A double whammy: Two touted Georgians spurn the Bulldogs
Xzavier Dickson dealt a blow to the Bulldogs by choosing Bama. (AJC photo by Jason Getz)
Say what you will about the unseemly process of football recruiting, but the young men at the heart of it are expert trend-spotters. They know which program is Hot and which is Not Hot. On Wednesday two ballyhooed Georgians used the Under Armour All-America Game as the venue to announce they’d be making runs for the border, and there you have it.
The Georgia Bulldogs = Not Hot.
Xzavier Dickson of Griffin is bound for Alabama. Quan Bray of LaGrange is taking his talents to Auburn. According to ESPN.com, both rank among the nation’s 25 best prospects. We should also mention that ESPN.com has Georgia’s 2011 recruiting class rated No. 8 nationally. We should also mention that Rivals.com has the Bulldogs 23rd, while Scout.com puts them 20th.
Yes, rankings can and will change. (And yes, recruits have been known to reconsider. Ask Da’Rick Rogers, currently enrolled at Georgia … er, Tennessee.) But seeing Georgia ranked outside anyone’s top 10 always constitutes a shock. Rivals rated the Bulldogs’ signing class among the 10 best every year from 2002 to 2009; last year the Bulldogs were 15th according to Rivals, 21st according to Scout, 12th according to ESPN.
Even in lesser seasons on the field, Georgia under Mark Richt has always been able to point to its recruiting. Now, with lesser seasons running together, the program that controlled its state controls it no more. The buzz about this program has been downgraded to a murmur, and the murmur concerns the future of its head coach. Which grows more tenuous by the moment.
Four SEC schools have qualified for the BCS title game since 2005, Georgia not among them. Seven league members have qualified for the SEC championship game since 2005, Georgia not among them. This program of vast resources has been rendered second-rate.
The Bulldogs lost 19 times in Richt’s first 95 games as coach; they’ve lost 15 times over the past 35. Recruits know this better than anyone. Recruits can sense a program on the descent, even if it’s the flagship school in their state. Thus does the cycle of football spin onward: Win and you’re the place to be; stop winning and you’re the place to flee.
This isn’t to say Georgia can’t and won’t land an uncommitted player or two to bolster this class — Jay Rome of Valdosta and Isaiah Crowell of Columbus are still in play — but Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald offers this nugget: The Bulldogs’ last known public commitment was rendered on Aug. 22.
Put another way, not one recruit has been moved to pledge himself to the Bulldogs since the football season began. Talk about Not Hot.
By Mark Bradley
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571 comments Add your comment
Tail tucked betwix legs
January 6th, 2011
10:49 am
“Young hoodlums with football “talent” are finally catching on that THUG-like behavior will get you arrested at UGA but will get you protected in Tuscaloosa”
WHY do these kids have to be young hoodlums??? The FACT of the matter is your beloved bulldogs SUCK, and kids “are finally catching on that” they’ll be better off elsewhere.
William Buckley
January 6th, 2011
10:49 am
Shocker !!!
Who in thier right mind would go to UGA under Richt.
As a SEC Bottom Tier Coach, with a .500 record over the last several years, it is simply NOT a Very desireable place today !
schmeckdawg
January 6th, 2011
10:50 am
Richt’s comments yesterday were hilarious. Bobo=QB coach and OC. Searles=Running game coordinator and OL coach. Both are doing terrific jobs but we couldn’t run or pass OR EVEN SCORE A FREAKING TOUCHDOWN against Central Florida. No wonder “The Dream Team,” is turning into the Nightmare Team! Also, I am sick and tired of hearing Richt say the same thing year after year. “This isn’t where Georgia football needs to be, I’m re-energized, I really am excited about next year” etc. He had better be excited because if he doesn’t win 10 games and one of those being Florida, he is gone! Finally, one more opinion, Leeburn, Youclan & Adams ALL SUCK BIG TIME!!!!!!!
WinderDogg
January 6th, 2011
10:50 am
UGAVIII that was funny….think about how much that dang war bird makes…and wins
collegeballfan
January 6th, 2011
10:50 am
How can you tell if a great high school player will be a great college player?
