re: Kirby Smart: The cupboard was in good shape in 2016

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I mean I guess they technically could have played those snaps, but we would be worse off than we are with Swift and Grant.

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Swift most certainly has done a great job, and added a nice dimension. However, he did take over what was essentially Michel's spot, and Michel could have been the pass catching threat that Swift is. BUT, I also agree, that having Swift catching the passes and freeing Michel up to be more of a runner has made a difference. I shouldn't have left Swift off the list.

Grant? I really don't watch the LB's as closely as I should, so I forgot about grant. However, has he played a lot of snaps and contributed, or was he mainly a fill in when Patrick was suspended? (I am not arguing as I really don't know, and I am not arguing that he will not be a great player. I am very excited about him)

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Bama had a bad team in 2007 so that's not saying much. Bama went 6-6 and 4-4 in the SEC that season so the fact that Smart is actually making that comparison suggests that the he feels the team was pretty mediocre.

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Well, we were 7-5 and 4-4 in the SEC.

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Not the cupboard wasn't bare but that fact that we went 7-5 in the regular season 4-4 in the SEC suggests there were major holes to fill.

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Considering we lost to bad Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, GT and played close games with Nicholls St. and Missouri teams,it would indicate it had more to do with the coaching staff getting settled in and learning more than talent. It's not like those teams had better talent than us.

But more to your point....which of those holes do you think were filled by freshmen, besides MAYBE RT? A lot of our problems can be traced back to OLinemen playing out of position more so than lack of talent.
I realize you can say our schedule is weak this year therefore making our OLine look better, but it was pretty weak last year.

Again, though, at least you did not try to push the narrative that our cupboard was bare. A weakened state along Oline and depth? Sure. Bare? Hardly.

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But you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think we inherited something great at THAT TIME.

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I agree with that. but nobody argued that we had a GREAT roster. There were several on here that repeated we had a "bare cupboard", though.

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-If it wasn't for Kirby, we would have played for certain 4 and potentially 5 games with Ramsey at QB. We would have lost to ND for sure and probably MSU. Who knows about App state.

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Are talking about this year, or last year? because the thread is about last years cupboard being bare. Nobody is even hinting that Kirby has not been lights out recruiting. He seems capable of spotting flaws in the roster, then fixing them. Richt really did not do a good job of this.

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-Kirby inherited a team whose best WR ended up being a 5'8" slot guy.

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Lest we forget, Kirby did not have a huge problem with this as he went out and got Crumpton. And the major WR's on this roster were also brought in by Richt.

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-And finally, the OL. It's true guys like Wynn, Gaillard, etc were already here so richt is to thank for those guys. But it's also because of richt that we had a rhode island transfer at LT who was dreadful.

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True. but Kirby was the coach. he could have moved Wynn over to LT. And lets not forget that that Rhode Island LT made a NFL roster. Although, I agree he was not real good...Kirby could have moved Catalina in to Guard and moved Wynn out to LT.

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Of course the cupboard wasn't bare when kirby arrived, there was talent all over the field. But anyoen who can't see the deficiencies he inherited is simply blind.

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And again....nobody took issue with us having deficiencies....only the narrative that the cupboard was bare. You seem to be trying to shift the narrative to people saying we have a great roster (Which nobody said) and away from the people who said the cupboard was bare.

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I agree with that. but nobody argued that we had a GREAT roster. There were several on here that repeated we had a "bare cupboard", though.

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This is just splitting semantic hairs here IMO. UGA will likely never have as "bare" of a cupboard as we did in the mid-90s. But we undoubtedly had MAJOR roster management issues inherited in 2016, that's simply a fact.


as for the rest of yoru points yeah I got off topic and started rambling because it's early and I wasn't really staying on point.

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But we undoubtedly had MAJOR roster management issues inherited in 2016, that's simply a fact.

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We will agree to disagree. One of the biggest roster issues we had was punter and depth.
But bare cupboard does insinuate that we had very little talent. We seem to have fixed our major issues with a Freshman RT and a transfer P....then simply moving a couple of players around, that could have been done last year.

If we did not have the other guys on our roster that made a difference this year (Swift, mainly) I can't imagine having a different record. I mean we trucked pretty much everybody except ND, and Swift had 42 yards rushing and -4 receiving.

It could EASILY be argued that the biggest addition to our team was the punter, who consistently flipped the field for us....which has been huge.

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as for the rest of yoru points yeah I got off topic and started rambling because it's early and I wasn't really staying on point.

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It was weak recruiting on the OL.

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Which I addressed with depth.

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is Garner still at Auburn?

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Yes. he seems to have gotten a new breath of air. He was instrumental in them getting Derrick Brown, and we know how their DLine is playing. I think it could be argued that Richt needed a change of scenery very similar to Garner.

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Bare is not the right word unless you are describing the 2013 class.

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Well...you are right about bare not being the correct word...but that was the whole point. People were saying the cupboard was bare.

The 2013 class wan't bad....we just had a ton of attrition making it look worse than it initially was.
An argument could be made that players being kicked off a team can be placed on the coaching staff. I mean, they did recruit the player, right? However, every school has them, and every school handles the problem children differently. Some of the best players in that 2013 class left or were kicked off. And, don't forget....Pruitt ran a couple of those top players off.
Not saying he was wrong. just making the point.

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Well - a lot of people have said we got killed in the AU game but I doubt anyone lost their life.

