I don’t believe it’s a shock Georgia’s recruiting is going swimmingly now. This staff, if nothing else, is relentless.
After Webb’s commitment, Georgia moved up to the No. 2 spot in the team recruiting rankings with 19 pledges. But Smart and the Bulldogs’ coaching staff have used this time between the SEC Championship and the bowl game to be in non-stop recruiting mode.
Smart has been across the country, ranging from a trip to visit offensive tackle Trevor Keegan in Crystal Lake, Ill., to Louisiana to visit Bulldog pledge Makiya Tongue the day after hosting prospects on an official visit.
Per Kipp Adams at Dawgs247, Smart has room to sign as many as six more recruits in the 2019 class.
The math for that gets… um, interesting at this point. According to Seth Emerson ($$), the roster numbers as of a few days ago look like this:
Georgia’s roster, which is 39 percent upperclassmen this season, will be considerably older next season. But one thing won’t change: Depth, thanks to being right at or around that NCAA scholarship limit of 85.
Schools don’t release their official scholarship numbers, but by my count, Georgia was at 84 scholarships this year, one below the limit.
There are fifteen seniors, so you do the roster management math. There is no more room at the inn. Which means you can expect a few kids to be off seeking new college horizons in the upcoming months. That’s life if the big city these days.
Get The Picture 
I wish every school had to release a list of their scholarship athletes. I think it would make it very interesting.
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Have we reached the point of “greyshirting” yet?
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I love the sausage. Seeing it made? Not so much.
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I remember when posters on this blog regularly criticized Saban for greyshirting and other roster management practices.
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I don’t like it a bit … I also don’t like the unbalanced signing classes we dealt with before that.
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There was a guy named “Texas Dawg” I seem to recall that was the resident expert on grayshirting.
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You know what I don’t like? The fact that Saban has basically forced our hand in order to compete. I dislike his roster management practices, but I accept that it’s a necessary evil to run an elite program. I would not be at all bothered if stricter rules were instituted regarding the ability of schools to withdraw scholarship offers.
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*I should have specified scholarships, not scholarship offers. I feel like schools owe more loyalty to their students once they’re on campus.
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What about football players showing loyalty to their teammates, coaches and fans by playing in Bowl games instead of being prima donna NFL wannabees?
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What about fans who believe they’re entitled to act as if they have a proprietary interest in the future of 20-year old kids they’ve never met, let alone know?
Unless you’re planning on stepping up and personally taking care of kids who gets injured and see their professional career worth diminished, they don’t owe you jack shit.
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I’m guessing teammates and coaches understand their position/decision, too.
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Spot on… the indignation of fan bases and coaches re: those decisions is so entitled it’s ridiculous.
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So is the indignation of sanctimonious AHs who think complete freedom (a CFB with no borders if you will) is the right approach for CFB. Makes no sense, and would destroy the fiber that makes the college game so much better. One thing for sure, your ticket costs would certainly come down.
What makes your position the correct one? That “spot” you refer to must be over your eyes, it won’t work as a team sport, and it doesn’t work in any way for the education side of things, to the small degree that even matters to folks who think there should be no rules for the po’ chill’ens. Let them play!! Where ever they want to, and when they want to. Sounds groovy man.
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For what it’s worth, Mac, I disagree with your position on this, but I don’t think you’re an asshole. 😉
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Opinions aren’t the “ass holish” part of this, blasting others with differing opinions is (unless you are under attack and being called out as stupid, uncaring, etc. I think the schools share some blame when they don’t respect, or take care of the athlete. For instance, I think the protections for not transferring should be limited to 4 year scholarship athletes, and that should constitute a 4 year contract. If the schools only offer a one year deal, the athlete should not be bound for any longer than that.
The reckless part of this “go where you wanna, wanna go, do what you wanna, wanna do” is the chaos for teams/programs who cannot operate with fresh blood every year, all trying to learn a new offense and find their way around campus. Not to mention what happens to the other team they left because they didn’t have a chance to win big games due to key players graduating or leaving from the prior year. It would be like a dozen, or more, Florida Marlins type one year flashes. Can’t wipe your butt one year, next year in the playoff because of a fruit basket turnover. If you think the talent at a few schools roll over teams now, wait until they can walk down the buffet line and pick selected superstars to bring in for the next year.