By the number of Stars given out by the recruiting “gurus”?
By looking at hours of film of high school players and hours of interviews with high school players?
By flipping a coin?
By asking the high school coaches that have proven to be correct over the years?
All of the above?
None of the above?
zenith
January 6th, 2011
10:50 am
Looks like dawgs are left to just, Dream and Wonder. lmao
Shock
January 6th, 2011
10:51 am
“and the murmur concerns the future of its head coach. Which grows more tenuous by the moment.”
Pfft. Your imagination is wondrous.
Your Boss
January 6th, 2011
10:51 am
Hey You, Back away from the computer and get back to work!
Dumbo
January 6th, 2011
10:52 am
William Buckley….you are dead and for a yale you can’t spell
Dumbo
January 6th, 2011
10:52 am
sorry meant “Yalie”
JB
January 6th, 2011
10:52 am
I think at the End of the day Mark is just not a very good coach or manager.Before people scream, What about his record ? Donnan left him went a lot of NFL type players and Van Gorder was a lucky hire ( Now DC in the NFL and doing Well). His game day Management after 10 years is still weak, and the staff is below average by SEC standards. Coach Garner has loaded us up the last 3 years with a lot of misses, and I don’t know how scientific that business is. There are a lot of bust on all teams. I think he is tired, peaked and has become numb to the job, and Christian or not, having 10 mil in the bank can do that to you.
schmeckdawg
January 6th, 2011
10:53 am
UGA VIII you are the smartest one out of the bunch. You got the runs before the game and didn’t have to watch it. All of us other DAWGS got sick during and after the game!
Damn Good DAWG!
FarmerJoe
January 6th, 2011
10:54 am
KC,
You slam Army and Navy? UGA would be so lucky to produce QUALITY athletes such as the academies…in fact, that may be where these coaches need to take an offseason trip. Learn to teach the discipline and toughness of West Point, instead of endzone dances…
schmeckdawg
January 6th, 2011
10:54 am
@ JB 10:52
Nice call!
Yellow Fuzz
January 6th, 2011
10:55 am
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
January 6th, 2011
9:59 am
AJC SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TRUTH HURTS DON’T IT LITTLE MAN?
JB
January 6th, 2011
10:56 am
FarmerJoe……you are correct.This UGA team would not beat Air Force.
Marvin Mangrum
January 6th, 2011
10:58 am
Im sorry but this is not worth talking about. Look you write and I do enjoy, but the first thing you need is players, players, huge, fast, mean players. You do not need, regardless of who their daddy is, players that are 5′6′ or 5′7′. What the heck is a midget going to do at a football game? And I love reading you, I really enjoy reading all you guys but look here, you go to the games, you cant see the ants on the sidelines? You get 60 players and 17 are ants? Let me ask, now that they are 6-7 does it matter that their dads played earlier? I do not think CMR is the answer, but this legacy thing needs to stop and it is something that I see is wrong, and I just wonder why you cant report it. Because it is a serious problem and regardless of who dad was the kid should have to make the team. And, I hope, theres no way 17 freaking 5′7′ monsters make this team?
The Most Interesting Man Alive
January 6th, 2011
10:58 am
With all the self haters on here today, the rest of us humper haters can just sit back and read and LOAO.
Dumbo
January 6th, 2011
10:58 am
FarmerJoe…know this, all students at any Military Academy are subject to the UCMJ and it is alot rougher than the civilian legal system…that kinda changes the way a kid thinks at those schools to begin with and 6 weeks of Beast barracks gets rid of the weak at West Point
musta forgot
January 6th, 2011
10:58 am
not sure why everyone is complaining about recruits???
even when we (UGA) get the so called big names they dont play up to their potential.
spurrier quipped a while back “georgia gets all these players then nothing happens”, or something to that affect.
Lets not worry about the kids, stay focused on the coaching.
Summit Dawg
January 6th, 2011
11:01 am
I am a 72 year old Life Long Dawg fan……If I had a grandson who was a star recruit, I would discourage him from going to UGA unless that coaching staff was gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
who cares?
