re: 2020 Recruiting Thread (SVP and Broderick Jones stay committed to the G)

Lawrence and his HS coach have been pretty open thy Richt and Schotty blew any chance UGA had at getting him when he came for Dawgnight and made him stand in line with all the other lower ranked kids for hours and nobody seemed to know who he was despite having been scouted by UGA before. Say what you will about Fromm and Eason and how it could have affected things but we lost Lawrence because of the dysfunction of recruiting at that type of event (and Richts poor staff assembly in 2015).

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Lawrence and his HS coach have been pretty open thy Richt and Schotty blew any chance UGA had at getting him

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If they made their decision on a college based on a previous coach that was let go, frankly it tells me a lot. I just don't buy that logic... but that's just me.

I can agree to disagree.
Priority (or successful)
2012: Josh Harvey Clemmons, Jordan Jenkins, (Dawson and Deloach)
2013: Leonard floyd, Bellamy (mcgee)
2014: lorenzo Carter, keyon brown

Lacking success
2015: D'andre Walker, Chauncey rivers
2016: chauncey mac
2017: Robert Beale, Jaden hunter, Walter grant

Priority/success
2018: Adam Anderson, brenton cox, (a few of OLBs moved to other positions in Quay Walker, Channing Tindall, and Otis Reese)
2019: nolan Smith, rian Davis, Jermaine johnson
2020: Mikhail Sherman and tbd.

The successful classes just have a better top of the line pass rusher to go along with the mid 4 star recruits as well.

I do agree that the lull in OLB recruiting mirrors the ILB recruiting as well. Maybe I hadn't noticed that during the same 3 year run as well.

I think it had more to do with Georgia being the front runner and giving Lawrence a reason to look around while Clemson was red hot and just up the road. By the time Kirby got to town the damage was done and Clemson had taken control

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They are closer to D'Andre Walker (.9427)

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Why do you keep talking about D’Andre Walker as if he wasn’t a good player?

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It starts to become a little picky/choosy and semantics if you argue that in 2018 it was a success due in partiality to guys like Channing Tindall/Otis Reese/Quay Walker moving to other positions,

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you are right but those players aren't needed for the point that i am making. Anderson and Cox are better than any OLB signed 2015-2017. And that doesn't even reference Ojulari being an equal mid-4 star recruit.

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2016

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You are right. But 2016 is important because it was sandwiched between 2015 and 2017. One poor class at a position isn't a big deal if it isn't a 3 year trend. Even a 2 year trend isn't a big deal if there are elite numbers around them.

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2017

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Beal is going to have to "show me". I saw some really bad things from him in 2018. I'm not going to get excited until after he goes off against a good opponent. He's far from where we need him based off of last season.

Grant is a good player. Unfortunately for him, he's going to have to fight off Johnson and Anderson this season. I actually have Grant as our starter for Vandy. But I don't know how long that will last.

(I think Cox has the tools to be elite. But even he is going to have to fight off Smith and Ojulari. The freshmen, sophomores, and class of 2020 are going to push our players in each practice to levels that I don't think i've ever seen at UGA. And that is saying something).

You can't make players exist that don't... UGA hasn't been recruiting at a "national" level in general until more recently. If we say OLB and WDE ranked prospects are reasonable standards for who we could have targeted for the position - and then think about recruiting radius as a factor - take a look at what you see over those years and tell me who we would have brought in that would have made a difference:

2015:
Composite OLB Rankings
Composite WDE Rankings

We signed the best LB talent out of this group in Roquan Smith. Natrez Patrick, albeit a problem child, was a multi-year starter for us. They just happened to be more valuable on the interior. Which player rated higher than D'Andre Walker are we supposed to have added to the class? Arden Key would seem to be the best talent that would have been reasonable? But IIRC didn't he have kind of an up/down career at LSU due to being somewhat of a tweener? (I could be totally off base or thinking of the wrong guy)

Maybe Jeff Holland going to Auburn could count, but he's rated around the same... otherwise there wasn't a surplus of 98+ rated dudes in Georgia or the surrounding recruiting base area.


2016:
Composite OLB Rankings
Composite WDE Rankings

As mentioned before, this was a transition class, so tough to "grade" anyways... but... if we must.

We fought to the wire on Mack Wilson but lost to Alabama.
Same for Brian Burns (FSU)

But who else in that class are we upset about missing out on? Antonneous Clayton? Never contributed at UF and transferred to Tech. Wasn't able to develop his body physically it sounded like. Janarius Robinson? Operating as a DE at FSU and hasn't been a significant contributor. VERY unlikely that he'd be contributing here.

2017:
Composite OLB Rankings
Composite WDE Rankings

Of the 3 years, this would be the one that seems most valid to complain about. The talent level in the southeast at OLB/WDE was pretty stacked... And Alabama took 3 OLB in the top 100 overall.. (And didn't top 100 Jarez Parks (WDE) decide to greyshirt that year as well?)

This was also the class after Kirby's rough first year, and I'm sure they were selling that against us hard.

If we're gonna knock a class for lack of success recruiting LB in general, 2017 would be the one to do it... I just disagree that it was a "trend"... It was bad timing in that we didn't have a good year on the cyclical year where there was an abundance of good guys at the position. Fortunately, 2018 and 2019 had plenty more and we capitalized.

Where is our recruiting thread?

Hoping that changes Monday at 8