Weakness In Richt's Recruiting While At UGA?

Tad Footeball

1996 Interim Big East Conference Commissioner
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Any potential specific areas of concern based on his tenure at Georgia? Anything remotely like our past history of being deficient in landing enough depth/quality with DB's and D-Linemen? The critique of Richt has always been that he did less with more on gameday but I was wondering if there have been any consistent recruiting complaints?
 
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Recruiting was never his issue but I think a fair question to ask is, was he able to protect enough Georgia kids and did he go out of state enough?
 
His QB position the last 2 years was a toilet. Also not overly impressed with the WR position.
 
Recruiting was never his issue but I think a fair question to ask is, was he able to protect enough Georgia kids and did he go out of state enough?

I think the first part is a very legitimate question. Georgia, per capita, churns out a lot of highly ranked recruits (check out ESPN's Top 300 for perspective). I suspect UGA fans would tell you that a lot of them went elsewhere, but that happens everywhere. I can't say it was Richt's fault, but I can't say he shouldn't have done more.

As to the second part, UGA really shouldn't have to leave Georgia very often. The only exception is QB. That state provides talent at every position, every year.
 
I haven't done a thorough check but how many of his NFL players are 3* vs. 4/5* kids? Will richt take kids with lower notoriety and develop them?
 
Most curious about his ability to project players. South Florida is full of athletes playing a position other than their $ position. Also, lots of players down here who break out late - whether because of weight/size issues or just generally.

If he can't dominate those types, we're giving up our biggest competitive advantage.
 
Richt did a poor job on the offensive lines as far as having lots of depth. Bama gets 4-6 o linemen a year some years he would only take 2-3. I understand only taking a few one year but those few have to be big time gets
 
In my opinion, he let too many good GA kids get away. But that may just go back to the "You can't sign 85 kids a year" adage.
 
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WR is the eye opener. At QB, he had 3 really solid QBs there - Greene, Stafford, Murray and one highly rated kid who did pretty well for one season in Shockley.
 
Most curious about his ability to project players. South Florida is full of athletes playing a position other than their $ position. Also, lots of players down here who break out late - whether because of weight/size issues or just generally.

If he can't dominate those types, we're giving up our biggest competitive advantage.
Exhibit A: James Burgess, Jr.
 
Because of his style of offense, guys like Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson, and Josh Dobbs chose to leave the state.

And Georgia hasn't done that well in producing WRs. He's gotten his fair share of RBs and OL, and I think he's done well with the DL and LBs they've signed.

The DB position has been iffy ... They missed on DB Cam Sutton, who's doing well at Tennessee ... But rumor is, he allowed his defensive coaches to make their own grocery list.
 
I can tell you this as I have lived here for the past 16 years.

Georgia (The Atl area) isnt like SFL. In SFL a majority of the people are from Florida. You see Miami and UF and FSU everywhere.

In the Atl area its seems like most people are from somewhere else. So many transplants. There are so many other teams represented here. You see tons of Alabama fans, Clemson fans, FSU fans, UF fans, Ole Miss fans, LSU fans, South Carolina fans, OSU fans.

I bet I run into more UF fans than I do G tech fans. I even run into plenty of UM fans.

In my neighborhood people fly their flags in their yards and there are more Clemson, Florida and Alabama flags than there are Georgia flags. I bet there are more Michigan flags than GTech.

I am strictly talking about the ATL area because stay out of the sticks but the ATL area is where most of the recruits come out of.
 
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I can tell you this as I have lived here for the past 16 years.

Georgia (The Atl area) isnt like SFL. In SFL a majority of the people are from Florida. You see Miami and UF and FSU everywhere.

In the Atl area its seems like most people are from somewhere else. So many transplants. There are so many other teams represented here. You see tons of Alabama fans, Clemson fans, FSU fans, UF fans, Ole Miss fans, LSU fans, South Carolina fans, OSU fans.

I bet I run into more UF fans than I do G tech fans. I even run into plenty of UM fans.

In my neighborhood people fly their flags in their yards and there are more Clemson, Florida and Alabama flags than there are Georgia flags. I bet there are more Michigan flags than GTech.

I am strictly talking about the ATL area because stay out of the sticks but the ATL area is where most of the recruits come out of.

Agree with this.

It's why I never knocked Richt for not being able to keep most of the top talent.

But wanting Cam newton to play TE is a HUGE error, IMO. So is the miss on Deshaun Watson. Those guys are difference makers on offense, and they could have been had if they were priorities, IMO.
 
I can tell you this as I have lived here for the past 16 years.

Georgia (The Atl area) isnt like SFL. In SFL a majority of the people are from Florida. You see Miami and UF and FSU everywhere.

In the Atl area its seems like most people are from somewhere else. So many transplants. There are so many other teams represented here. You see tons of Alabama fans, Clemson fans, FSU fans, UF fans, Ole Miss fans, LSU fans, South Carolina fans, OSU fans.

I bet I run into more UF fans than I do G tech fans. I even run into plenty of UM fans.

In my neighborhood people fly their flags in their yards and there are more Clemson, Florida and Alabama flags than there are Georgia flags. I bet there are more Michigan flags than GTech.

I am strictly talking about the ATL area because stay out of the sticks but the ATL area is where most of the recruits come out of.

Agree with this.

It's why I never knocked Richt for not being able to keep most of the top talent.

But wanting Cam newton to play TE is a HUGE error, IMO. So is the miss on Deshaun Watson. Those guys are difference makers on offense, and they could have been had if they were priorities, IMO.

Lets be fair....

Who would you rather have as your QB? Tim Tebow or Cam Newton.

Because Cam was on Florida while being coached by Urban when Tebow got the starting nod.

Hindsight is always twenty twenty.

Also with Watson he committed to Clemson early on, the 10th grade. He camped and they loved him and were on him from the beginning. They are the main reason that kid beleived in hmself at a time when he was having a rought life. He basically shut it down and made it clear he wasnt going anywhere else. Gainesville Ga is basically a Clemson clone and Clemson is about as close to Gainesville as Georgia is. Richt and Bobo worked their asses off trying to land Watson but this is a character kid who wasnt about to break his relationship with Sweeney after how he was there for him thru so much. Much respect for that kid.
 
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Richt's recruiting radius was Ga and the states surrounding. He didn't really have to leave Ga but for the right prospect(Gurley, Marshall, Michel, Murray, Stafford, AJ Green), he did. So he recruited Georgia very well but didn't just limit himself to Georgia. All the SEC schools and FSU recruit the state of Ga hard but Richt still normally won the in state battles.
 
I don't know anything really about how much of Georgia he was able to lock down and all that. What I do know though is Georgia Tech was able to get Calvin Johnson, Demaryius Thomas, Stephen Hill, etc at Wr. I assume those guys are all from Georgia. Those guys are also absolute physical freaks, and chose to go to an offense that runs the speed option offense. If he let those guys go to an in state rival, that would be a little dissapointing. Although, he did get AJ Green, so maybe it's a wash. I'm sure he won way more battles over recruits than GTech did.
 
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