January 6th, 2011
11:02 am
Who cares about these guys? Really? All of you are sitting around wringing your hands over young punks that will be lucky to see their junior year in school. Is it really that important? Worry about your job, family or retirement.
Dumbo
January 6th, 2011
11:04 am
musta forgot…..Steve Superior said that about 18 yrs ago…can’t you think of anything new & original
GSU Eagle 91
January 6th, 2011
11:04 am
EW…You are right on….
UGA continues to recruit thugs, and I, for one, am sick of seeing it…C’mon, CMR…Find some players with character ( there are many in our state) and coach them up! Give the Dawg fans a reason to be proud of ther team.
Just because an athlete is a football “talent” does not give him the right to be at UGA….
UGA83
January 6th, 2011
11:04 am
Mark Richt must go as soon as possible. No, you couldn’t at least point to recruiting. Fact is Georgia is a talent laden state and a lot of the kids want to go to UGA so Richt diddn’t exhbiit any great ability in keeping a lot of them over the years. However, he has been seriously underperforming relative to the talent (the clearest sign of bad coaching). Now it’s gotten so bad he can’t even keep the great in-state talent. Meanwhile, he stays loyal to Mike BooBoo while florida gets Charlie Weiss? Advantage Florida. We are behind alabama, florida, lsu, Miss state, arkansas, s carolina, auburn and soon tenneessee. what’s next? Vandy’s whipping boys?
GSU Eagle 91
January 6th, 2011
11:04 am
ther should be their….
Sorry!!
N.GA.DAWG
January 6th, 2011
11:06 am
If I ever run into Mark, I’m gonna punch you in the face!
JB
January 6th, 2011
11:07 am
You almost thought at the presser the other Day you heard in Rich’s voice, Well, they won’t fire me and write me a check for 6.5 mil to go away, so I talked him to taking over my paper work so i can have time to study this game and get my head back in it. I’m taking 1200Mg of nodose a day and nothing seems to help. Ok, I’m coming back, and we’ll see what happens. With no paper work and stronger coffee, I’ll Get to work on Boise soon. By the way, give it up for Bobo and Searles, they did a great job this year,
Curious
January 6th, 2011
11:08 am
Do any of you recruiting experts know why DeVaris Daniels, 4 star 6′ 3″ WR, who played last night in the UnderArmour game and son of former UGA and current NFL player, Philip Daniels, was ignored by the GREAT offensive minds at UGA? He committed to Notre Dame because UGA would not offer. Why?
BirdDog
January 6th, 2011
11:08 am
Wow, more disappointing news for us UGA fans! UGA cannot get the top players in their own state and they don’t even recruit some of the good players that actually want to be Dawgs! Sad, very sad. I agree with Belue that they need to hire a FT recruiting coordinator and left Garner focus solely on the D line. With all of the $ that UGA has, this is unacceptable and ridiculous!
McDawg
January 6th, 2011
11:10 am
we can flip the Dickson kid -i think some bloggers should conduct a disinformation campaign agianst AL similiar to what AL fans have been doing to AU regarding the FBI investigation/criminal enterprise being run out of the AU Athletics department
BirdDog
January 6th, 2011
11:11 am
Just more bad news, ugh! They don’t even recruit many of the players in this state that actually WANT to be Dawgs. Pathetic and sad, very sad.
DamntheButcher
January 6th, 2011
11:12 am
This is what gets me…. GA just finished another awful season and Mark Richt says there are no coaching changes that need to be made. So I guess all the coaches did a great job coaching and it is the players fault or maybe just the calibur of player UGA has. Well who is getting these players? Greg McGarity needs to fire Mark Richt today. Why waste another year. There is no way that UGA will win 9 games or more next year. But with that said I guess 7-6 is an improvement.
