… you have three five-star quarterbacks. That is not a bad thing.
Gunner Stockton committed. What does that mean for the 2022 class? What does that tell us about the Georgia program? Well, a lot. The price of entry into the CFP is an elite quarterback, and Georgia just secured the position for at least the next four seasons.
There’s a chance that Vandagriff won’t live up to his billing. There is also a chance that Stockton won’t live up to his five-star ranking. There is virtually zero chance that neither of them will be an elite quarterback.
Add JT Daniels to the mix and it’s hard to see how even the Kirby Smart of naysayers’ “he chose Fromm over Fields!” hindsight dreams could screw that up. The worst that happens is one of the two incoming studs leaves, but that would be because the other one nailed down the starting job.
I might be more doomy-and-gloomy if Coley were still the quarterbacks coach, but Monken’s gonna polish somebody into an elite quarterback is the expectation I’m going with. You should, too.
Get The Picture 
I appreciate the positivity of this post, and acknowledging the excellent work by Kirby in this regard, but being a Georgia fan for a long time has taught me that there are definitely not guarantees that things will “pan out.” (With that I want to emphasize that I’m about as hopeful as I’ve ever been.)
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Put it this way… would you prefer there were no five-star quarterbacks on the roster? 😉
I don’t know if there’s a guarantee, but you sure have to like Georgia’s odds there.
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This is the thing that gets me, and of course is in the link, not from the Senator himself…”There is virtually zero chance that neither of them will be an elite quarterback.” Virtually zero. Yeah, whatever, dude.
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the offseason, most are just wanting the attention/clicks…..to be honest, I love it.
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I thought about linking that video of nick recruiting on the “competition makes you better” philosophy, but I agree with Nick. FSU used to stockpile QBs under Bowden. It can work fine.
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I wonder if Bowden could do that now with the transfer rules. Do guys sit and wait their turn knowing it may never come?
Heck, does DJ sit and wait today? I would like to think so, but he could have been Richt’s Justin Fields to Greene as Jake Fromm.
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I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of Carson Beck.
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I believe Beck will likely win the 2nd string job in the spring unless Brock goes off (watch those G-Day QBRs). Whether he holds off Vandagriff through the summer is the question?
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You can never have enough players at all positions.
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My guess is Beck might be the most likely to leave, but we’ll see. It does take a different management style, but as the Saban recruiting zoom recently showed, you want guys who are willing to compete against the best and not run from it.
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I keep waiting for Beck to materialize. I like his tangibles. I guess it’s just not going to happen.
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Ten actual games of his true frosh year, and you’re writing the dude off?
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LOL!
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He’s still young. Give him time.
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Yeah, I am a little impatient. I watched a good bit of film on him and feel he will play somewhere, sooner or later.
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Loading the cupboard with 5 star QBs is certainly the right start. Sure the expectations may not play out, but you start with the consensus best and go from there. Just don’t let the supposed talent let you relax on training or scheming.
Anyone holding Kirby accountable, in a bad way over the Fromm/Fields issue, is just letting hindsight be their intelligence and that’s not fair. You go with what is best at the time until you see better play. Kirbs is doing what it takes to assemble the ingredients for a NC team. Now the right coaching at the right times in the right games will complete the job.
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Kirby has to convince these 5 star QBs that one good year as the starter on a UGA SEC NC team is enough to make them a high draft pick. The best way to accomplish that is as a backup for a couple or three years. They’ll learn, gain great experience and along the way collect a few rings to gather dust.
Oh, and have you seen the gorgeous girls at UGA? It ain’t a pig party as at gumpland and those cow colleges on the other side of both rivers.
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My favorite thing about extra 5* QBs is that they aren’t playing for the other team
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Agree. 5-star QBs from Georgia are committing to the state’s flagship school. Not utk, not aubie, not clemmons, not even bama. Our stockpile is a stab in the heart to the schools surrounding GA.