I just think a few superstar players and programs looking out for their own selfish, short-term interests will make football a much smaller game. Smaller in that, the number of schools would shrink over time resulting in fewer teams, scholarships, and fans, by running off the opportunities for Mr. Average down the road. And I think that is what will happen.
I don’t need Cinderella to attend every dance, but the chance for a deeper pool of talent is what gives us those memorable upsets, or surprise seasons from a fringe program. It isn’t healthy, and I don’t want to see a few hundred players ruin things for a few thousand. I think there is a middle ground between over control and anarchy. I don’t mind being the AH when the cause is good. 🙂
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I still don’t like it. Kids should not be run off to make room for new signees.
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And some juniors may go pro.
Two recruiting articles in two days? A welcome additional football topic to GTP. Keep them coming.
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Here’s the list of guys I’ve come up with that are currently on the roster and need to have a great spring or are likely moving on:
Gibbs
Bishop – May be gone anyway
McBride
Herrien – DGD but the RB room is really crowded
Johnson
Carter – very iffy on this one
Hayes
Hunter
Young
Of course, this doesn’t take into account guys who may be early entrants to the draft (Holyfield and Hardman as the main candidates).
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Since you brought it up, what’s wrong ethically with doing what Saban does—running off guys who really aren’t contributing? They got to be a member of a really good team for 2-3 years, they got coaching at the highest level for that time and now they can go to a lower level school and likely be a starter there.
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Loving this new approach. Makes a lot of sense to me.
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The reason I’m not a fan of it is that the kid has to sit out a year to transfer to another FBS school and the coaching staff can put all sorts of restrictions on where the student-athlete can transfer. If the process worked like the NFL waiver wire where a guy can be cut one day and be eligible to play immediately the next, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
If an offensive lineman who isn’t going to find significant playing time at Georgia is told to move along and is academically eligible, he should be able to enroll at Fech the next semester and able to play the next fall.
I don’t think a kid who loses his scholarship at one school should have to drop down to a smaller school to play immediately.
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I especially agree on the guys we usher out of the program…let them go and prosper.
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I have always thought a kid who is academically eligible and isn’t being kicked out for behavioral reasons should be free to transfer without restriction once without loss of eligibility.
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“Life is too short.”
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I believe Gibbs is already gone. McBride may be looking elsewhere too.
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Gibbs is still on the roster per georgiadogs.com. That roster was the source for my post as I looked through the roster.
McBride is the head-scratcher to me. He came to Athens with all of the athleticism and 5-star ratng and has been a special teams contributor but hasn’t been able to break through the first 22 on the defensive depth chart.
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LOL The Great White Hope was not to be…
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The official roster is surely bogus: they wouldn’t be recruiting past the open spaces if it wasn’t. Gibbs has been rumored by people who are in a position to know as being gone. It’s not talent – he has plenty of that – but it is a number ancillary issues (no idea what those are – and it is more than one thing – so don’t make any assumptions) that they’ve tried to help him with and the success has not been what they had hoped.
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I forgot about McBride. I would trade Hayes name for Brini. I doubt Herrien leaves.
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Yeah, to me Brian Herrien has adequately filled a need for each of the past 3 seasons. He may decide to go on his own, but is a completely serviceable player against about 75% of our opponents.
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I doubt Herrien leaves as well, but if the carries aren’t there, I could see him leaving.
He’s been a great teammate, runs hard, but I just don’t see him taking carries away from a healthy Zeus or a bulked up Cook.
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Bob Dylan said it’d be like this.
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as did The Shirelles.
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Actually it was the Shirelles’ momma.
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Time to make some sausage. Just close the shades please. Dont want to see it.
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I really love the early signing period, get this crap over with ASAP.
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If it is about the kids most would dislike it, as the signing day should be delayed until after the NFL and thus college Coaching silly season.
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I think we sign an absolute max of 23. (Haselwood, Dean, Stevenson, and the HI QB would be the last 4. There could be a 5th slot for a RB, OT, or DB depending on if Walthour counts for this class or the previous one). We will need 5-6 transfers and I have 8-9 names that could do so. I see a max of 1 early entree (probably Nauta).
