This class feels different. It’s not Mark Richt’s first Top 10 class, and I believe it won’t be his last, either. But let’s look closer, shall we? John Jenkins’ signing to UGA and Cyrus Kuandijo’s to ‘Bama means that UGA will pass Texas for the 3rd ranked class in the nation next time Rivals updates their rankings. More importantly, this class is the second highest-ranked class in the SEC, only trailing Alabama. This haul also comes at the same time as a relatively disappointing class for Florida; while the Gators signed a quality class including RB Mike Blakely, QB Jeff Driskel, TE A.C. Leonard and FB Hunter Joyer, they missed out on early near-locks like Tim Jernigan, James Wilder Jr, Mike Bellamy, and Nick Waisome as well as high-priority guys like Curt Maggitt, Brandon Fulse, Kelvin Benjamin and Sammy Watkins. Kinda reminiscent of UGA’s 2007 and 2010 classes, right? Well these are the recruiting missteps and triumphs that make for talent gaps and roster mismatches in the future.
Dean Legge of Dawgpost wrote an excellent article a little more than a year ago listing the prospects the Dawgs had to get. Let’s see how the staff did:
1. Jay Rome – “should be recruited by Georgia three times harder than Clemson recruits him.”—signed with Georgia.
2. Ray Drew – “is a must sign.”—signed with Georgia.
3. Isaiah Crowell – “the most important sign for the Dawgs in 2011”—signed with Georgia.
4. Gabe Wright—signed with Auburn, but adding John Jenkins and Chris Mayes more than makes up for that loss.
5. James Vaughters – signed with Stanford, and honestly that’s a helluva lot better than meeting him the SEC later, plus some kids just want to go out of state. He was one of them.
6. Damian Swann – “needs to be shown tapes of Branden Smith’s 2009 season.”—signed with Georgia.
7. C.J. Uzomah – signed with Auburn. I’m not extremely impressed with the kid, he’ll play tight end at Auburn, and we’ve got better prospects at both of his potential positions.
8. Stephon Tuitt – “too close to Athens not to be signed.”—signed with Notre Dame, or was it Georgia Tech?
9. Nick Marshall – signed with Georgia.
10. Xzavier Dickson – signed with Bama. Most of us know the story behind this one, though.
11. A.J. Johnson – signed with Tennessee. Apparently both coaching staffs thought he was too much of a tweener. *Willie Martinez Shrug*
12. Watts Dantzler – signed with Georgia.
We got half of the guys from the list, and the only one I’m slightly concerned about losing is Dickson, and our LB corps is going to be just fine without him.
The 2011 class showcased the recruiting strengths of the Georgia coaching staff in almost all aspects. There were the sleeper prospects that UGA jumped on early and signed, like Ramik Wilson, Sterling Bailey, Chris Conley, Chris Mayes and Zach Debell. There were the lifelong fans that held the class down for the coaches during the tough season, like Corey Moore, Chris Sanders, Watts Dantzler, Amarlo Herrera and Boss Andrews. A few sleeper prospects put in the work to get their academics in order before they got their offers, like Sanford Seay and Quintavious Harrow. Fans were complaining about the staff losing prospects from South Georgia? Boom, the staff gets Xzavier Ward from Moultrie, Justin Scott-Wesley from Camilla, Ray Drew from Thomasville, along with Jay Rome and Malcolm Mitchell out of Valdosta.
Mike Bobo caught a lot of flack during the season, but he definitely earned his keep on the recruiting trail, landing ten prospects: Drew, Mitchell, Conley, Dantzler, LeMay, Marshall, Rome, Scott-Wesley, Seay, and Xzavier Ward. Todd Grantham sold every defensive prospect on the 3-4 defense, and they responded in a major way. Bryan McClendon worked his tail off recruiting Crowell, and it paid off in the end. John Lilly had a hand in recruiting Rome and Crowell as well. Scott Lakatos has a lot to work with in the secondary for the next few years, with Swann, Marshall, Bowman (a sleeper if you ask me), Moore, Sanders, and Mitchell.
Overall, this was a class we had to have, and the coaches put their noses to the grindstone and got it done. The negative recruiting was at an all-time high; Kirby Smart and other coaches were in recruits’ ears all year. We were supposed to see Georgia get raided by Alabama, Auburn, and Tennessee, but in the end, UGA went head-to-head with SEC foes for the top GA prospects and got 7 out of the top 10 to stay home. By all accounts, the football program has turned a complete 180 under new athletic director McGarity, and Mark Richt has commented that he feels “like a brand new coach.” It’s easy to see that McGarity is leading us toward success down the road, even if it comes without Mark Richt, but with the current changes in place, its hard for me to fathom that UGA will be going through a coaching carousel as soon as our rival fanbases would have us believe.
