Who's comin' up?

All-Star games are the last evaluation period for Rivals, Scout, and ESPN. These are the guys I expect to move up in the rankings after their respective games.

UGA Commits

• Christian Conley - from all reports, he's tearing it up at the Offense-Defense Bowl. Standing at 6'3 and about 190 pounds, All season, Conley has shown great hands and awareness after the catch, and his route-running was also noteworthy at practices this week. He racked up huge numbers against mediocre high school competition, but has drawn rave reviews from top prospects in Myrtle Beach, including Ohio State safety commit Jeremy Cash and consensus top-ten wideout Kelvin Benjamin. Enrolling at UGA in January should give him enough of a head start to get on the field as soon as possible. Conley enrolling early could pay huge dividends for the North Paulding graduate, the Dawgs' receiving corps will be low on numbers next year, so he'll have a great shot of getting playing time. We'll see how far along he's progressed at the G-Day Game.

• Amarlo Herrera - The kid's a tackling machine, and a flat-out gamer. He racked up about 150 tackles during the season, and is a helluva blitzing linebacker. I wouldn't be shocked if he had a similar performance at the O-D game tomorrow.

• Corey Moore - With a good week of practice in San Antonio and a solid showing in the game, Corey Moore could vault into the Top 5 at the safety position. He has a high football IQ, and is an extremely tough, competitive player. Moore is also one of the hardest hitters in the country. He plans to enroll early, and could be one of those guys you see de-cleating guys on kickoff coverage come next year.

"When a blind man leads a blind man"

Strangely, that’s not a quote from coach Richt’s post-practice press conference.

I usually try to avoid wasting clicks on bad articles, lol, but I couldn’t help myself today. Buck Belue kinda ticked me off just now. When it comes to recruiting, I only trust these national journalists and analysts so much, I mean, at the end of the day, it is a business. But for someone with the status he has, Buck Belue could use a subscription. I’m sure he’s got enough money for it. I’m a college student, I could probably make enough to buy myself one in a month or so, realistically speaking. But man, Buck…Some quotes from the person you’re talking about would be

nice...maybe a link? Not calling you a liar, maybe suspecting it a little, though. Because from just about every recruiting outlet, the MAIN person involved with Carradine's recruitment besides himself was his uncle.

FSU had been recruiting Tank for much longer than UGA had...Tank and his uncle made it clear he wanted to play in Florida to begin with. UGA made a strong push at the end, but FSU was around longer, since UGA waited for academic clearing to officially offer the guy. UGA definitely had a shot at the end, but you can't win em all, unlike some employed 'journalists' tend to think. Click the picture below to see an article from a legit recruiting source....note the last line.

You obviously haven't been reading these websites, Buck. You probably just read the AJC when it comes to recruiting, right? Maybe it’s just me. It's not like they could've verbally offered him (oh wait, they already did.), it's not like the coaches couldn’t get him to visit during the season, right? You know, when he played his junior college games? On Saturdays? In KANSAS, right? Weren't you the one saying Richt had to get the best guys in the state to save his job? Kansas is way further than Griffin or Thomasville though, right? Why recruit a JUCO guy in Kansas, hell, why leave the state of Georgia if Alabama is raiding Georgia like ya'll say they are? (Oh, right...they only have two guys from GA committed, and you know how those high school kids like to change their minds J)

I understand you have a job and your own personal life, and probably don't have too much free time on your hands...but if you wanna talk about recruiting, you might need to get a subscription, or find a way to hear these things from the horse's mouth on what's really going on in recruiting. You just can’t claim a poor start to the recruiting class when so many of the top guys haven't even started to make their choices. We understand it, you want to see the Dawgs’ doing well. We all do, but most of us know enough to know that we don’t know everything going on inside the program. Maybe you should hang around the AD’s office and see what he’s up to. Myself and the rest of the recruitniks would much rather hear about that, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you hanging around the office. Why not interview McGarity next week, instead of throwing this same tired Coach Richt meme we hear from the AJC every morning?

