DawgPost Roundtable: The Off Season

The DawgPost.com guys, Dean Legge, Josh Kendall and Quentin Grant, talk about the off season distractions, Southerland's recovery, recruiting and managing expectations in 2008.



PWD

Aaron Murray's High School Team on ESPNU

Aaron Murray's Plant High School will face Armwood High School on Sept. 5th at 8:00 pm on ESPNU according to TampaBay.com. The two teams are cross county rivals and powerhouses in the State of Florida. MaxPreps.com's preseason poll ranks Armwood No. 1 in the state -- and 14th nationally -- and Plant sixth in Florida.

This is the second year in a row that an elite UGA recruit will be featured in a nationally televised high school football game. Last year, AJ Green's Summerville High School opened their season on ESPN.

Separately, Murray and fellow UGA quarterback recruit Zach Mettenberger continue to impress at the Elite 11 Camp. Zach is described as having the strongest arm of the campers while Murray is getting rave reviews as well.

Elite 11 Headlines:

-- UGA QBs gather in LA - AJC
-- Elite 11 Day 1 Coverage - ESPN
-- Aaron Murray Diary Day 2 - TampaBay Online
-- Elite 11 Day 3 Coverage - ESPN

PWD

More Aaron Murray Headlines

The gunslinger from Tampa really heated up the news this week. Quinton posted an article earlier asking if Murray is the best Prep QB in the Country (video Sunshine Preps). Here are some more quick headlines from around the country:

-- No longer the water boy - Tampa Tribune
-- Working with Stafford at Elite 11 Camp - Tampa Tribune
-- Florida HS wide receiver wants to play with Murray - Scout.com
-- News and Notes - St. Pete Times

In other news, Urban Meyer says that Tim Tebow is "the greatest player of our era." The thing I like about Meyer is his humility and relentless focus on subtle nuance.

PWD

Is Aaron Murray the Best Prep QB in the Country?

This week is the Elite 11 quarterback camp in California. UGA is well represented. Stafford is a counselor and both Georgia quarterback commitments were invited to participate. Only 11 prep QBs are invited, so it's a luxury to have both of our guys there. (Image: ESPN.com)

Speaking of quarterback recruits, ESPN.com's Tom Luginbill has this comparison of Aaron Murray, current UGA commit, and Matt Barkley, a USC commit and the No. 1 ranked recruit in the country according to Rivals.com. The comparison is a dead heat according to Luginbill and the ESPN's scouts, who must know what they are talking about because they refer to obscure points like wrist velocity and RPMs. (Zach Mettenberger also gets a mention in the article because of his huge arm strength.) Pretty nice to think that we could have the best QB recruit in the country heading to Athens, and from Florida no less.

Note that this story was done after the national 7-on-7 football tournament. Murray's Plant HS team won the national championship and beat Barkley's team in the semifinals. If these comparisons hold up over the Elite 11 camp, could Murray move ahead of Barkley in the eyes of the scouts? Barkley won't participate in the Elite 11. He and LSU commit Russell Shepard declined the invitation.

Quinton

Saban trying to muscle into Atlanta?

According to the Virginia Tech Athletic Department, Alabama and Virginia Tech are in discussions to open the 2009 football season in a "made for television game" at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The announcement presents VT as squarely on board with the arrangement with or without the Tide.

This is a deal that makes a ton of sense for Bama. The Tide is already set to play Clemson in '08 and Duke in '10 in the Dome. The three games at the Dome would make four neutral site games in four years for Bama as they also played FSU in Jacksonville last year.

Why the Neutral Site Emphasis (My theories):

• Recovering from Instability -- During the late 90s, UA booked a series of exciting home and home match-ups with UCLA, Oklahoma, Penn State and I think Nebraska. During the coaching instability that followed the Dubose reign -- four coaches in four years -- Alabama postponed or cancel several of those marquee match-ups. From 2004-2006, Alabama didn't play a single BCS team in 10 non-conference games.
  