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It could be worse – like Miami right now sitting at #29 in the country, with a lone OL 3 star commit who recently chose them over Illinois.
https://247sports.com/college/miami/Season/2019-Football/Commits/
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Remember there are multiple ways that players are lost. Early entrants to the NFL, disciplinary measures, guys who legitimately look at the depth chart and realize they are better off moving along by their own choice, and then of course there’s always 1-2 signees who end up not qualifying academically. Between all these avenues, that takes care of BY FAR the majority of oversigning, and there’s nothing shady about any of it. The number of guys who straight up want to stay and just get their scholarship yanked just isn’t that big of a number, I’d argue it’s actually somewhat rare. Most of it takes care of itself without having to do any creative roster management. Kirby knows he’s going to lose players through all the avenues described above, so he “oversigns” to compensate for it. Not to beat a dead horse, but the failure to compensate for all those avenues above was one of the major things that did in Richt.
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It was probably THE thing that did in Richt. The 2012 SECCG was really lost because of a lack of depth in the DL.
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And because the numbers were so low, they really, really had to reach in the 2013 class, which was an epic bomb.
I truly believe letting the numbers get that low in 2012 was the point of now return. There is no way to defend to your boss that you’re engaged and detail oriented when you’ve let something as vital as playing with a full roster get so out of whack.
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I want Georgia to win a NC but I have my limitations as to how and running off guys who work as hard or harder than anyone just to make room for the latest and greatest is my limit.
I’ve spent years reading/listening to contradictory comments and seeing contradictory actions from Bama. That program has used Jalen Hurts as proof that they ”care” and to kinda cover up all the unfortunate cases. Media had gone out of their way to help them, too. It’s sickening to me.
I just hope we can stop choking away great opportunities so I can somewhat be ok with it. All the extra support and resources that the last guy didn’t get just to have much of the same results definitely doesn’t make me somewhat ok with it.
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The same results? What are you watching?
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I clearly said “much of the same results”. I didn’t lie unless we’re counting 2 historical choke jobs as victories. I’m not but others can.
Maybe it’ll turn out differently but so far it’s been more of the same- bridesmaid. Folks around here still blame Richt and Terrance Edwards and Aaron Murray for crying out loud. It is what is- nearly a mirror of Richt’s start. I’ll even go so far as to say the last SECC and NC games were bigger chokes than Terrance Edwards dropping one pass or Aaron Murray going to to wrong guy. We had considerable leads twice and blew both. I don’t know why people are afraid to call it what it is but still harp on the past.
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Yep. Losing close games to two of Nick Saban’s best Alabama teams compares nicely with losing to a 5 and 3 Florida squad coached by the Zooker. Lol
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And needing overtime to beat southern.
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In 15 years under Richt, we played in exactly one postseason game where – if we win- the Nat’l Champ was still attainable. That was the 2012 SECC game.
We did play in several Outbacks, TaxSlayers, and Capital One games though.
In 3 years under Kirby, we’ve played in 4 postseason games where all our dreams were still attainable (the 2 SECC games, Rose Bowl, and Nat’l Champ game). We are 2-2 in those games which is exactly 2 more than Richt achieved in 15 years.
Richt had us in 3 prestigious bowl games (the Sugar Bowls) and no Natl Champ games obviously.
Kirby has us a Rose, Natl Champ game, and Sugar Bowl.
The gap is real wide, man.
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Wide AF. Not sure why it’s so hard for people to see.
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Correct, the gap is a canyon.
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If you don’t see the difference between then and now, it’s because you’re emotionally vested in avoiding it.
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How do we know the guys being “run off” work as hard or harder than the rest? Maybe the guys leaving are the ones doing just enough to get by and they are basically being called out over a several month long period?
I’m sure you’ve been part of teams or organizations where not everyone is doing what they should/could.
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Hardworking doesn’t equal results. A hamster running in a wheel is working hard but doesn’t move an inch.
I’m ok with giving guys the boot if they aren’t producing. Welcome to the private sector where RESULTS matter…
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Then pay them beyond the value of the scholarship if this is your perspective. The idea of “giving them the boot” and then restricting where they can go to continue their career is BS.
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R-U-N-N-O-F-T
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Tickets for the Sugra Bowl came.
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IF you are attending, try your best to get Club Level end zone seats..best seats in the house due to the configuration of the stadium.
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So if we’re 6 to the bad (25-19), and we’re assuming Gibbs and McBride are gone—which I don’t know enough about to know if that’s a fair assumption or not, then we’re taking 4 guys either going pro early, washing out, or getting processed.
That doesn’t really seem that bad to me. Especially if say, Nauta and Reed leave, not you’re only down to 2. Throw in other transfer Rumors, and that number feels about right.
Am I missing something?
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