‘he-said, she-said’ is fine when there’s verification, you know, some kind of record of what was said. Without verification, no one knows who to believe; And in this case, some fan who’s doesn’t spend time reading actual recruiting sites is eating this up, and in turn, keeping bad blog writers’ like the ones in Atlanta employed. Not to mention the recruits of the Dawgs use the Internet too, right?

I heard this quote thanks to EbenGregory, a blogger from the DMV area. Not sure where it came from, but I think it serves as the moral to this story:

He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, is a fool, shun him.

He who knows not, and knows he knows not, is simple, teach him.

He who knows, and knows not he knows, is asleep, wake him.

He who knows, and knows he knows, is wise. Follow him.

Finally, a first-hand look at the future

The most exciting football I’ll watch over Winter Break probably won’t be the Liberty Bowl. In no way does that mean I’m more excited about recruiting than I am about an actual UGA game. I mean no disrespect to Jeffrey Godfrey and UCF; I’ve heard from 2 Live Crew frontman Uncle Luke all year about how good he is, and how he should be starting for Miami right now. I actually think the Liberty Bowl will be closer than it seems, simply because I’ve never been impressed with our defense against mobile QBs in the past. But I’ll most likely feel the most excited about UGA football in the week after New Year’s.

All eyes are gonna be on San Antonio and Tampa for the Army and Under Armour All-American games, and with good reason. The fallout from coaching shakeups will have the vultures of the coaching ranks out in full force for these next two months, we’ll hear plenty about whether or not Will Muschamp can switch some recruits from Texas to Florida, and if Kirby Smart indeed goes to Gainesville with him, we’ll hear the same about Alabama’s commits. Finishing the recruiting year off with a bang is big for the perception of a program, and even bigger for recruits sitting at home watching, and if all goes like it’s rumored to be going, the UGA coaching staff has done a phenomenal job planning for the future. A few things to watch for:

Army All-American Game:

You know how everyone says our defense will be fine when Grantham gets “his players” in the system? Well you’ll get a first-hand look at those players in this game.

Sterling Bailey and Ray Drew vs. Garrett Greenlea, Matthew Hegarty, Tyler Johnstone, Ryker Mathews, Greg Robinson:

This matchup will showcase two highly-ranked Georgia defensive linemen going against a solid corps of offensive linemen. The OL vs. DL drills should be fun to watch.

Safety Corey Moore and CB Damian Swann vs. WRs DeAnthony Arnett, Victor Blackwell, George Farmer, Trey Metoyer, Jaxon Shipley, Kasen Williams:

The Army game took more kids from the state of Georgia than I’ve noticed in recent years. The game always picks national playmakers though, and this year is no different; the lowest-ranked receiver on the West squad is ranked thirteenth by Rivals. Corey Moore is a competitive ballhawk who’s an impressive safety and coverage and one of the hardest-hitting safeties in the country. Swann showed his skills this past summer, when he shut down Charone Peake, who Rivals compares to Braylon Edwards, at the Mark Richt camp. He’s an exceptional athlete who could excel on both sides of the ball.

Under Armour All-American Game:

Quan Bray, Malcolm Mitchell, Justin Scott-Wesley, vs. Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix, Enrique Florence, Nick Waisome:

This should be a great matchup. It’s pretty much Georgia vs. Florida and Alabama. I’m anxious to see the fastest guy in Georgia and arguably the best three skill players in the South on either side of the ball (Quan Bray, Malcolm Mitchell, Nick Waisome) going at it.

If you have ESPNU, you should be able to watch Under Armour practices throughout the week of the game.

The best part of the weekend besides the actual game will be the recruiting announcements, we should expect to see Ray Drew, Jay Rome, Malcolm Mitchell, Damian Swann, and possibly Quan Bray make their choices known, likely committing to the Dawgs that weekend. The buzz around UGA’s recruiting class should be huge.