dawgs in 2007 (I was in the West End Zone and watched us lose to a terrible Carolina team, a loss that kept us from winning a National Title), in 2012 (Richt not calling a timeout will always haunt me), and in 2017 (Kirby and Chaney, or just Chaney’s decision to stop being agressive and play not to lose with over 12 minutes left in the 4th quarter cost us the title).
I’m tired of every single team I love being “almost” great. I’m tired of almost. I’m sick in my soul because of ALMOST.
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All I can tell you is that if you ever get into the Premier League, don’t choose to support Tottenham Hotspur. It seems I can really pick ’em.
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I had no idea that Liverpool was the PL version on the Dallas Cowboys until I picked them, mostly because they wear red. They havent won a championship in almost three decades. What was I thinking?
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2005 wasn’t that long ago. Probably better than won League Cup in the last 20+ years.
God, I hate Leicester City. And Chelsea.
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That is, 1 League Cup. The one no one cares about.
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Yeah, that’s never going to be a problem for me. Watching soccer, like NASCAR, is akin to watching paint dry or grass grow. In my opinion, of course. 🙂
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What’s the old joke about pallbearers at my funeral? 2 Braves, 2 Falcons & 2 Dawgs so they can all let me down one last time?
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That was a request left by a Cleveland Browns fan a few years ago; so sad, so fitting, so darkly funny.
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Re: that recruiting ranking
I’d mark that up to being consistently good, but never great. (And the “holes” theory above).
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Fun Facts:
USC hasn’t won a title since ’04* and hasn’t played for one since ’05. And they’re #1 on the list.
The highest ranked team who hasn’t played for a title is Michigan, then Tennessee, A&M, and South Carolina.
Washington (27th) and Michigan State (33rd) are lowest ranked programs to make the playoff after Oregon who played for the title in ’10 and ’15.
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UW had possibly the worse hire ever in Willingham. Worse than the guy at Notre Dame and Kansas and that is just damn horrible. I am surprised he did not take UW’s ranking down to below , well just to the bottom. Petersen has done well there and shows what great coaching can do. Gads, do not ever let Willingham near Sanford Stadium. Hell, not even in the state.
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Why does it seem like we’ve recruited about 25 linebackers? I’m sure that I’m wrong, but I have that perception.
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Linebackers and OL’men…can’t ever have too many.
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At least one of the linebackers we signed – Otis Reese – is going to be a safety. We recruited body types (height, weight, speed, strength, athleticism) on defense and in high school a lot of those guys play linebacker.
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Yes, and a couple are athletes who can play at several positions in the D secondary. There are a couple who can play WR or TE, if necessary. Overall, these linebackers can fill any cracks that begin to develop at many positions on the team, plus they will pick up the general athleticism required of STs.
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Agreed that is the process, recruit to a body type not necessarily to what they did in High School.
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I think you’ve got Gene Smith slightly wrong. Whether it’s head coach or assistants I don’t think was the doublespeak. It was that somehow it’s wrong for other schools to raise the ante but it’s OK for Ohio State to keep up.
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Ohio State is the first program to pay its assistant coaching staff more than $7 million a year.
I don’t think I’ve got anything wrong.
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They don’t have sharks in Lake Michigan, do they?
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He can hump Harbaugh. Leave them sharks alone!
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Jason: just dead loan types who ran afoul of the mob.
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Wish McElwain had landed up somewhere that I could wish him good luck.
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What about McElwain’s O Coaching intrigued Michigan? His stint at Bama I suppose, with the best players in the Country.
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Due to the unfair focusing on the good parts, I believe this team’s D line will get unfair scrutiny in the coming year. Since several of us probably weren’t sure of what we had to begin with there, it will probably lift the undeserved perception of line play of several players who left, not including the DEs who have to be replaced with top talent.
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All I know is if Tyler Clark plays next year like he did in the playoffs that will help us breathe easier.
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Yup
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