  Saban has said, he wants to ramp up the non-conference schedule. However, home and home series are complicated to book...especially with less than 4+ years notice. Booking a neutral site game can happen much quicker. I think some of the neutral site scheduling is Bama filling in the gaps until the PSU (2010/2011) and later the GT series (2013/2014) start.
  
  *Note: the Duke game is different. Bama did a 2 for 1 deal with Duke several years ago with the assumption that Duke would sell its home game to some venue. The Dome smartly entered the picture there and beat out Mobile, Charlotte and others.
  
  
• Recruiting -- For all the jokes about Nick Saban not "having time for this sh*t." The fact remains that the guy can really recruit. To me, one puzzling thing about Alabama's recruiting prior to the Saban regime was the lack of heavy emphasis on the ultra fertile, easily accessible Atlanta market.
  
  When Bama ventured out of state, they seemed to prefer to get nastier and head to Memphis where cash payouts, strip clubs and cold sores are an integrated part of the recruiting landscape. Last year, Saban pulled two kids out of the Greater Atlanta area as well as a couple of Georgia Tech transfers. This year, three of his first eight commits are from the Atlanta area.
  
  The Dome visits can only help him open doors in Georgia's backyard.

Personally, I don't begrudge the Atlanta Sports Council's efforts to bring a season kickoff style big game to the city/Georgia Dome. These games are good for college football, and it's good for Atlanta.

However, I would like to see them spread the participants around a bit more. Let's get teams other than Alabama in there. If you're only playing one game every 3-5 years in town instead of three (or more) years in a row, it's tougher to raise your permanent exposure in the area.

Regardless, Bama's recruiting in Atlanta, and their use of the Georgia Dome is definitely something to keep an eye on for Georgia fans.

(Update: Not so fast my friend. Bama says they haven't inked anything yet. I'd still like to think it'll get done if at all possible. It just makes too much sense.)

PWD

Signing Class 2008: The Grades Are In

A.J. Green is on campus and impressing.  Marcus Dowtin got his transcript cleared up and has moved in, too.  So that leaves one guy who wasn't on campus, Toby Jackson, the highly touted defensive end from Griffin.  According to UGASports.com, Jackson won't be on campus in the fall, missing his needed test score by a single point.  Jackson will head to Hargrave for the fall semester.  If he improves his score, he'll likely be able to get to Athens in January.  Good luck, Toby.  Study hard.

With Jackson heading north, we missed a second consecutive fully eligible signing class by a single ACT point.  We still have plenty of depth on the ends with Lomax, Dobbs, Houston, Battle, Wynn, and Ball.  

Considering the talent of the past two classes, I think one academic casualty is acceptable, if not admirable.  

Quinton

Recap of the Mark Richt Camp

DawgPost has a video recap of the event. They gush with praise regarding Aaron Murray.

PWD

MLB Draft Hurts Perno and Richt

Bye, bye, Brett.

Jason Eller has proved a fantastic recruiting coordinator for David Perno and the baseball program. He's made UGA the place to play for all those elite East Cobb prospects and has cherrypicked some great out-of-staters. How can you tell? The best recruiting class in recent memory was raided yesterday by the MLB draft.

I haven't poured over the draft boards yet, but I know the results weren't good for the baseball team. Signees Brett DeVall and Zeke Spruill got drafted by the Braves at spots 40 and 70 respectively. Those were the two best pitchers we signed. Chase Davidson, a huge first baseman, went to the Astros at 88. But, it could have been worse. Michael Palazzone and Cecil Tanner, two highly touted pitching prospects, are still undrafted and I'd hope they'd be in Athens next year. All of the guys mentioned are top 100 national prospects according to Rivals.com.

Not all those drafted prospects may sign with their teams, but I'd imagine the three guys mentioned above are going to be tough to get on campus. We'd love to get them, but we still have some good players without the drafted guys. Brennan May, Jonathan Taylor, and Tyler Maloof are all talented athletes who should be on campus next year. Losing guys to the draft is routine and the coaches know not every signee is going to suit up for Georgia.

