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July 22, 2009

Dawgs land 2 more commits. 13 of 18 on defense

TJ Stripling ($ premium), a 4 star defensive end, and Nickell Robey ($), a 4 star DB/Athlete, have committed to Georgia during the past 24 hours. Georgia now has 18 total commitments, and 13 of the kids are on defense with a heavy, heavy emphasis on speed on the group.

Glad to have them. This is certainly one way to fix a defense that looked slow and tentative last year.

But the bigger story of the week on the recruiting front looks to be the spat at Carver High School in Columbus. The story is almost two days old now. You can read it here, here or here.

But here's my belated take. Everyone on this process screwed up. The kid, the high school coach and the Georgia staff. All of them botched this kid's recruitment badly over the past two months. I don't for a minute think it's a conspiracy by an ex-Auburn player turned high school football coach to blow this up. Nor do I think it's a conspiracy by Richt to offer the QB in hopes of landing the other kids at the high school.

It's just a run of the mill shank. The kid had an offer, and he didn't commit...despite knowing that UGA was short on scholarships this year. According to Dean Legge at DawgPost.com, UGA got 11 public commitments after the kid got his offer in May. That brought our total number of public commitments to 15. Why wait if you know you want to come to UGA? That's on the kid.

Georgia knew it was running out of scholarships with the public commitments plus likely private commitments and "on the cusp" commitments from a handful of others. Why not tell the kid that we weren't going to sign a QB this year? Why wait? That's on the coaches.

And the high school coach blew this from the start. He knows how the recruiting process works. It's not like UGA pulled his offer after the kid committed. That's the unforgivable sin. It's a game of musical chairs and you don't wait to be the last kid to grab your seat. The HS coach let his kids down in managing their recruitment.

This will all blow over in a few months and everything will get back to normal. Richt has the credibility to fix this. The high school coach said as much in the interviews. Per the Georgia High School Football Daily (partial list of quotes):
"I told [Richt] how I felt, and he said he supported my decision and said he didn't blame me," McGee said. "He apologized. He admitted that they screwed up and didn't handle the situation correctly."

"I respect Coach Richt; I know he's a Christian guy," McGee said. "He's a model coach and father. It's just a big breakdown in their communication within the coaching staff at Georgia, and that's kind of sad. I'm sure they'll get it corrected."

"Mark Richt is a class guy; I'm sure he'll write a letter of apology and things of that sort," McGee said. "It's going to take time. I've got to stand up for kids in my program."
I think the only folks who are really overreacting are recruiting junkies. And the only person genuinely hurt by this is the QB who will end up likely playing for a program not quite as good as UGA. Long term, I'd wager this is a non-event.

See Also:
-- If you want something done right... - Blutarsky

PWD

12 comments:

Nathan said...

Absolutely much ado about nothing. And I'm saying that as a rival fan who'd be thrilled if Richt burned bridges with all the in state coaches.

JasonC said...

I think Tennessee is looking for QBs. Of course, if he did go there, we'd get to hear Lane go on about how it was a big steal from the the Bulldogs and how he is taking the state away from Richt = Master Plan.

Paul said...

So... we offered, he didn't commit, and we pulled the offer? What's the problem?

Anonymous said...

General, the only problem is we pulled it when he was on campus coming to commit with his family. Our timing sucks, and that is why Richt apparently is ok with the reprimand

Hunkering Hank said...

"Carver defensive end Corey Crawford, who also made the trip to Georgia, was on the verge of committing to the Bulldogs, but McGee indicated they are now out of the picture."

I don't know a damn thing about the "inside baseball" of recruiting, but I can't believe another kid who was considering coming to UGA would not come here just because some other kid on his team was part of a snafu. I mean, seriously, is the high school coach really looking out for the best interests of his players by interfering with their recruitment by ANY school with a decent track record, much less the flagship state university - UGA. Somebody educate me on this, because it looks to me like this coach felt that he had been "disrespected" by UGA and he's potentially sacrificing the future of his other players to make up for it.

It's does not matter said...

Congrats on your apparent good class.

But remember, it's all for naught.

Florida is going to beat you anyway.

Anonymous said...

Hank,

This is no slight on Crawford and I wish the kid well, but given that Georgia already has five defensive ends in the fold (Morant, Stripling, Burrows, Fields, Butler), my guess is that Georgia "being out of the picture" wasn't necessarily Crawford's choice, if you catch my drift.

Anonymous said...

Hank-

We couldn't take either player as we are full. As anon said, Crawford didn't have a choice.

ChicagoDawg said...

I don't know any of the details that went on, so it is impossible to comment about who did what, when, how, etc., within the UGA staff or with the kid (and his family). What we do know is that the coach went public with this story and was crying foul about how embarrassing it was for this kid. However embarrassing it may have been for him over the weekend, it was an embarrassment that was felt within he and his family. His H.S. coach chose to take what would otherwise be a private embarrassment and make sure that everyone who follows SEC recruiting knows about it. Nice way to help this kid save face coach. If he truly wanted to stand up for his players and get the message to the UGA staff, he could have reached out privately to Richt, Garner, Evans, et al directly and flayed them. This surely would have accomplished his stated goal. As it is, he came off looking like a child and in the process took this kid's private embarrassment and made it public news event -- nice work coach.

Anonymous said...

Obviously the Florida fan above is a product of Congresswoman Corrine Brown's English classes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N2uQ7Fg_Uk).

"IT'S does not matter" - "it's" is a contraction that means "it is." Therefore his name would be "It is does not matter."

Gradulate. Go Gator.

Percy Harvey said...

My gators is going to win all of the conferences that we plays in. It's does not matter what UGA do.

McGee should be fired. said...

Actually, you should buy that part about the ex-Aubie player trying to make UGA look bad because that is EXACTLY what is going on.

For those who don't know, when the coaches pulled the offer for Burns, we were apparently already in the dead period that lasts until July 31. Coaches cannot contact recruits directly during this time. Because of that, A UGA coach contacted a Carver coach to either tell Devin or have him call UGA. The Carver coach said that they would need to tell Devin themselves and hung up never bothering to tell Devin.

That was before DN, and yet the Carver coaches, knowing full well the offer wasn't good, still let Devin go to UGA, drag his whole family along, and NEVER BOTHERED TO TELL HIM. Let him go up there and go through this embarrassment, and then drag it out in the media to prolong it? Really looking out for your kids there aren't you McGee?

This coach should be fired. He repeatedly uses his influence to attempt to get Carver kids to go to AU and not UGA. It and he are pathetic and ridiculous.

Another example, Gabe Wright ('11 DE) from Carver had UGA #1 after that all went down, but a couple days later he released a top 5 with Auburn at #1 and somehow UGA dropped all the way to 5. Nothing happened in the interim to cause this as far as anyone can tell...Nothing except McGee telling Gabe he needed to have Auburn at #1. He simply put them there to make his senior season easy and useful. If he were to commit to UGA now, like he will end up doing more that likely, McGee would have done everything he can to make his senior year as difficult as possible.

Can the NCAA investigate HS coaches doing this? They should investigate him, if so.

 
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