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July 19, 2009

Garrison Smith (5 star DT) commits to UGA

The Georgia Bulldogs got a huge commitment tonight ($ premium) from Garrison Smith (6'3"+ and 250 lbs). Smith is an elite defensive tackle, and his videos on the Scout and Rivals network speak for themselves. When you watch the videos ($ premium), you see a player exploding past, through and over double teams...tossing blockers...and chasing down running backs 15 yards down the field.

He'll have to get bigger to play inside in Athens, but he's only about 15 pounds smaller than Jonathan Sullivan was at the same point in his career.

Academically, his Scout.com profile shows a self-reported 3.5 GPA and a 1280 SAT. Given the strength of his transcript and his brother being a former GT player, his commitment to UGA doesn't speak much to Paul Johnson's recruiting pitch. The Florida Gators were the other other finalist for Smith.

It's a helluva a recruiting year in Athens, and there only look to be about 4-5 slots left. I'm hoping they go to:
    1 DT (#1 remaining priority)
    1 CB
    1 WR
    1 RB
    1 OL
PWD

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

sweeeeeet. go dawgs!

KingDawg said...

I've heard that PJ's had that effect on a few of the kids at Tech. (Meaning they likely wouldn't let their dog play for him, much less a brother.)

Great news for the Dawgs! I agree with Paul on the remaining list except I think it is very important to get another OL. We can't afford to repeat last year, 2007 or 2003 ever again. No class gaps on the OL and we probably win a MNC in at least one of those 3 years.

Unknown said...

Give me a break. That's like saying the fact GT got Morgan Burnett doesn't speak much for Richt's recruiting pitch.

Maybe, and I'm just going out on a limb here, maybe Garrison just wanted to go to Georgia.

Good for you - he looks like a heck of a player.

Unknown said...

Joel - that's fair.

PWD

mitch said...

We are done at OL. IMO we will close out this class with Mack, Stripling, Riggs, Robey, Thornton and a WR. Thats 22 but their will be attrition.

Anonymous said...

Did Sullivan eat himself out of the NFL? What an athlete he was for a big man.

Lee Munger said...

So far i'm loving this class. I love the defensive studs and the huge WR and OL pick ups. I think its shaping up to be one of CMR best classes, but you never really know that until they hit the field. What do you think PWD, where does this rank according to past classes, at least the initial hype?

This is what i think we need from here on out.

DT (losing 2 huge seniors)
LB (Jeff Luc would be HUGE, and we need a top LB to come in and fill in for Rennie)
WR (we just don't have very many right now)
OL (you never have enough)
CB

All other needs in my very humble opinion are met. We don't need a QB from a class this weak, we only need 1 RB but in this class (but i wouldn't be upset if Mack Brown came to Athens) We have our safeties and DE's. TE we are yong at and we aren't going to land anyone huge.

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Anonymous said...

I'll settle for a certain instate weakside DE and RB...

as well as a couple of corners speaking of priority position of need.

The Watch Dawg said...

Turning out to be an awesome class... and the best part is it's filling up with 5 star talent early on before the drama begins in the recruiting season. I love the defensive focus. Between Alec Ogletree and now Garrison Smith, we've got some real playmakers I think.

dawg521 said...

Paul,

How is this class comparing to the other big schools in the country thus far, particularly LSU, FLA, OU, Texas, and USC?

Anonymous said...

Mario, according to Scout.com, basically pound for pound only Texas has slightly 'outshone' Georgia's current crop of verbal commitments for the 2010 recruiting class, though Bama is right there (ahead of us at the moment only because of volume, we have the higher 'star average') and look for the usual suspects like Florida and Southern Cal to close strong too. Still, this class is Elite so far, with the focus on Defensive blue chips.

Scout's current Top Ten recruiting classes (number of verbals in parenthesis):

1. Texas (19)
2. Alabama (18)
3. Georgia (16)
4. Oklahoma (16)
5. LSU (18)
6. Penn State (13)
7. Florida (15)
8. Stanford (22)
9. Texas A&M (19)
10. Notre Dame (13)

13. USC (10)
15. Tennessee (13)
16. Ohio State (8)
29. Georgia Tech (8)

Anonymous said...

Westerdog -

That PJ comment makes no sense. That scout.com profile you reference doesn't even list GT. There are many reasons to choose uga over tech (and vice versa), but without talking to the kid its hard to pin that on Paul Johnson. In fact, you don't even know if PJ gave him a recruiting pitch. PJ easily could have called him, realized it was only Florida or Georgia, and do nothing but wish the kid luck.

You should save the pot shots for when they actually jive with reality.

Anonymous said...

May be naive, but how do we offer scholly's(18-22) if we only have 12-14 becoming available next year? What happens to the mismatched 4-6 players that we don't have a scholly available for?

Nathan said...

Yeah, unfortunately Garrison was never really interested in GT - he was an SEC guy all the way. Not a huge surprise he picked UGa, and a great pickup for you guys. He's a damn good football player and someone GT would have loved to have.

According to Rivals - 3 of the top 15 DT's in the country are from Georgia. 1 is going to GT, 1 is going to UGa and 1 is still undecided (Jeff Whitaker). It's been a good recruiting year for both schools.

FWIW - PJ so far has been able to recruit the state of Georgia much better than Gailey was able to. Partly because he's got deep relationships with the high school coaches from his GSU days. Every commit so far this year has been from the state of Georgia ... something Gailey never would have pulled off.

mant said...

Aww some Techies got their panties in a little wad. It's a rival school that is what pot shots are for. Grow a pair. Welcome to The Fairness Doctrine. So I guess the wussification of America now transcends into the sports world. Freaking bed wetters.