Speaking of great athletes, don't expect to see Xavier Avery between the hedges. Avery, who signed with Coach Richt back in February, went to the Orioles at pick 50. He's made no secret that his dream is to play major league baseball. Avery was recruited as an athlete for football. Sanders Commings, another two-sport star, wasn't drafted yesterday and is likely headed to Sanford Stadium rather than a baseball diamond.

Lastly, congratulations to Gordon Beckham, who went at #8 to the White Sox, and Joshua Fields, who went #20 to Seattle. Those high picks are well deserved for two of the best baseball players UGA has ever produced. Both will be impossible to replace next year.

Quinton

Why the SEC Should Endorse a Football Early Signing Period

The SEC coaches voted 9-3 to approve the idea of an early football signing period at this week's SEC meetings. This concept has been around for a while and implemented in many other NCAA sports, but it seems to be gaining momentum for football. There is no proposed NCAA legislation at this time, but the SEC should assume a leadership position and endorse the concept in a formal declaration. Given the collective might of the conference right now, such a declaration should get the rest of the NCAA thinking about this issue.

As recruiting has gotten more visible recently since the rise of the Internets, so has the intensity of the process. Here are three reasons why an early signing period is a good thing for college football:

1. Let the recruit get it over with. An unsigned, high profile football recruit gets all sorts of attention, whether wanted or not. I'd imagine that every phone within twenty yards of Terrelle Pryor was ringing during his very drawn out recruitment. It's not just the constant phone calls from coaches. Newspapers, ESPNU, Rivals, and Scout all call these guys constantly before signing day.

Not every recruit enjoys that stuff. Why not let the guys that know where they want to go sign with their school of choice? That way they can avoid the constant phone calls, sales pitches from coaches, and big wireless bills. The recent trend of early commitments hasn't stopped the attention, but signing would. Go ahead and let the kid make it official by removing all doubt about his status.

2. Let the coaches better marshal recruiting resources. It costs a bunch of cash to visit recruits, call them constantly, and sufficiently dote over them. These expenses don't end with a verbal. Coaches still have to babysit those guys, too. If some recruits could go ahead and sign, that would free up dollars and time to focus on uncommitted prospects. By the way, this issue seems tailor made for the smaller D-1 schools because they don't have as many resources to devote to recruiting.

3. Let everyone know when a commitment is wavering. There was serious consternation when Dwayne Allen pulled the ol' switcharoo on signing day this year, jilting Georgia for Clemson. Not only did it mean we lost a good player in Allen, but we might have lost two because Omar Hunter and Zebrie Sanders thought we didn't have room. Allen had committed to UGA very early in the recruiting process. With an early signing period, the staff could have known that Allen wasn't 100% sure about UGA if he didn't sign and they could have recruited appropriately. Clemson, in turn, could have known the same thing about A.J. Harmon. Or Texas could have known about Ryan Perrilloux (I think that worked out OK for them, though.)

Another recent trend in recruiting has been the insurance approach by recruits. They commit to a school who offers, but still look around and continue to entertain coaches. They essentially say "if a better deal doesn't come along, I'm going to the school I'm committed to." This plays havoc with any coach's ability to put together a complete signing class. An early signing period won't eliminate that type of thing, but it will put the coaches on notice as to who is playing the game.

Anyone opposed?

Quinton

Neil Callaway's Job Gets Easier at UAB

The NCAA released their APR report yesterday, and UAB football team came out as one of the biggest losers. The team lost nine (9) scholarships in football due to lack of academic progress by their student athletes.

That's bad news for UAB, but it's great news for Blazer Coach Neil Callaway. That's nine fewer pesky kids he has to sign up next year. 100 Cocktails to CNC for finding a way to reduce stress in his life.

PWD

DawgPost.com May 5th Roundtable

Dean Legge, Josh Kendall and Quentin Grant talk about Georgia football. From DawgPost.com. They start things off with a discussion of "Can UGA go Undefeated?"



PWD

DawgPost.com Roundtable for April 28th

Dean Legge, Josh Kendall and Quentin Grant talk about Georgia football. From DawgPost.com. In particular, they talk about T. King, AJ Green and Ben Jones, and the importance of recruiting in-state or out of state recruits.



