After being left at the altar by Da’Rick Rogers and Nickell Robey, as well as Deon Rogers a week before, coach Mark Richt said Wednesday that he would be in favor of an early signing period in November, as has been proposed – similar to college basketball – albeit if a few parameters are set.
“I would be for an early signing date if there was a stipulation that all of the early signees would not take official visits until after they signed with the school they knew they wanted to go to. If you had the early signing date somewhere in November as some people have suggested, then the whole recruiting calendar gets moved up. Before you know it every single weekend is a large recruiting weekend, official visit weekend. You are trying to coach a team and you are trying to recruit; it’s just very, very difficult to do. I think people would be pushing for legislation to have official visits in the summer. I really think we need to keep as much sanity in this thing as we can for the college coaches, the high school coaches and the players themselves and the families.”
But kids love being wined and dined on their five free vacations throughout the recruiting process.
But without an early signing period in place, and kids that change schools more frequently than they change girlfriends, staffs are forced to spend just as much time as they did getting that verbal commitment, maintaining that commitment, constantly on the defensive of schools who can use negative recruiting against them because they have a single focus to go against. Richt said he can’t blame other coaches for going after his commitments, and he does the same. If a kid isn’t 100% certain, they’ll keep recruiting them. And that showed in Wednesday’s class with the signature of Kenarious Gates, who was a Kentucky commit until switching to Georgia when the coaches offered him Monday.
“Lets say a kid commits to a school, we’ll talk to him. First thing I want to know is, is he certain? Is he 100% sure? And if we feel like that kid is not 100% certain, then we’ll continue to recruit him, and I think everybody does that. If you think a kid is solid and you’re wasting your time, then you don’t want to do that, but the thing of it is sometimes kids make these decisions based on emotion; sometimes they make it before they’ve seen the big picture,” Richt said. “When they’re not certain of what they’re going to do, then we’re going to continue to recruit them, and I think you have to.”
Georgia took advantage of a change in heart themselves, convincing offensive tackle Kenarious Gates to switch his commitment from Kentucky to Georgia with a late offer on Monday. Recruiting coordinator Rodney Garner blames the society we live in for how often kids change their verbal commitments.
“Well, I think it’s just indicative of society period. So I think you’re going to have more indecision than what you used to have in the 80s, early 90s. That’s just our culture, and I think whether you like it or not, it’s just part of it and you’re dealing with 18 or 19-year-olds. They’re going to change their minds, so what you do is just continue to try to build relationships and make sure they see what an asset they are to your program and your program can benefit from them more than another program. You win some and you lose some and that’s part of the process.”
Early enrollee Jakar Hamilton understood players indecision but says once you give your word, that word shouldn’t be broken – no matter the circumstances – and he’d know. He showed up to Georgia with no idea as to who his position coach or defensive coordinator would be.
“Coach Martinez left before I got here, and I could have easily said, “Nah, I’ll go to Alabama, but I gave coach Mark Richt my word, and I looked him straight in the eye and told him I was committed,” Hamilton said. “And I wanted him to see that I’m a humble, trustworthy person because I kept my word. So with that, we’re hurting, but we’ve still got a bunch of good receivers – AJ Green, Marlon Brown, Troupe, Wooten, King – so we’ll work with who we have, work hard and come out ready to play.”
After fellow safety Bacarri Rambo posted a comment on facebook with some particularly pointed comments about looking forward to “knocking the fire from” a certain Tennessee commitment over the middle next season, Hamilton echoed those sentiments, saying that there were a lot of guys on the team hoping for a shot at Rogers.
“It’s going to happen. They got to come here and it’s going to happen regardless – especially if he’s going to play right off the bat. And I hope he’s ready for it because there’s going to be a lot of people on the hit for him on this team.”
- This quote from Richt, more than any other, should get Georgia fans excited:
“I think it has certainly given me a lot more resolve to really continue just to get this program where it belongs. This past season I know was a disappointment for a lot of people. I don’t expect our Bulldog fans to be excited about an 8-5 season. Now, a lot of people would say that’s not that bad a year – it’s a winnign season and that type of thing. But in the time that we’ve been here, everybody was getting used to 10-win seasons and top-10 finishes and winning the eastern Division and being in position to finish as high as No. 2, No. 3, being in position to play for the SEC Championship. and that’s what we aspire to do.
“That’s what we expect to do, and we have everything that we need to get that done. So I think there’s a very positive buzz in our Butts Mehre Building. I think – even within the coaching staff – within our players I know that theres a great amount of excitement about what the future holds and the only thing I’m going to really try to predict is how hard we play and how disciplined we play and those are the things we’ve got to control as a coaching staff and as a group of players. And I think the results will take care of themselves after that point.”
Richt believes – like the spread offense did – that the 3-4 is going to spread to more and more schools and says he knows he made the right choice.
“I really believe that most nfl teams and a lot of college teams are moving towards this trend, so were really closer to the front end of this trend than the back end of it.”
- Hamilton talked about meeting Grantham and Lakatos saying: “It was real exciting. Knowing coach Grantham’s been in the league for 11 years means we have a coach on defense that knows what NFL coaches are going to expect out of the players and coach Lakatos came in and told us “coaches coach and players play,” and he really seems like a straight up guy and I’m just trying to do as much as I can to become a better playmaker.”
