Richt, Georgia have been hurt by too many recruiting risks
Mark Richt has seen several players arrested and suspended this offseason, including former tailback Isaiah Crowell. (AP photo)
HOOVER, Ala. – Mark Richt ignored the red flags and was among the nation’s coaches who lined up around the block for Isaiah Crowell.
He already has seen seven members from his vaunted 2011 recruiting class either kicked out, flunked out or never academically qualified to begin with (“Dream Team”? Anybody?).
Arrests and suspensions likely will lead to four defensive starters missing games next season.
There is a problem again at Georgia — and it matters little that it’s a different one from the past.
Richt, to his credit, no longer responds to players’ criminal or just plain stupid actions by merely making them run stadium steps or suspending their dessert privileges. He has come a long way from enabling Odell Thurman. He suspends players. He kicks them out. He tries to make them understand that getting four or five stars stamped on your forehead by a recruiting site and the ego trip of a signing-day news conference shouldn’t be accompanied by a sense of entitlement (even if it too often does).
The problem now is that too many of the players Georgia is recruiting should be red-lined. The line of risk needs to be pulled back.
Obviously, Richt and his staff are getting a lot right. The Bulldogs are favored to win the SEC East. They’re projected to open the season as a top-10 team.
But imagine if they actually had everybody there.
“We’re not recruiting bad kids,” Richt said in a private media session with local writers Thursday at SEC Media Days. “We’re recruiting a lot of great kids. Other schools are recruiting the same guys.”
Have the negative headlines of this offseason given him reason to pay closer attention to a recruit’s personal blemishes?
“We do find out as much as we possibly can,” he said. “There are rules on how many times we can call a kid and see him in person. We try to maximize those things.”
Sorry. But losing seven of 26 kids from one recruiting class in one year screams that there’s a need for a better filter.
Richt was accurate when he said, “To say that issues aren’t happening around the country isn’t really realistic.”
But losing at least five starters (Crowell plus four on defense suspended) is significant.
Crowell, after multiple suspensions and missteps his freshman season, was bounced following his arrest on felony gun charges. Cornerback Sanders Commings is gone for two games following an arrest for domestic violence. Safety Baccari Rambo (possibly four games), cornerback Branden Smith and linebacker Alec Ogletree all reportedly tested positive for marijuana. Three other freshmen (Nick Marshall, Chris Sanders, Sanford Seay) were kicked out for their reported involvement in a campus theft.
Some of Georgia’s problems can be attributed to having a tougher drug-and-alcohol policy than other schools. But that doesn’t explain everything. The recruiting mistakes will hurt.
The we’ll-be-better-off-without-him rallying cries regarding Crowell makes for a nice locker-room speech. But it’s just not factual. He was Georgia’s best running back — by a long shot — and the Dogs’ potential issues on the offensive line don’t suggest just anybody can be productive.
This will be a team that must rely on its defense and its resolve. The Dogs’ ability to rebound from a 0-2 start with 10 consecutive wins last season said something about the character of the players who aren’t getting arrested (even if that was followed by two more losses to LSU and Michigan State). It’s a team with a solid quarterback (Aaron Murray), strong leadership and several players who bypassed the NFL draft last season to come back for another season. But the suspensions and player losses will hurt.
“There’s been more attrition the last couple of years than there has been since we’ve been at Georgia,” Richt said. “But sometimes that happens. We’ll still have plenty of guys to field a team.”
Then again, if just having enough players was the criteria, there would be celebrations in Toledo and Ole Miss. The question now is whether the Dogs’ chances for a special season have been undone before they’ve even played a game.
By Jeff Schultz
Previous SEC Media Days blogs
• Arkansas living with deserved humiliation after Petrino firing
• Muschamp getting heat but deserves some time at Florida
• Slive: SEC needs to be vigilant to avoid Penn State situation
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779 comments Add your comment
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
3:48 pm
The 2 or 3 guys a year that do the wrong things get all of the publicity because everyone wants to down UGA. At least we saw a good story on Richard Samuel who has proven that he always thinks of the team first. We need more stories about the other 70 or so guys that are doing things the right way. Hey Jeff, how about writing about them like Chip Towers did the other day. I guess that is not as interesting as the few bad eggs.
