at some of our other safeties in the Richt era and it's certainly not unprecedented to have people step up after starting slow.

Thomas Davis- 2* who was only recruited after our coaches saw him play basketball. Had to play LB as a soph due to need, then in 2003 as a full time starter absolutely blew the frick up and was one of our best safeties ever.

Greg Blue- somewhat heralded, but not really. He was ranked about the 25th safety in his class. Ended up being an all american in 2005

Tra Battle- Walk-on. Ended up playing as a TFr walkon in his first game in 2003 and ended up having himself a pretty solid career.

Kelin Johnson- 2* out of HS with his only other offers from Troy and Southern Miss. Not elite by any means, but he as well had a very nice career

Bacarri Rambo- 3* and the 29th ranked player just in GA.

Shawn Williams- 3* with no other major school offers

So what's my point? It's not that we're going to be awesome or anything, because like I said this is a scary situation. But we didnt' expect much out of most of those guys above, and there are a few that nobody had ever even heard of. With proper coaching it's amazing what you can get out of someone with the right attitude and a little bit of talent. So who do we have to work with now to fill some of these voids?

Kennar Johnson- 3* with no major offers, but has ideal size at least.

Reggie Wilkerson- 4* with quite a few high major offers

Fenteng- 4* with a number of good offers

Parrish- 4* and the 6th ranked safety in HS with several high major offers

Aaron Davis- A pretty big unknown, but people who know his story claim he was destined to be a very highly ranked prospect before injuries. We all saw how he did in the spring game.

We already know recruiting stars don't mean anything, and all of these guys could be duds. The big thing is they all lack ANY experience, which hurts bad. That's really scary. BUT, looking for a silver lining, at least we're not trotting out a bunch of 5'8" white walkons. We've got guys who have talent who can ball. But the biggest thing to me is that we actually have a defensive staff, and a DC whose primary focus is on DBs, who knows what the hell he's doing. This guy has worked with Saban most of his career and we can already, after only a few months, see that influence. He doesn't care how highly ranked you were, if you aren't doing it his way you're gonna kick rocks. He's been a winner at each and every job he's ever had relating to football. When you combine his coaching with talented guys who are fully committed and buying into what he's doing, that's a good thing.

The only bad thing is that it may not be til 2015 that we actually see this come to fruition, but at least we know that the guys that are on the field are going to be the absolute best we have on the roster, and they're going to be all in on doing what it takes to win.

Also, going a little further, we aren't facing any scary passing offenses like the SEC had last year. Clemson is a big name team, but they lost their all star QB and some big time playmakers at WR. They have a first year starting QB on the road in game 1 at night. That's tough for them. SC will obviously be very very difficult, but they as well as breaking in a new QB. If, I repeat IF, we can come out of SC with a win we're looking good. We have Troy after that which should be great practice for the secondary, then UT at home who has a few good WRs but an awful QB and a questionable line that we should get pressure on, then Vandy at home. After SC our secondary won't be truly challenged hard again until missouri. At that point they'll have 5 full games under their belt. I'm not predicting we'll be shutting down people's passing games, because I expect us to struggle. But, at least the situation doesn't look completely hopeless.

This post was edited on 6/4/14 at 8:06 am