Really, there’s no need to elaborate. The facts speak for themselves.
Georgia locked up the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class on Wednesday and filled its class with two commitments. The Bulldogs flipped five-star wide receiver George Pickens (Hoover; Hoover, Ala.) and beat out Alabama and TCU for three-star tight end Brett Seither (Clearwater Central Catholic; Clearwater, Fla.), giving them 308.98 points.
Only Alabama finished ahead of UGA and it’s the third straight year that Kirby Smart and his staff have signed a top-three class that amassed 300 points or more. There’s a lot to be excited about when you look at the haul as a whole. A total of five prospects with a five-star rating inked with Georgia. That group includes the nation’s No. 1 prospect per the industry-generated 247Sports Composite, the top two players in the state of Alabama, the top player from Mississippi, and the top defensive tackle, a major position of need for the Bulldogs in this class, in Georgia.
UGA also reeled in 15 four-star prospects including the No. 1 and No. 6 junior college prospects in the country. All needs were met, especially on Wednesday when Georgia signed Pickens and Seither and during the early period when a pair of quarterbacks inked with the program and enrolled early.
To begin with, Smart sits on the largest pool of talent ever accumulated in the history of the program. Think about that for a minute. Sure, you’ve still got to coach them up and develop, but it’s a helluva lot easier to succeed with studs than without.
Next, what makes yesterday’s finish particularly impressive is how effortlessly Smart identified a remaining area of weakness after the early signing date and moved to address it. You can’t address every need completely in a single class, of course, but, given Georgia’s recent classes, it’s not like Smart was faced with that kind of problem. This time, it was the receiving corps that was in need of shoring up after the departure of several key players and Haselwood bailing for Oklahoma; shoring up is just what happened with the signings of Pickens and Seither.
Kirby’s roster management skills are peerless (okay, except for Saban, of course) and the biggest difference between him and Mark Richt. It’s why the program is where it’s at today and the most likely reason Georgia will eventually break through on the national title front. The scary thing is that it’s like we don’t even see him break a sweat doing it.