Pitbull
July 19th, 2012
3:48 pm
Here is why I think Georgia is not only fortunate but blessed ot have Mark Richt:
Mark Richt has graduated 222 players in 11 years which is pretty much an entire recruiting class each year and won106 games during that same period of time. I think UGA has the highest winning percentage of any SEC school over the 11 year period that Mark Richt has been there.
Mark has not won a NC yet, but we have been in the SECCG 5 times since he came to Athens and won it twice. Georgia NEVER went to the SECCG before he got here.
His bowl record is 7-4.
He has run a clean winning program, and has never embarrassed us, and we have never been placed on probation during his tenure.
I remember his first year as the UGA head coach when he made the statement that he would rather lose a game than cheat. That puts him way ahead of most other football coaches, especially Tech.
Oh and lets never forget that the reason Tech folks hate him is that he is 10-1 against Tech.
Frank
July 19th, 2012
3:49 pm
JB
What would the number of lost scholarship players look like if those same players committed the same offenses at another school? There’s no denying the fact that UGA has one of the toughest disciplinary policies in the nation, especially when it comes to drugs/alcohol, and those policies are no doubt inflating the number of “lost scholarship players”. Many of the guys who have booted off the team would most likely still be on rosters at other schools who don’t penalize kids as harshly as UGA. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not a good thing to have lost as many scholarship players as UGA has in the past couple of years, but it’s important to keep these things in proper context.
OLDGUY
July 19th, 2012
3:49 pm
If I graded your writing the same way you grade Georgia you would be a bust.
PMC
July 19th, 2012
3:50 pm
Well yeah, that and the Willie Martinez debacle that took a decent defense and made them horrible for several years.
Fact of the matter is Richt and co have not been able to get the best out of their talent the years when they have the best talent.
2007 had nothing to do with recruiting coach.
Spanky
July 19th, 2012
3:50 pm
Thanks Steve, I honestly thought he had something to do with it, but I stand corrected! Is anyone concerned about our special teams?..I’m referring to our True Fr. Punter and FG Kicker! I’ve noticed a slight decline with the adsence of coach Hartman…
Skitty Fritty
July 19th, 2012
3:50 pm
To be fair, at Alabama the HC, AD & Team Doctor according to the AJC determine when a football player is suspended, etc. The reality is there are different standards in the SEC and around college football. Fans may think UGA recruits different athletes but the reality is there are more layers of accountability at UGA than for example, Alabama.
Falcon 34
July 19th, 2012
3:52 pm
What does a strict drug policy have to do with committing a crime of concealing a weapon, having a weapon in a school zone, said weapon having an altered serial ID (Crowell), domestic violence (Rambo), and stealing from teammates (Marshall, Seay, Sanders)?
Richt is a great guy and a decent coach, but the players do not respect him because they whatever they H they want, whenever the H they want, to whomever they H they want. They are kicked off only when crimes become public. Discipline off the field translates to discipline on the field.
JB
July 19th, 2012
3:52 pm
If it takes 10 things to make a great college coach that has it’s program in the hunt on a regular basis, Richt must have about 7 of them. He’s missing something
My list.
1. Lacks killer instinct.
2. Allows under performing coaching to take root
3. Looking at a bigger world than just 24/7 focusing on UGA winning a NC
4. Seems to lack a sense of urgency in recruiting. ( we lose to much cream to out of state0
5. Old worn out FSU play book has no new entries ever
6. Not a very good game day coach ( lately, last 4-5 years)
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
3:52 pm
Skitty Fritty
July 19th, 2012
3:50 pm
To be fair, at Alabama the HC, AD & Team Doctor according to the AJC determine when a football player is suspended, etc. The reality is there are different standards in the SEC and around college football. Fans may think UGA recruits different athletes but the reality is there are more layers of accountability at UGA than for example, Alabama.
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That’s exactly what I’ve been saying
PMC
July 19th, 2012
3:52 pm
The guys booted off the team aren’t because of the diciplinary policy. The suspensions at the beginning of the year that hurt the team are because of the diciplinary policy.
If you get KICKED OUT of UGA, you have DERAILED. Richt like Bowden before him gives guys every opportunity to make the most of thier opportunity.
The guys that got kicked out, have made so many bad decisions they couldn’t continue under any circumstance at the school.
