Kirby’s recruited like a sumbitch. The defense is likely to be the conference’s best in 2020. Even with all the departures — and let’s not forget all the hand-wringing on display about the supposed talent drain before the Sugar Bowl — Georgia will still be the most talented team in the SEC East.
There are no guarantees in life or in football, sure. But why not at least wait until we see what Smart does with the open coaching spot and the quarterback transfer market before we slit our wrists?
Look at the bright side — for once, G-Day QBR may actually have some relevance.
Deep breaths, peeps.
Get The Picture 
I fully expected a number of regular commenters here to be in full celebratory mode yesterday about Jake’s decision given how they took shots at him the entire season.
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I can also think of a couple dummies in section 135 at MB as well.
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Heeeeyyyy… that’s where my Atlanta United season tickets are…
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THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!! Good grief.
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Kriby has proven he has no problem getting talented players to Athens. I’m glad only guys that don’t want to play for Georgia are leaving. I hope mcgoofy and craven Morehead find a set between them and don’t cower down the the Mays BS.
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Florida’s fans say this every year. They literally say it right after getting their butts kicked. We could beat them the next 10 years iin a row and they would still say they’ve got us next year
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Some people simply are not happy unless they are unhappy. I have never liked ole Jeff Schultz, but his article on The Athletic yesterday (that said that if Jake Fromm leaving is the downfall of the Georgia Bulldogs football program, then the program wasn’t that good anyway) is as good an article as I’ve read by him.
Kirby’s recruiting is good. He’ll get a grad transfer QB for this coming year — hopefully over the weekend if not sooner — and hopefully he will be filling the open coaching slot with a QB coach so that Coley can focus on the overall offense and a specific QB coach can handle just that position.
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Schultz is a west coast hack that was fake news before fake news, That wrote controversial articles about Georgia just to get those clicks. I had no idea he was running for the athletic which supposedly is a good publication.
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He is better now that he’s not writing for Tech fans and trying to make irritating UGA comments.
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I’ll admit that I like him better at the Athletic. He started out the same with over the top snark/inflammatory statements, but has dialed it back some to start writing some good articles.
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I’m not gonna slit my wrists or anything, but I don’t expect much next year with a completely rebuilt offense and the same shitty coordinator.
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Dude, just curious, are you OK with us blowing what may be the most talented roster on defense we’ve seen due to all of this? What’s your perspective if this team isn’t in Atlanta in December?
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It sucks to waste such a great defense, no doubt. If we don’t make Atlanta I won’t be surprised, but I am not going to gnash my teeth over it after going 3 straight years. A window will have closed. Kirby will have to open a new one I guess.
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Are we the new Auburn?
Talented on Defense, but huge question marks on Offense. I don’t think we have a shot at winning the East next year. We’ll lose three games easily.
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Dude, I understand your pessimism, but we won 12 games with this offense and coordinator…should have been 13 games with out 4 TOs. Also, we are still recruiting above the teams on our schedule. Which regular season team is showing great improvement over this season?
Positives are – The new WRs are gaining experience and our run game should remain solid and the D will still be awesome.
Questions will be – does our OL take a step back due to new coach? What impact will a young inexperienced QB have? Will Kirby allow some changes to the offense…especially if we play a mobile QB?
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I felt at the start of the year that we’d see Jake leave at the end of it. Didn’t we all expect that?
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I admit I didn’t think Jake was leaving at the beginning of the year. I thought that was the reason Fields decided to move on. As the season progressed, I can definitely see why Jake decided to leave given his draft grade (whatever it is) especially in light of his 2019 stats and his status as program punching bag for some of our “fans” and the media.
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Huh. Ok. I thought he’d have another great year, improve a bit more, and he’d pretty much have to leave because his draft stock would have peaked.
Like Stafford did, for example. I guess I thought, given the expectations we all seemed to have for the offense (going on, the defense was supposed to be the suspect unit, as you’ll recall), that Fromm’s success was a given.
When it didn’t work out that way, I thought he would stay, personally, but I’m not surprised he didn’t. Re: Fields, I think we can see now that he (rightly) felt he was too good to sit on the bench for even one more year. I don’t like how it worked out but I can’t blame him.
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Jake is late 1st / 2nd round pick this year and unless he balls out and wins a Heisman he is a late 1st / 2nd round pick next year. He leaves this year and starts his NFL clock for his 2nd contract.
Also there are some good teams in the late first who will be needing a QB in the next couple of years. It’s a dice roll, but its a solid decision on Jake’s part.
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It’s the lingering bitterness over the gap between the pre-season expectations for the offense and the actual experience of it.
Jake went from “better than Tua, just not as hyped” to A) a dysfunctional cog in a dysfunctional passing game or B) a victim of shitty receivers and a brain dead offensive plan.
The entire season was spent hoping that the offense would wake up and reignite natty hopes. And it never did.
But next season could exceed expectations the same way this one submarined them. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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It wasn’t the entire season – after the TN game forward is when the offense became inoffensive.
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So, we are turning into Auburn. Great.
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First, I would put UF the favorite right now. They’ve got a good qb returning and will be good on defense. We will be outstanding on defense, but we don’t have a qb and our OL will be highly touted but untested. Add that to the assumption our offensive philosophy won’t change and it’s a lot to overcome.
Our schedule (that is, playing Bama week 3) doesn’t help.