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Why is it never, “How did OSU let Heisman trophy winning, national champion Joe Burrow leave?”
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For us Dawgs in Ohio, it’s a common saying.
They hate it, btw.
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Plot Twist: Monken goes back to the NFL and they both transfer out.
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Sure, man. Or they all die together in a fiery plane crash. Whatever works for you.
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The chances of that happening are virtually zero!
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I’m resigned to the fact that Monken will leave in the next couple of years. Not saying I have any facts to base that on… other than the extremely short average duration of a quality assistant coach in the SEC. However, I’d like to think Kirby will continue to look for guys that run the kind of offense Monken favors. Monken certainly isn’t the only OC in the universe that wants to spread the ball around to talented players. As long as we have loads of talent (something I think we can assume as long as Kirby is HC), it’s simply a matter of hiring future OCs with the right philosophy.
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That guy who “runs the kind of offense Monken favors” is already on staff. His name is Buster Faulkner.
Welcome to your heir apparent OC.
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I sure hope he leaves in a couple years. You want your HC to stick around and keep winning, and your coordinators to move on to better jobs every 2-3 years because you’ve been winning. That’s the natural order of things at a successful program.
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Monken appeared to be miserable his last year in the league. He may leave over the next few years to be a head coach at a P5 program, but I doubt he leaves for an NFL coordinator or position coach role.
I would bet there’s no way he wants to walk away from the QB room he has over the next few years.
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i’d like to think a national championship on his resume gets him in the market for the biggest jobs. I’m hoping he wouldn’t chase any job since he’s already been at Southern Miss. To this day, the Kirby approach to career building ain’t bad.
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I would agree with that. If he has a national title or a couple of SEC championships on the resume, he would be a attractive candidate.
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Why jump at an upper mid-major job where, IMO, your ability to mitigate risk [that you aren’t the greatest coach] is way less than say a Kirby Smart at Georgia or a Sark at Texas, simply because of the talent haul ? I get the notion that they all think they’re the greatest, but every human being (or their agent) understands stats, probabilities, etc.
If I’m Monken, at a program on the cusp of making me a star in my own right, I think the long game says stay at Georgia until you can do a Sarkisian. Way better chance IMO of getting where you want to go than having it all come crashing down in the American Athletic Conference. It’s the same dance to a different song with Hugh Freeze. He no longer needs a job like UCF and he’s better than a FUBAR Tennessee. Bide your time while you have Liberty rolling and let the perfect job come to you. Meanwhile, your NCAA troubles grow more distant each year.
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I can think of millions of reasons to leave comfort for uncertainty.
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In business, definitely. Not saying this isn’t business but it’s not like these guys are deciding whether to sit on or move capital. They are still salaried employees performing relatively similar tasks in whichever route they choose……it’s about staying in demand at the highest rate possible and avoiding the chopping block. Don’t parlay your high demand into a dead end route.
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The Southern Miss thing is interesting because he left to be an OC (in the NFL). Makes me wonder if he had a run as HC and decided he’d rather stick to offense. Now that doesn’t preclude him wanting to be an OC at the NFL level again (and one that calls his own plays, unlike in Cleveland), but maybe it makes him less likely to just leave.
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Madman Monken has proven on film, in game day situations that his receivers will get open, play in play out and be productive in return, should he find that this is a really fun time in his life working with QB’s, student athletes that work and learn his scheme/system maybe being an HC is not all that shiny an object for him…$$$ are what they are, 1.5 million over 6-9 years (as an assistant) is better vs 3 million for 3-4 years (as an hc)….
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If I had full control over the offense, being an excellent college OC can be a very financially lucrative career. $1.5m goes a loooooong way in Athens, Georgia.
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“With You”
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Monken is an excellent coach who’s had a couple years in a row torpedoed by factors out of his control. But pretty soon people don’t care why your offense doesn’t go, they just care that it didn’t really go for a couple years. Everyone’s got an excuse.