GaTruth
July 19th, 2012
3:54 pm
So, should we over-sign like Saban? He blows that pressure off like it was Obama does when someone calls him inept – the statements are true, they just don’t give a rats _$$. We want to be honest with the recruits, but if you are bringing in better athletes, you can then afford to cut the problems. Plus, it puts competitive pressure on the kids – they know they will be gone without hesitation if someone else is coming in to take their spot. On the other hand, it can hurt recruiting if your team doesn’t have the goods to back it up. Saban can say, yeah we over-sign, but you’ll play for an NC at some point in your Alabama career. Richt can’t say that. Not saying I think we should over-sign, just saying it presents something of a partial solution.
Skitty Fritty
July 19th, 2012
3:55 pm
Falcon 34:
The difference is at other schools the policy is set by AD, HC & Team Doctor. These would be handled internally at other schools. Don’t believe me, then how about the episodes at Florida? Did the players respect Meyer? What about the 4 players at Auburn who committed armed robbery? Did they respect Chizik? What about the incidents with Rogers in the bar fight at UT recorded on various Iphones and the robbery of the on campus 7-11 in Knoxville? Did these players respect Dooley? The UT players didn’t even get in trouble.
Dawg Fud
July 19th, 2012
3:55 pm
Job well done, Jeff. You really sensationalized the issue.
PMC
July 19th, 2012
3:55 pm
The fact of the matter is that the coaching staff is not doing as good a job at Georgia as they are in other places of maximizing the talent they have available.
It’s been better under Richt at times than under anyone since Dooley, but it’s also been over a decade.
It’s time to win or move on.
Falcon 34
July 19th, 2012
3:56 pm
quillian — Did they win either or even play in the SECC or BCS? Win just one of the games b/t SC or TENN and we likely win it all. I”ll concede they were playing as good as anyone at the end of the year, but you can’t lose games you shouldn’t (at least not TWICE).
PMC
July 19th, 2012
3:57 pm
I do wonder what they public outcry will be should Georgia lose to Mettenburger and LSU this season.
Jim Harrick
July 19th, 2012
3:58 pm
We need easier tests for our student athletes.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
3:58 pm
PMC
July 19th, 2012
3:55 pm
The fact of the matter is that the coaching staff is not doing as good a job at Georgia as they are in other places of maximizing the talent they have available.
It’s been better under Richt at times than under anyone since Dooley, but it’s also been over a decade.
It’s time to win or move on.
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That comment has been beaten to death. Try typing something original.
ARdawg
July 19th, 2012
3:59 pm
Schultz, I love you Bubba. You’re normally spot on with my opinions (which is very odd from the norm) but, come on. There is a method to the madness and it’s you sports writers that highlight, emphasize and exclamation point every misstep by a football player. Especially, UGA. Seek some balance there guy. There are good players and recruits at UGA and many more than those who run afoul. It’s very rare to hear about those. Doesn’t that make you as complicit as Richt?
seabass
July 19th, 2012
4:01 pm
Schultz, is that German? As in sergent. You do amaze me with sarcasm toward Richt and UGA. Almost disdain. What is your school of choice? Where is your allegiance? Surely, not in the state of Georgia.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:01 pm
Falcon 34
July 19th, 2012
3:52 pm
What does a strict drug policy have to do with committing a crime of concealing a weapon, having a weapon in a school zone, said weapon having an altered serial ID (Crowell), domestic violence (Rambo), and stealing from teammates (Marshall, Seay, Sanders)?
Richt is a great guy and a decent coach, but the players do not respect him because they whatever they H they want, whenever the H they want, to whomever they H they want. They are kicked off only when crimes become public. Discipline off the field translates to discipline on the field.
_________________________________________________________________
You can throw the having a weapon in a school zone out the window. It was a tag on charge. schools out for the summer and it was at 3:00 in the morning. No one at school then. He probably tick the officer off charging him so he added that one to it. Not that having an illegal weapon is okay.
JB
July 19th, 2012
4:02 pm
PMC………..There will be no outcry. The New UGA President will either have a spine or not, and if like Adams, He likes Richt and enjoys Florida in December with a mid tier bowl, it will continue.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:04 pm
Jeff, how about a blog story on the Tech LB that came to Athens a month ago and got into a fight at a bar and fought with police when they tried to arrest him. He should have known better. If Athens police would lock up a UGA player you know they will lock up a Tech player for sure.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:05 pm
JB
July 19th, 2012
4:02 pm
PMC………..There will be no outcry. The New UGA President will either have a spine or not, and if like Adams, He likes Richt and enjoys Florida in December with a mid tier bowl, it will continue.
