re: Is Clemson THAT bad, or is LSU scary good?...

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Dabo is his on worst enemy. Refusing to get portal guys like the rest of the country really hurt him when this all began. Not to mention he don't have the elite coordinators he had when he had that run. I do believe he's getting fired but it'll be more of a respectful fire more like he's going to step down on his own and get some kind of administrative role if he chooses to take it.

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As I understand it, Dabo does use the portal but only to replace his own recruits who transfer out. What he doesn't do is "process" underperforming players the way Saban/Kirby/Kiffin/others do. When you recruit a guy who becomes dead weight, we push them into the portal and try to upgrade in the portal. Dabo refuses to do that. Its noble. But it also makes you a mediocre team.

He could probably do okay with limited portal use if you have an elite coaching staff and recruit like crazy.

Chad Morris was a terrible hire and obviously isn’t one of those guys.

Also…I didn’t realize Matt Luke was their O Line coach. I’d fire his arse immediately after that performance. The film on their line play is funny it’s so bad.

Ryland Goede, on his podcast with Tate Ratledge, said Monken pushed him out into the transfer portal, told him he would never play at UGA. Monken wanted to free up the spot to upgrade. It's a thing that happens. I don't know how often it happens, but it does. Dabo doesn't do this.

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Ryland Goede, on his podcast with Tate Ratledge, said Monken pushed him out into the transfer portal, told him he would never play at UGA. Monken wanted to free up the spot to upgrade. It's a thing that happens. I don't know how often it happens, but it does. Dabo doesn't do this.

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I don't know what happened with Ryland Goede. Maybe Monken liked him and was doing him a favor. Be that as it may, the numbers don't lie. There are very few teams (I don't know of any) that rely on HS recruiting and use the portal as sparingly as Georgia. If you start processing 2nd, 3rd, 4th year players because of talent, plus normal attrition and portal defections, you have to make that up with the portal. Otherwise you end up without enough upperclassmen. For that reason Kirby is doing very little processing of players because he needs time to develop those HS players and some of them will get recruited away. Maybe he will depend more on the portal if we start having more portal attrition, but as of now even Clemson has more transfers (15) on their 2026 roster than Georgia (I don't count Bryson Beaver as a transfer because he enrolled at UGA as a true freshman).

Of HS recruits only, UGA has 30 freshmen, 28 soph, 24 junior, and 10 senior/super senior. Those are really good retention numbers. I hope that will continue, but on a team this large and talented there's always a risk of higher portal defections.