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There is a difference in saying we got killed (literally) and the roster is "cupboard bare".

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(i.e. left tackle, QB, CB, punter, place kicker, etc)

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We had a LT....the coaches just chose to play him at guard. We also had a 5* QB, so it's not like we didn't have a QB CB? Our CB's this year was on the roster last year. Punter is legitimate, and I would go even further by saying he has made the biggest difference on the team of the people that were not on the team last year. Maybe Andrew Thomas, as well. kicker? Rodrigo was our kicker last year. All of these "needs to fill key roles, other than punter and RT were all on the team last year....which is the whole point. The only roster issues we had was depth, punter and RT that was not on the team last year. There is not a single team in the country that does not have roster issues. Even Alabama is struggling due to injuries at LB.

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But bare cupboard does insinuate that we had very little talent

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I think bare only insinuates this if you're looking to take offense.

Everything is relative. A bare cupboard at UGA doesn't mean you have a program with equivalent talent to Vanderbilt/Kentucky/FCS school... The "bare cupboard" wasn't the primary driver for the 5 losses last season or the struggle wins... but to ignore that we did have significant deficiencies in several areas relative to the expectations that fans had of the program is a bit misguided as well.

I think it's fair to say that when Smart took the job, we did not have top 5 SEC depth/talent at:
QB - Though Eason had been secured under Richt (which was thought to be the answer at the time... Smart still had to convince him to stay though also)

OL - Still feeling the effects here. We're improved in year 2, but we're also still operating with 3 starting OL from the previous staff's recruiting efforts. Our 2 deep includes at least 2 more in Sims and Cleveland (not sure where Pat Allen is on the 2 deep these days)

WR - Best receiver was 5'short" Isaiah McKenzie, who obviously is electric, but even if your #1 guys is a slot receiver, you've got to have complementary talent outside or no one respects your ability to stretch the field... see: Stanley/Chigbu... Godwin on campus but for whatever reason seemed to spend last season in the doghouse (assuming for not being able to block... maybe a little stubborn on the current staff's part)

DB - We continue to have breakdowns in the defensive backfield even now, so it's hard to gauge whether this is even taking a step forward, but the Briscoe project obviously failed. Had to bring in Mo Smith to play nickel last season. This year, with Dom Sanders missing time early had to plug in Richard LeCounte and Malcolm Parrish replaced with Tyrique McGhee while out of the line up (and basically had his starting gig stolen as a result). I don't think we did that bad of a job recruiting here under Richt, but we did have a lot of attrition at the position... between Trigga Tray, Josh Harvey Clemons, Rico McGraw?, and some others... we had either missed on talent or character evaluations a fair amount at DB.

K/P - Towards the end of Richt's tenure, it seems like we were missing here more often than not, after a long run of pretty much getting at worst above average talent, and often elite. When your 3rd string QB is your best available punter, that's somewhat discouraging. Have to give Blankenship credit for fighting and working to get where he is, but when Kirby got here, he was clearly not ready to outright take the job. This season we've seen incredible growth from him, so stoked that he got his scholarship.

I say all this not because I have some gripe about Richt or that I think he left us in some post-apocalyptic wasteland... but when you really step back and look at who was on campus, who they were going to bring in... it's hard to say... yeah... that team was ready to go compete for top marks in the conference or more. It's like the cupboard had a place setting for 4... but you had the entire family coming over for Thanksgiving. The SEC is a grind... even as down as the East may be right now... talented depth is a must if you intend to accomplish anything more than 9-10 wins regular season, with a mediocre bowl game appearance.

As to Smart's comments... what would he have to gain at this point by complaining about it... he's nearly 2 years removed... he now knows a lot of the players on the roster better, both from a personality standpoint and a talent standpoint. Guys have stepped up, improved, competed harder... He has everything to lose and nothing to gain by complaining about the state of the program at this point... besides... we've more or less moved on from there. Year 2 improvement has happened, regardless of the SECCG outcome. We have the makings of another elite recruiting class on the way in... going to have to start plugging holes now as the highly talented Richt era players start to move on after this season. Time to worry less about the state of the program in 2015 and more about the state of the program for 2018 as far as this kind of talk is concerned.

It wasn’t Richts fault that Nick Marshall, Shaq Wiggins, Trey Matthews, and Josh Harvey Clemmons turned out to major turds. That’s what left the cupboard “bare.”

Also, Ray drew never panned our and some others didn’t workout I’m sure that have been left out. If those guys pan out and develop into what they are supposed to be we have a better defense right now because they were bigger bodies than most of what we currently have.

We are winning right now because of three things: (1) sheer will, (2) Execution, (3) how awful the SEC East is.

I’m not saying we are not a good team. We don’t have the personnel that we really need to compete at the highest level but kudos to kirby and co. For their work to develop our team and gameplan for these opponents. As long as we don’t have a rash of injuries or arrests watch what we will be like in 2019. Goodness gracious, our personnel top to bottom will be like never before seen in Athens.

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It wasn’t Richts fault

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In the end, it all comes back to the head coach. He's the one responsible for vetting and recruiting those players. He's the one who has to make sure the culture of his program is a healthy one, and to quickly eliminate anyone who might threaten a healthy locker room environment. You can say that a coach can't catch, run, block, or tackle for the players, or that they can't babysit these kids 24/7; when it comes down to it, however, when you get paid $5 mil a year, the buck stops with you. You're going to be held responsible for the shortcomings of your program as a whole.