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Mid tier bowl in December? Why? because you say so?
Lowcountry Bulldawg
July 19th, 2012
4:05 pm
Perhaps the issue is who CMR learned discipline from Bobby Bowden. Bowden was notorious for running a fairly lose program at FSU. Trevor Matich pointed out that over the past two years LSU and Alabama have each had 2 players arrested,ticketed or cited. This while UGA has had 8. CMR can speak of how they are all recruiting the same kids but at some point the culture at UGA must change for the results to change for the better on the football field.
Skitty Fritty
July 19th, 2012
4:05 pm
PMC:
I forgot about Mettenberger. Another example of UGA getting a black eye and now what a great comeback story of him with LSU. He wouldn’t have been kicked off the football team at any other SEC school except for maybe Kentucky & UGA.
RamblinWreck92
July 19th, 2012
4:06 pm
Jim Harrick
You should’ve committed academic fraud to the level we did at GT several years ago. What you and your son did was chicken poop compared to what we did across the entire athletic department.
Falcon 34
July 19th, 2012
4:06 pm
Skitty — I’m not going to argue with us vs. other schools, and since the SEC doesn’t have a uniform policy, UGA could very well be suffering from unfair rules. I’ll admit that. My arguments has always been (since 2005, to be fair) that Richt simply is not getting the most out of his recruits and when you have a great locker room of leadership and character, you can absorb the occasional “knuckle-head,” but not 10-15 of them. We had that back when our locker room was dominated by Pollack, Green, Shockley, T.Davis, Stinchcomb, etc.
Look, they’re programs may have been dirty, but Auburn (1) and Florida (2) have both won BCS titles.
sUGAr_daddy_DAWG
July 19th, 2012
4:06 pm
Schultzie- You mentioned a need for a better filter. How? How do you minimize “recruiting mistakes?” There’s very limited coach to recruit interaction per NCAA rules. Your top recruits are being recruited by virtually every team in the SEC. What happens when its determined a recruit has a “character flaw.” Coaches won’t comment on why they backed off a top recruit and that recruit goes out of state. I think every team has to roll with the punches to determine what they are getting at a later time. Anyone on this blog is naive to think the same problems are not happening on every team across this country. At the end of the day we are talking about 18-22 year olds. No matter what campus they end up on; they are going to push the boundaries.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:06 pm
Speaking about that Tech LB. Has anyone heard if CPJ suspended him or not?
PMC
July 19th, 2012
4:08 pm
What do you want Kerry? It’s going to be beaten to death because it’s still happening.
Skitty Fritty
July 19th, 2012
4:08 pm
Falcon 34:
I understand but just wanted to point out both sides of the coin. I hope CMR wins the dance this year and UGA can have a title also.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:08 pm
Falcon34, I don’t care what the Barn has done. We all know how that happened and I would want to never win than to be corrupt like the Barn.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:09 pm
PMC,I think he got a good bit out of a young team last year. See what they do this year.
BiggDawgK
July 19th, 2012
4:10 pm
A good start to erasing the chances of another penn st ever happening again would be to report which schools actually drug test and how often. Also since our SEC commissioner lives so close to Tuscaloosa maybe he should investigate the countless claims that Saban has the police dept in his pocket and that it is impossible for a player to be arrested there.
In fact since the ajc seems to live off of negative headlines maybe a few of the intrepid reporters here might try a little investigative reporting on their own like the reporters at yahoo seem to excel at. I guess that would be too much like actual work for schultzie and the others though. Much easier to sit in the ac and pull stuff off ther wire and then throw rocks, huh?
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:11 pm
All of you people UGA fans or not that keep talking about how CMR has not gotten anything out of recruits, do I have to go over the history since 2008 and tell you why those years happened like they did?
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:12 pm
BiggDawgK
July 19th, 2012
4:10 pm
A good start to erasing the chances of another penn st ever happening again would be to report which schools actually drug test and how often. Also since our SEC commissioner lives so close to Tuscaloosa maybe he should investigate the countless claims that Saban has the police dept in his pocket and that it is impossible for a player to be arrested there.
In fact since the ajc seems to live off of negative headlines maybe a few of the intrepid reporters here might try a little investigative reporting on their own like the reporters at yahoo seem to excel at. I guess that would be too much like actual work for schultzie and the others though. Much easier to sit in the ac and pull stuff off ther wire and then throw rocks, huh?