PWD

Dawgs Land A Big One From Florida

Quick. Name the last big offensive recruit Richt & Co. plucked out of Florida. Tony Wilson? Mike Moore? Those guys were considered good players, but nothing like shiny new commitment Aaron Murray, who pledged to the Dawgs this morning. Murray is a top quarterback recruit out of Tampa who was named first team All-State as a junior. He was also the first quarterback invited to the Elite 11 QB camp this year. Murray picked the Dawgs over finalists Florida and UCLA, but the guy had offers from seemingly every other national program. He's a midyear grad, so if the commit holds, he'll be on campus for spring practice next year.

The general consensus is that this is a huge, huge pick up for Georgia. Not only do they grab a top flight quarterback, a position the Dawgs need to sign this year, but we get one from Florida's back yard. It's not often that UGA goes heads up with the Gators for a Florida guy and the Dawgs land him. It happened today.

Here's a rather lengthy highlight package.


He looks mobile enough to escape a rush, accurate, and releases the ball in a flash. He may not have Stafford's or Mettenberger's gigantic arm, but he's got enough to hit the big plays. The knock on Murray is his height. He's only 6'1". Not to put too much pressure on the kid (but, come on, this is recruiting and it wouldn't be complete without ridiculous comparisons and laughable hyperbole), but UGA's done well with short quarterbacks.

Quinton

DawgPost Roundtable

DawgPost.com's Dean Legge leads a discussion of recruiting, the Gators and the NFL draft.

PWD

Georgia Football lands recruit #8

The football team picked up its 8th commitment of the year when Dallas Lee (6'3" 305 lb lineman) from Buford High School gave his verbal to the UGA coaching staff. Lee says that UGA wants him at offensive guard or center. Lee appears to have had offers from FSU and Georgia Tech among others.

Separately, 4 star quarterback recruit Aaron Murray looks set to name his school of choice on Thursday. The scuttle butt points to UGA over Florida and UCLA. If Murray commits, Georgia will be done recruiting QBs for the season. Pulling an elite QB out of Tampa would be a nice score for the coaching staff.

See Also:
-- More recruiting news - YahooSports

PWD

Felton lands shooting guard for 2008 signing class

The 2008 class needed a shooter, and Felton signed a shooter. Ebuka Anyaorah is a 6'4" shooting guard from North Gwinnett high school who averaged 26.3 points per game and 8.3 rebounds per game. Per the AJC:

Anyaorah was recruited by Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Michigan and Vanderbilt. He originally committed to Colorado before changing his mind and deciding to join the Bulldogs.

First Joe Cox steals the souls of the Buffalo nation, and now Felton kicks 'em while they are down.

This will be an interesting kid to watch. The State of Georgia is loaded once again in 2009. The Dawgs currently only have two scholarships to give for the '09 class. One has been claimed by Demario Mayfield. The other is likely being reserved for All-Universe recruit Derrick Favors of South Atlanta.

Hopefully, Favors will let Felton know one way or the other as soon as possible so that we can use the scholarship on someone else if need be. Statistically speaking, we will likely have some attrition before the 2009 class enrolls; however, it's more likely that we wouldn't have that spot open up until the Spring '09 signing date.

Anyway...we needed a shooter. This kid is a shooter with multiple offers from other high major schools. He's also a Gwinnett product. Gwinnett County is the key to the Georgia Basketball program's future.

PWD

Spring is in the Air

Some articles that caught my eye tonight...

• Spring Practice - As you've probably already read, the big scrimmage on Friday was sort of all over the place. We're still struggling along the offensive line, yet we're making big plays. It's your basic spring freak show. I think some of the OL issues will sort themselves out when Clint Boling returns from his battle with Mono.
  
  
• Richt landed a safety for the 2009 signing class. It's the 6th commitment of the year. I have no idea how good the kid is, but we're so strapped with limited scholarship numbers this year (only 15 graduating seniors) that he must be good to get an offer this early.
  
