I understand the frustration. This feels like every Signing Day for the past fifteen years. Byrd and Williams are studs at positions of need. It's a bottom-line business and those are bad losses.
But as much as it sucks, I understand how it happened. Williams is a country kid who tweeted "Go Ducks" when Miami offered. He got an SEC offer and jumped on it. Byrd, like Alex Collins, seemed to prefer the culture of a college town to the urban life of Miami.
Here's the bottom line: Richt is not an unproven commodity like Coker, Shannon or Golden. He has been a recruiting machine for 15 straight years. While we’ve been sniffing glue on Signing Day, he’s been smoking cigars. He didn’t forget how to recruit on the plane ride to Miami.
There’s a difference between making excuses and having perspective. This is a transition class where the prior coach was fired for poor performance. We finished 20th in the country. For comparison, Florida finished 21st last year. Butch Jones, the guy who stole Byrd and Williams, finished 24th in his first year. Golden was 33rd. Harbaugh was 37th. The second class is where you see the recruiting bump.
Transition class or not, we signed some future millionaires. These aren't guys you have to sell yourselves on. Coach Kool says that Joe Jackson is the best DE in the country and I agree with him. All three LBs are killers. We signed the best receiver in Dade (Mullins), Broward (Bruce) and Palm Beach (Richards). These are the elite South Florida playmakers that we've been missing for years. Jack Allison is a 6'6 All-American with a cannon. Travis Homer is the best RB in the state and one of the youngest players in the class.
If I told you after the Clemson game that we could fire Golden and keep all of these guys, everybody would've been thrilled. We also added some nice pieces around them without absorbing mediocre talent. A small class this year sets up a monster in 2017.
Finally, we made important geographical gains. Palm Beach and Jacksonville have been death traps for us. This year, we swept the top three players in Palm Beach and landed two stars from the Jacksonville area. We signed more top 50 players from Florida than any other school in the country, including UF and FSU. The elite national kids will come with a full year to develop relationships. Remember, Richt’s best players (Gurley, Green, Stafford, Murray) were from outside the state of Georgia.
The only thing that gives me pause is that we dropped guys like Desmond Phillips and James Wiggins who could’ve helped us at WR and CB. Hopefully, a full year to evaluate in Dade will correct those problems.
This is an obvious statement, but everything will come down to coaching. Richt has more than enough talent-- both inside the program and in this class -- to win early. If he has success on the field, he will compete for recruiting titles. The closest model would be Florida in the mid-2000s. Zook left behind good talent and a quarterback, Urban landed a solid transition class and a killer second class, coached the **** out of them, and the rest is history.
Signing Day mornings have been tough for us. But the evening is a time to reflect on the guys fulfilling their lifetime dreams. I cannot wait to watch these guys perform in the orange and green.
But as much as it sucks, I understand how it happened. Williams is a country kid who tweeted "Go Ducks" when Miami offered. He got an SEC offer and jumped on it. Byrd, like Alex Collins, seemed to prefer the culture of a college town to the urban life of Miami.
Here's the bottom line: Richt is not an unproven commodity like Coker, Shannon or Golden. He has been a recruiting machine for 15 straight years. While we’ve been sniffing glue on Signing Day, he’s been smoking cigars. He didn’t forget how to recruit on the plane ride to Miami.
There’s a difference between making excuses and having perspective. This is a transition class where the prior coach was fired for poor performance. We finished 20th in the country. For comparison, Florida finished 21st last year. Butch Jones, the guy who stole Byrd and Williams, finished 24th in his first year. Golden was 33rd. Harbaugh was 37th. The second class is where you see the recruiting bump.
Transition class or not, we signed some future millionaires. These aren't guys you have to sell yourselves on. Coach Kool says that Joe Jackson is the best DE in the country and I agree with him. All three LBs are killers. We signed the best receiver in Dade (Mullins), Broward (Bruce) and Palm Beach (Richards). These are the elite South Florida playmakers that we've been missing for years. Jack Allison is a 6'6 All-American with a cannon. Travis Homer is the best RB in the state and one of the youngest players in the class.
If I told you after the Clemson game that we could fire Golden and keep all of these guys, everybody would've been thrilled. We also added some nice pieces around them without absorbing mediocre talent. A small class this year sets up a monster in 2017.
Finally, we made important geographical gains. Palm Beach and Jacksonville have been death traps for us. This year, we swept the top three players in Palm Beach and landed two stars from the Jacksonville area. We signed more top 50 players from Florida than any other school in the country, including UF and FSU. The elite national kids will come with a full year to develop relationships. Remember, Richt’s best players (Gurley, Green, Stafford, Murray) were from outside the state of Georgia.
The only thing that gives me pause is that we dropped guys like Desmond Phillips and James Wiggins who could’ve helped us at WR and CB. Hopefully, a full year to evaluate in Dade will correct those problems.
This is an obvious statement, but everything will come down to coaching. Richt has more than enough talent-- both inside the program and in this class -- to win early. If he has success on the field, he will compete for recruiting titles. The closest model would be Florida in the mid-2000s. Zook left behind good talent and a quarterback, Urban landed a solid transition class and a killer second class, coached the **** out of them, and the rest is history.
Signing Day mornings have been tough for us. But the evening is a time to reflect on the guys fulfilling their lifetime dreams. I cannot wait to watch these guys perform in the orange and green.