Nathan said...

Oh, I'm certainly not above taking pot shots (ask PWD!). Or taking them. That's what rivalries are about.

PJ is going to take UGa head on for more instate kids than Gailey ever did. UGa will still get plenty of them. GT has started getting some of them. It's just nice to actually be competing for local kids again (even if means we miss out on some).

KingDawg said...

I don't know if Paul has the same info I do but that was not a pot shot. It's based on fact.

There are players at GT that are not happy with PJ. To the point that they would not send their dog, I can't verify. Whether it would effect recruitment of a sibling, YES.

Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to name my source.

Anonymous said...

"affect" retard.

Anonymous said...

mant - not a Tech fan, just calling it as I see em. Your "wussification" and "fairness doctrine" arguments make no sense, just like PWDs pot shot at PJ. There's no reason to through out shots at GT when they don't make sense, we'll have plenty of times to throw them out when they do.

If it was a kid PJ actually recruited, it would make sense. My impression was that from the get go he wanted to go SEC and was basically deciding between UF and UGA. That has nothing to do with a Paul Johnson recruiting pitch (if that pitch was even given). Joel above hit the nail on the head - it would be like saying the fact we didn't land Morgan Burnette reflects poorly on MR's recruiting pitch, even though he was never going to uga.

If anything, we should have made fun of Urban Meyer's recruiting pitch, not Paul Johnson's.

Nathan said...

KingDawg -

I believe that 100%. Heck, I know that for a fact. There are certainly some Gailey era players left over who didn't sign up to play for him, and that's always going to happen with a coaching change. In fact, if it didn't happen to some extent I'd be surprised. The grumbling is noticeably quieter this year than last though, funny how winning has a way of making everyone happier.

That being said - former players from Hawaii / GSU / Navy days would run through hell and back for him. He's certainly a coach who's intent on finding "his guys" and sticking with them. I think you'll find that true at Tech as well.

KingDawg said...

Nathan -

Can't dispute your take on it as my info would come from the "Gailey" line of players. It's an interesting experiment you've got going at the Trade School right now. Then again, that's what was said about Corch Meyers.

Anon @ 10:26, effect can be used as a verb in certain situations. I'll leave it at that since the blog is probably not interested in a grammar debate/lesson.

Bryan said...

rivalry? since when did one win a decade consititute a rivalry??

I think the fact that his brother played at tech and he didn't even consider going there says a lot about the two schools program/coaches.

Anonymous said...

KingDawg you are an idiot. You are either a Wendy's employee or are unemployed.

Yes, effect can be used as a verb. But it means "to create" or "to bring about" (e.g. to effect changes). The way you used it ("Whether it would effect recruitment of a sibling, YES."), the proper word is AFFECT.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelprob.html

KingDawg said...

Anon @ 2:20

If you want to discuss grammar, cite to the Texas Manual of Usage and Style or the Chicago Manual of Style.

Nathan said...

Again Bryan - if that's the logic, then what does Morgan Burnett say about Richt and his program? In reality, it says nothing. Morgan wanted to be different than his brother and he had friends going to GT.

Brothers often go to different schools for different reasons. Garrison Smith wasn't coming to GT long before Paul Johnson even came on board. Quite frankly, he wanted to play in the SEC.

Wookie said...

I feel like I just jumped into a tickle pile!

Garrison and Georgia. Just this time on D.

GATA

Irwin R. Flecther said...

I may be wrong in saying this, but it seems that the point of the statement in the context in which it was written was that the typical teabagging of Paul Johnson by the Nerds, some in the media, etc. etc. includes (a) how he is signing all these kids from Georgia unlike Chan used to do and (b) how he can appeal to the smart kids in State to play for Tech b/c of academics...

The point was that here is a smart kid, in-state that chose Georgia.

I think it would be fair to say the criticism is fair when directed at the douchebags that espouse that theory of Johnson taking over the smart kids in the state.

But I also think it is fair to use that criticism towards a school/staff about any kid they offer that doesn't sign...which really makes it not worth much since you could say that about every kid that gets offered minus the 20 or so that sign.

A couple of other thoughts...I'm not sure who the d-bagg is that is trying to use the excuse about how maybe Johnson's staff and not Johnson was recruiting him...but that is just stupid. Johnson's staff is Johnson for all purposes. That is like saying the General gets a pass for losing the battle because he wasn't the one actually shooting the bullets.

Irwin R. Flecther said...

Oh...and one last point. Duke is more competitive with Tech than Tech is to Georgia.

Over the past 45 years...

Tech is 12-33 against UGA.
Duke is 15-30 against Tech.

It doesn't take an engineering degree, wearing the same 2 pairs of H&M cargo shorts every day, and stridex pads bought at Costco to figure out which winning pct is better.

And the looks the nerds get when they actually try to roll into some of the nicer spots in Midtown with their ankle high running socks, complete lack of self restraint when using hair gel, and trendy stretch shirt over their 'wizards and warcraft' guts are priceless...just priceless.

Unknown said...

"It doesn't take an engineering degree, wearing the same 2 pairs of H&M cargo shorts every day, and stridex pads bought at Costco to figure out which winning pct is better."

Classic. +1

Anonymous said...

"It doesn't take an engineering degree, wearing the same 2 pairs of H&M cargo shorts every day, and stridex pads bought at Costco to figure out which winning pct is better."

Incredible...just incredible

Anonymous said...

Typical. UGA vs Tech football talk soon turns to grammar nazism when the NATS get involved... at least you didn't get robbed today fellas. Yet.

 
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