  
• The Hottness - Some web site has ranked the schools with the hottest co-eds (click with a bit of caution). I don't get why they used such an overwhelmingly trashy photo of the Auburn girl. AU has its issues, but its Arizona State that has the porn star rep. Anyway...we'll get a chance to gauge the ASU level of human attractiveness on Sept. 20th of this year. My biggest issue with the ranking is South Carolina coming in at #6. As. If. I've been there 11 times, and there's no comparison between Cola's talent and Athens' finest. Also, any list that has Ole Miss at #5 was constructed by dudes that have never visited their campus.
  
  
• Clemson Recruits - The innerwebs have been abuzz after the photos of a kid who appears to be Clemson recruit Kenneth Page surfaced on MySpace. In the pics, he's holding a big wad of cash and the immediate assumption is that CU is back up to their old "Danny Ford 'Cruitin(TM)". The estimates on the cash stack put it at $5,000-$20,000. I'm of the opinion that positively nothing comes of this. First off, why would you assume that it's recruiting related? There's no NCAA Compliance Rule against having sketchy friends, riding dirty or being a dumbass. There are laws against some of those issues, but what's he going to do ... confess? Short of a confession or a wire transfer receipt accidentally handed to the NCAA, this is a non-event.
  
  
• Hunker Down You Hairy Horses - Apparently, we rode 'em hard. No insight into whether or not we put them up wet. UGA won the Southern Equestrian Championship over the weekend.


• Richt's Trip - Richt's upcoming trip to the Middle East is landing good press all over the place.
  
  
• Spring Games Gone Wild - I sent an email to the folks at Butts-Mehre asking "Why doesn't UGA have blow out spring games with big concerts and shenanigans like other schools are planning?" Well, it turns out those things might not be in NCAA Compliance. Bama has canceled the Alan Jackson concert that was tied to the A-Day game because of NCAA questions. Speaking of Spring Flings in the state of Alabama...Auburn picked an odd choice for their spring concert. Tuberville probably doesn't approve.
  

So there's that. Oh yeah...and Furman Bisher is very old (warning: profanity).

PWD

If you've got 90 seconds...

You will not believe the finish at the South Carolina State championship basketball game. AJ Green's team wins it, but it's not the ending from Hoosiers. Wow. (ht - gdawgs00)

PWD

Ace Recruiter Neil Callaway Brings in the Heavy Hitters

Neil Callaway, former UGA offensive line coach and current UAB head coach, closed out his second recruiting class a few weeks ago with a blistering finish. Callaway signed 14 high school players and 11 junior college prospects. According to the Birmingham News

"The Blazers' signing class is not highly ranked. Scout.com ranks it 104th overall and last in C-USA. The rankings were slightly better by Rivals.com but UAB was still 101st overall and tied for ninth with UTEP in C-USA.

Callaway said he's not concerned with rankings and he is optimistic that this class will help next season."

In Callaway's defense, he has a proven, unmatched eye for talent. He had the vision to see that Pro Bowler Marcus McNeil wasn't worth a scholarship at UGA, and that about a half dozen kids with one functioning shoulder and/or leg should be locked up as early as possible in the recruiting process.

This is his second back-to-back Top 100 recruiting class at UAB. Indeed, we'll miss his eagle eyes and smooth talking sales pitch in Athens for sure.

PWD

Football Signees Get Up

Below I present UGA cornerback signee Brandon Boykin throwing it down. Boykin is a candidate for best dunk in the AJC's annual high school dunk contest, but the video below shows a variety of Boykin's dunks. At 5'10", Boykin may be a bit shorter than the ideal corner, but as you see he oozes athleticism. A forty inch vertical is NBA/Boss Bailey caliber hops.



It's a good thing too since he will be defending guys like A.J. Green, our uber wide receiver signee, in practice.



When I was at UGA, the intramural basketball tournament champions the only year I played started Hines Ward and Robert Edwards in the backcourt. Looks like the football team will be favored in that tournament as long as Coach Richt keeps recruiting guys like this.

Quinton