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Like
PMC
July 19th, 2012
4:13 pm
For a state as fertile in recruiting as Georgia be in the middle of Alabama, Auburn, Florida and LSU winning national titles…. I mean, clearly, theres an issue.
falcon fred
July 19th, 2012
4:13 pm
Kerryb, there is help out there. All you have to do is ask.
falcon fred
July 19th, 2012
4:14 pm
Kerryb, there is help out there. All you have to do is ask.
Dawg Gone
July 19th, 2012
4:14 pm
I have to agree with Mr. Schultz on this matter. Something has to change.
Richt, Bulldogs address perception of being an undisciplined team | UGA sports blog
July 19th, 2012
4:16 pm
[...] Richt, Georgia have been hurt by too many recruiting risks [...]
PMC
July 19th, 2012
4:19 pm
No one is saying Richt is not a good coach. He’s obviously a good recruiter too.
The question is, do you feel like he can win a national title?
Right now, I’m not convinced that he can. I believe they have recruited teams with enough talent to win, but they haven’t been able to put it all together. 11 years on, If not now when?
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:19 pm
PMC, the problem is that Georgia is also surrounded by five SEC schools and 2 top ACC schools that come in and raid the state. When you’re having to compete with 7 other programs for the same recruits it gets tough. You can pitch your program to them but it’s ultimately their choice and you can’t make that for them. There are even some programs that actually give them or their family money under the table which sways them away. i think the staff has done a good job the last few years getting some quality players. It’s tough when you compete in west Georgia with Auburn, Alabama and FSU, in South Georgia with Florida and FSU, in north Georgia with TN, Clemson, and south Carolina, and in Atlanta with all of them.
The Truth
July 19th, 2012
4:20 pm
Come on Schultz! Crowell was the most overrated 5 star recruit I’ve seen in years. He was slow, and ran scared. One big hit and that pansy was on the sideline for the rest of the game.
Kids are kids…everyone makes critical mistakes, and some are unlucky enough to get caught. The media certainly doesn’t help. College (and now high school) athletes are a half step away from a real life version of the Truman Show. Bloodthirsty journalists like YOU salivate at the opportunity to write a story about a kid running afoul of the law. Seriously Shultz, get over yourself. The problem isn’t with college athletes. The problem is on the shoulders of the parents, coaches, and school systems that produce these kids and the media turds that lust after 14 year olds on sites like Rivals and Scout.
Spence
July 19th, 2012
4:20 pm
Jeff, you’re a sportswriter with access to the AJC’s recruiting services. You, moreso than anyone, should know things about the kids that are and were recruited by these schools. Please, of the Dream Team, point us to one single piece of evidence that was out there BEFORE Richt recruited these kids, anything, that would suggest they would be problems. I noticed you didn’t in your article because you cannot. Instead you rely on a conclusion (players were kicked off) to make your point (Richt cannot screen appropriately). That’s called circular logic, and it sucks. If you can show me that Richt is acting like Houston Nutt, or Terry Bodwen, I’ll listen, but you can’t. He recruits kids that are relatively upstanding citizens. Some don’t make it through. What a shock that 18 year olds unleashed in a college town may have troubles. Who knew? But that’s more than enough for you to act like Richt has issues in his screening process. Question for you – does Tennessee have a problem? Auburn? What about Greg Reid over at FSU? Who is doing it right, and what are they doing differently?
One day you’ll write actual news pieces. For now. you wait till a press conference or some internet theme pops up that you like, then sit there and make illogical conclusions that the masses will eat up. In other words, the incredible lack of original thought that comes out of your keyboard is enough to make our current congress look smart, savvy and productive.
Congrats on getting hits on the website.
kerryb
July 19th, 2012
4:21 pm
PMC, I think he can. He should have in 2007.
macrotech
July 19th, 2012
4:21 pm
Sadly, CMR is damned if he does/damned if he doesn’t…the SEC has been a dominant conference the past several years and CMR is doing whatever he can to get in on the mix. These 18 yr old ’superstars’ come in with the same sense of immortality that most kids that age have. The greatest difference is that THEIR mistakes make headlines and CMR’s response becomes fodder for bloggers with differing attitudes. Sad state of affairs for all!
Hollywould
July 19th, 2012
4:22 pm
Falcon, kerry is on these blogs every day spewing crap about other schools but has not been able to prove anything. It eats at him daily.