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January 26, 2012

On Football Recruiting

I typically don't write about football recruiting. I follow it with interest and need Georgia to do well, but I just don't like to write about it much. Yes, I know how important it is. Yes, it is interesting. I just can't get too worked up (at least until the week of signing day) about it.

There are plenty of very good places to get the information, including Michael Carvell's coverage for the AJC, or to see bloggers' takes on recruiting; I just don't have the inclination to devote my limited brain juice to it.

That being said, I find Coach Richt's approach very interesting. I have to say I haven't been happy over the past two months with the 'Georgia waited to offer' refrain we hear from some players. Now, for the second year in a row, it looks like the last week is setting up to be very interesting. Will Georgia get an in-home with Brandon Greene? If they do, will Saban, who is reportedly pissed at Greene's flirtation with UGA, fire him?

It is interesting that Saban, who cut a kid loose earlier because he was the '26th' guy in the class, would be mad at a kid re-evaluating his decision. That is the duplicity of the system we live in. Ask the Football Genius of North Avenue. That isn't to say Greene will forsake 'Bama for Georgia. That is to say the late push isn't a terrible counter strategy to the very early offer and push approach that other coaches employ. Will we continue to miss on very good players with our wait and see approach? Sure.

The next week will be very interesting, as we have a legit shot at significantly improving this signing class. It will also give an indication if the wait and see approach is worth continuing. Get one more offensive lineman and Josh Harvey-Clemons, that is a win. Get Greene and Young, plus Harvey-Clemons and some combination of either of the two Dawsons on defense, that is a huge win. Get those plus JaQuay Williams? Now I am dreaming.

TD

3 comments:

Bulldog5711 said...

I really dislike Carvell's coverage of UGA recruiting. I don't buy into all the conspiracy theories about (Insert Any News Outlet) being bias against UGA, but this guy seems to genuinely dislike UGA. I'm not saying that media members should like the team they are covering, but I do wish that their like or dislike of a team would not be evident through their coverage.

Joe Arthur said...

@Bulldog5711:

Can you provide an example of this anti-Dawg coverage? Carvell seems pretty straight and to the point to me.

It's kinda like how Tech fans and Dawg fans both think Mark Bradley hates their school and loves the other one.

Bulldog5711 said...

I follow Carvell on twitter. For an example, when Chester Brown decommitted, he tweeted that "UGA had lost another recruit" at least 5 times. Other outlets (Mansell, Chad Simmons, Fletcher Page, Seth Emerson) all tweeted the same thing, but they didn't beat it into the ground like Carvell does. He doesn't give UGA that much attention when we land a new recruit.

He also follows up the tweet about Brown with a story titled, "UGA Has Now Lost 5 Recruits So Far." From the title of the story, you would think that five recruits decided that they no longer wanted to commit to UGA, when the truth is almost all of them wanted to come to UGA, but in some form or fashion (Academics, Immigration Status) could not attend UGA.

His latest tweet simply says "Mark Richt goes to jail to recruit player" From reading the title, you would think that Mark Richt is recruiting a felon or something. I never thought Chip Towers put a negative spin on stories to attract readers. His coverage always seemed fair and accurate, which is all you can ask for from a journalist.

If UGA had retracted an offer like Tech recently did with the Gnonkonde kid, then all hell would have broken loose at the AJC, just like it did when UGA turned down the kid from Carver a couple years ago.

As I said in my previous comment, I don't buy into different outlets being biased against UGA. I just think that this particular writer puts a negative spin on UGA related news to generate web hits.

 
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