And that’s fine. It’s better than fine, actually, because preseason opinions don’t mean a thing.
And, more than anything, Kirby can recruit. He will close hard on Jones and V. Pran. He will get a grad transfer QB. It’s difficult to think we can match 11 regular season wins right now, but once the dust clears and spring ball starts we will have clarity.
In the meantime I’m more than happy to let the Gators suffer the privilege of pressure.
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Where do you get UF will have a good D? they lose their best two pass rushers and best cover corner. Did they replace those guys? NO! they haven’t recruited with UGA either. If the Dawgs QB isn’t a TO machine the offense will be fine and the defense will be great. UGA should still be the favorite; but this gives the writers click bait opportunities. Go Dawgs!!
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I’m glad you believe that UGA is likely to finish 3rd in the East. 1, yes I said I returning starter on offense and you can bet your bottom dollar something will happen. It’s UGA! Something always happens!
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I think it already happened
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It’s really amazing how dramatic yesterday was, fueled in part by click bait headlines on The Athletic about a “mass exodus” of the offense. 2 players left yesterday. Granted one was the starting QB, but didn’t everyone expect this to be Fromm’s last year before the season began? I mean, sure the path from there to here was different than we expected, but isn’t the final outcome what we all expected? Jake Fromm can’t be our QB forever.
In total I think 5 starters are gone from the offense—most of them going pro. Is that really a “mass exodus” in the context of a team with 3 consecutive top 3 recruiting classes?
Maybe I’m being overly optimistic but if the sky is falling over my head, I’m not seeing it.
Also, we struggled to score 20ish points a game down the stretch and often had 2 or less TDs per game. Yet we won the East. I don’t think the bar could be any lower offensively going into 2020. With what looks to be a lights out D, I feel like we still have nowhere to go but up in terms of offensive production regardless of who the QB is.
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4 OLmen, 1 QB, 1 RB, 1/2 TEs (depending on how you count formations), 1/2 WRs (same), plus Blankenship seems like a lot more than 5.
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Thanks and I also agree Blankenship is a big loss and should almost be counted as an “offensive starter” due to how much he was used for points. But in my mind I keep coming back to the fact that our baseline TD production was like 1-2 per game down the stretch. It seems like any improvement or change at all should increase that and also decrease reliance on FGs.
Fortunately the older I get, the faster the next season comes around. We’ll find out soon enough.
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That may be true, but there’s no reason to fret. Coley and Hankton are back baby!!!
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I love this post.
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Keep drinking the Kool-aide.
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Some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. That they’re Georgia Football fans, on top of that? Well, that’s just kismet.
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And how many of us thought the dumpster fire in Knoxville would finally be put out, especially after the Georgia State loss? At this point, I think it’s more likely that Tennessee steals a win from us than Florida as Kirby seems to have Mullen & Grantham’s number
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Here’s my thing about this phenomenon. It’s not unique to Georgia. Every program deals with attrition on the coaching staff and having juniors declare for the draft. Here’s where Georgia is different: in spite of our talent base, our rabid fan base willing to transfer a significant portion of its wealth to the Hartman Fund or whatever it’s called now (“get off my lawn”), our history of always being the college football equivalent of a bridesmaid, never a bride, we have not won a Natty in 40 years. During that time, we have watched all our rivals – ALL OF THEM – win at least one. Even Tech, goddamit. So my position on the attractiveness of the position of head coach at the University of Georgia has always been muted. When you coach at Georgia you’re playing 40 seasons at a time. We are cynical. We are bitter. Our knee-jerk reaction to everything is “here we go again.” Obviously, that’s fantastically unfair to Kirby. But unlike ANY other possible candidate, he gets it. He’s like a defensive Steve Spurrier. He remembers every loss from his playing days, and he views his role as a coach is to set the Universe back on its proper axis. There is NO ONE else out there who would understand this dynamic unless you PLAYED for Georgia. Kirby is the guy. I heard a wise man say one that a man who has a why, can bear any how. Kirby is the guy y’all. No one would have the stomach for this. You’re not coaching THIS season, you’re expected to atone for every season since 1980. We have lightning in a bottle, and I really wish we had won in ‘17, but nothing is ever easy for Georgia. The girls are too hot and the degrees are too valuable. But if not Kirby, who was taught by the best – for 9 years – if not Kirby, with his enthusiasm and his axes to grind, who? Seriously WHO? He’s the guy.
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Tech only won half of one 😉
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What you said … I trust Kirby’s appraisal of football talent. Our 3 quarterbacks are here because they can all play. The quality of our returning defense will mitigate their break-in period. Top to bottom, we’ll have even better athletes on the field next year. Plus the offense is already showing changes. In the SBowl, we moved our running attack to the edges giving our backs space to operate. We also used the middle of the field more in the passing game … though some passes were dropped.
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Well said!
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Good grief, Senator needs to repeat this post every day. There is no reason not to believe that there are Heisman talents on our team right now. Kirby has built a roster, just sit back and watch.
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The worst part of the day yesterday was getting calls/ texts immediately after it was announced- and I hadn’t seen it, BY UF fans! #FML
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I wouldn’t bet against Kirby. I like us being in the position that everybody thinks we’re in big trouble and think it’s their time to rough us up. Watch what happens. Gonna be fun.
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A different post
Thanks
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