All that to say he’s got to have a true ass kicking offense for a year or two before anyone else worth a damn is going to hire him because winning that press conference matters these days. Right now he’s the guy who did pretty good as head coach at Southern Miss, had a good year as a pro OC, then a bad one, and another mediocre one at Georgia.
He’s got an opportunity to become the most attractive “offensive minded” HC candidate in the country if he produces here for a year or two with these stud QB’s. He ain’t going anywhere till we win big or fire him.
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Your lips to God’s ear.
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Thank you for saying this. My thoughts exactly, Senator. I’m not worried about one of them leaving because it means one of them is successful at UGA. If the other leaves at that point so be it. That is why another will be recruited to come in and provide the next QB in the progression.
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Every 5 star QB thinks they’ll be starting in the league that 4th year out of high school.
Kirby’s always been able to recruit. One of these guys needs to blow up and go top 15 in the draft. That’s the proof of concept for what he’s pitching.
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I mean it’s a hell of a lot better than starting a walk on against alabama and florida. Stetson is a DGD, but you can’t coach 6’+ and a cannon for an arm.
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I said it last week but I’ll repeat it here.
JT wins it all next year and goes to the NFL. BVG takes over in 22 and takes us back to the championship. 23 is a battle between BVG and Gunner but BVG wins the Heisman while Gunner waits in the wings. 24 BVG is in the NFL and Gunner wins FIAR. Saban who?
A man can dream, can’t he? I also still hold GME.
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“The worst that happens is one of the two incoming studs leaves, but that would be because the other one nailed down the starting job.”
Or Smart chose the wrong guy… again.
If nothing else one positive fallout from the Fromm/Fields debacle is getting rid of Coley for Monken which could yield major results if we can keep him around. I’m not seeing a generational talent in either BVG or Stockton, but I’m also not really qualified to make that call. Hopefully they prove me wrong or at least perhaps one of them will be good enough to put us over the top.
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Kirby chose the wrong guy? Dear lord, please just give it a rest. The supposed “generational”, “right” guy got OSU no closer to the Natty than the supposed “wrong” guy.
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By that logic based on 2020 Fields is better than Lawrence because he kicked his ass head to head with injured ribs. See how that doesn’t work? Hell Mac Jones won it all, let’s see if he gets drafted before Lawrence and Fields now because that makes him better right?
In any event, Fields was also hurt against Bama and his team was missing 13 players out with Covid, plus lost their best running back on the first play. Just because Fields didn’t win it all at tOSU doesn’t mean he wasn’t the better option over Fromm at Georgia.
Ask yourself this. If you could go back to 2018 would you rather have two more years of Fromm followed by Stetson Bennett, or three years of Fields followed by Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton? Hell knowing Kirby we may still have ended up with JT Daniels if Fields hung around.
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Hindsight, forever undefeated.
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Damn sure proved me wrong and also changed my mind about Fromm and Fields.
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Based on all evidence at the time, Fromm was the “right” guy at the time, woulda, shoulda, coulda, is a foolish exercise.
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Based on the evidence you and I had given that we did not watch Fields in practice everyday that is correct. However, it is now clear that Fields was the superior player. Not acknowledging that now is a foolish exercise.
In other words. If Kirby is sitting in his office today thinking he nailed the handling of Fromm and Fields then Stockton and Vandagriff could end up being another shit show.
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It’s an incredible amount of QB talent that has come through Georgia. No doubt about that. 24/7 ranking wise probably the best over the last 5 years.
But right now everything rests on Daniels having the greatest season a UGA QB, maybe player, has ever had and a coach dialing up the greatest offense he has ever coached in a 20 year career.
Oh and nothing else slips.
Anything short of that likely doesnt win a national title.
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If it doesn’t work out like we hope, we can at least simulate a better reality in a new EA College Football game, possibly as soon as this fall/winter.
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