- Richt openly admitted in the press conference that they wished they had gotten a couple more at wide receiver for depth and that the lack of depth there was concerning to him. Richt said one reason the dearth in depth didn’t worry him as much was how deep Georgia is at tight end, lessening their reliance and alleviating some of the burden.
I asked wide receivers coach Tony Ball if the strength of that position heading into next year was a deterrent to their recruiting with kids looking for early playing time. He didn’t seem to think it played any factor, affirming that all of these kids think they can play, no matter who is in front of them.
“No because you’re going to recruit the best players,” Ball said. “And as long as you’re recruiting the best players, the best players feel that they can come in and play and those are the kind of kids that you want in your program – those that athletically can come in and help the program win and feel they can come in and help your program win.”
Ball also talked about wide receiver Michael Bennett: “Michael is a tall, rangy kid that can run. He’s athletic and comes from a program that threw the ball quite a bit, so he’s got a good working knowledge of the receiver position, got a chance to catch a lot of balls, so his passing skills are going to be solid – his knowledge base in the passing game because of what they did in high school will be very valuable to him. So when you look at all those variables, you’ve got to be excited about having a quality player in Michael Bennett.”
He’s not part of the recruiting class, but Georgia will add Kris Durham back to the rotation for spring practice, which begins March 4th by the way.
“Well, he will be by the time were playing. I don’t think there are any limitations right now,” Richt said of Durham’s recovery from a shoulder injury that forced him to redshirt. “He’s doing our offseason program full speed. He was running routes, catching balls and doing pass skeleton drills during the latter end of the season and certainly during the bowl practice, and I think Kris will be no limitations throughout spring ball.”
- The nose tackle is often said to be the most important position in the 3-4 scheme. But the nose tackle can vary in size from a smaller undersized version like Jay Ratliff of the Cowboys at 300 pounds to massive spaceeaters in the mid-350s like Gilbert Brown, Vince Wilfork or Terrence Cody. So Todd Grantham discussed his ideal fit for the nose tackle that he will be looking for going forward.
“Well prototypically, I think any time you can get guys with initial quickness and suddenness. I’ve seen guys in the 6-foot-1 range that you would say ‘hey, can that guy play?’ And all the sudden, you look at his initial quickness and ability to run and you say “yeah,” Grantham said. “So I don’t think you box it in to a certain measurable, so I think you look more at his initial quickness and his suddenness, his ability to run. Up front the most important thing is the ability to play with your hands. You’ve got to work to come out of your hips and deliver a blow and strike a a guy and as you do that, you’ve got ot play with your hands. As a defensive guy, the offensive guy’s going to hold you if you play with your hands and get separation, so I think those are the things were going to work on as we look forward to the spring.”
- Richt commented that high school players are coming in more developed and more prepared than ever before, crediting that to the high school coaches of the state and the emphasis on year-round training.
- According to Rodney Garner, the SEC rule states that you can’t sign more than 28 in a class. For every one player you sign over that 28 limit, your limit the next season is cut by two. Richt says the rule was put in place to stop coaches from signing numerous kids that were going to go to prep school or junior college just to get a head start on them later.
- The long awaited move of Richard Samuel to linebacker was officially confirmed by Mark Richt on Wednesday
- Grantham also said that the plan remains to sign an outside linebackers coach, instead of full-time special teams coach in filling the final vacancy on the Georgia coaching staff.
- Richt also confirmed that Logan Gray will indeed start spring practice at quarterback, saying “the last I heard is that’s exactly what he plans on doing, but I can’t sit here and say that he might not spend some time trying to do a couple of [other positions] but quarterback is what he plans on right now.”
- Lakatos said he foresees Ogletree playing safety, despite scout.com listing him as an outside linebacker due to concerns that he may outgrow the safety position.
- Rumors that Dat Nguyen – a former Cowboy – might be a candidate for Georgia’s inside linebacker coaching position are just that – rumors – according to Grantham, saying that he hasn’t talked to Dat, nor does he know what his plans are.
- Georgia is at 84 in the scholarship count, one below the NCAA limit of 85, according to Garner.
- Richt said he took a look at pictures of every player from the time they got to Georgia to now, so the rumors of him taking a hard look at the strength and condition program were apparently true.
- Recruiting is often about promises made from coaches to players, with nearly every coach ensuring a certain amount of playing time in hopes of luring them to their school. Richt doesn’t believe in that practice.
“Our policy has always been to be very straight forward from the very beginning. Don’t say something that won’t come true at the end. I don’t want to say something to get a guy to come to Georgia and when he shows up, he finds out its different than what we represented and he feels betrayed or lied to. We’ve never done that, and we don’t want to start doing that now because trust is really the only thing we have to hold us together I believe.”
- Also, Lonnie Outlaw of Wilcox, Ga., was a late signee at wide receiver. I can already hear the commentators, “O, he’s a dangerous in the open field.” “He’s being an outlaw against that Georgia Tech defense tonight.” Georgia better hope he performs like an outlaw – or just better than his two-star ranking, possessing no other offers. Interestingly, though, he’s the high school teammate and top target this season of one of Georgia’s chief targets in the class of 2011 – quarterback Nick Marshall at Rochelle County, the highly rated dual threat quarterback and basketball star that coach Mark Fox also wants badly.