Quack
January 6th, 2011
11:12 am
GO DUCKS!!!
still@the bar
January 6th, 2011
11:12 am
UGA is looking at hiring Dog the Bounty Hunter as UGA new recruiting coordinator. He is a good CHRISTIAN too. Just ask him or watch his show. What he brings new to the table is the tough Love Richt don’t have and DOG can hunt down the dawg players
and make sure they are doing what is expected.
gcs
January 6th, 2011
11:14 am
I hate to break it to UGA fans but most people who follow recruiting respect the rankings of Rivals the most, followed by Scout and ESPN bringing up the rear.
.
Curious
January 6th, 2011
11:16 am
Do any of you recruiting experts know the story on DeVaris Daniels? He played in the Under Armour game last night. He is a 4 star 6′ 3″ WR who signed with Notre Dame. His Dad, Philip Daniels, played for UGA and is a current NFL player. The GREAT offensive coaches at UGA ignored him. Why?
Dawgpound
January 6th, 2011
11:19 am
Can’t say I blame the kid for going to Bama. I’m sure Saban got on the phone and said “Richt is a nice man but that program is undisciplined and does not turn it’s recruits into NFL material”. At Bama we do that, now don’t make a foolish mistake by flipping a coin”. And I bet Mark never called the young man. Now, on the notion of all these 5 star recruits, they really haven’t panned out to be much but self entitled misdemeanor cases. Go get a bunch of Terry Hoage type players that are just dying for a shot and coach them up.
Alphare
January 6th, 2011
11:20 am
Yes, if UGA players play every game like Richt’s last game, you may have a 7-5 instead of 5-7 result.
Mike A.
January 6th, 2011
11:20 am
Speculate all you want. Nobody in Athens jumps through the hoop unless I tell them to. Now, why won’t Bobby Petrino answer his phone?
Dawgpound
January 6th, 2011
11:22 am
Now, as for the kid going to Auburn, I personally wouldn’t touch a school that is looking at the possible sanctions coming that way. Plus, if Can and Fairley leave, they are going to go back to being a 7 win team. Better than UGA but just saying.
S
January 6th, 2011
11:23 am
Enter your comments here
Sam Robards, Dawg Fan
January 6th, 2011
11:23 am
I can’t say that I’m surprised about Dickson. He didn’t seem to have UGA 100% during his whole recruitment. I didn’t pay attention to Bray that much.
I’ve got a feeling that Crowley will come to UGA. I don’t have any evidence or proof. Just a gut feeling. I mean, why sit on the bench at Bama when you can start at UGA? But I guess we’ll see.
As for recruiting in general, I don’t get too caught up in stars and such. as people mentioned, Pollack and Greene (David) were no more than three stars, and Knowshon was only a three-star, if I recall correctly. So I think you should go out and get kids that really wanna play for UGA (like Stafford, who really wanted to play for Richt). If you get one or two of these ego-inflated kids, I guess that’s ok, too. But don’t rely on them to carry the team.
Though I do have a question for Mr. Bradley, if these young men “spruned” the Dawgs, then why were the Dawgs even in their final two? Spurning them would mean UGA didn’t make it to their final ten choices. So a more accurate headline would be, “Two Touted Georgians don’t choose UGA, spurn Tech.”
These blogs by Bradley and Shultz are getting really pathetic, though Shultz is actually a little more level-headed about things right now (surprisingly). We get it, Bradley. You want Richt to get fired so recruiting will suffer for several years in order to Tech to actually beat UGA more than once a decade. It’s getting old.
As for Richt, I love what he’s done for the program and think he deserves next year to try and fix things. If he does, fantastic. If not, then I think we can split ways in a reasonable manner. I think he’d retire before he lets UGA suffer three or more sub-par seasons, and no, 2008 was not a sub-par season.
If UGA does release Richt after next year (or he retires), the only person I think that could come in and be immediately effective would be Chris Peterson of Boise State. Other than that, who are you gonna get? And don’t give me Kirby Smart. The man hasn’t proved he can coach anything. That’s Saban’s defense in Tuscaloosa. And don’t give me the “unknown coach” schtick, either. That’s a cop-out non-answer.
I think it’s kind of a moot point since I think the Dawgs are gonna come back hard next year. But we’ll see. Go Dawgs!
Dr. Phil
January 6th, 2011
11:28 am
Rodney Garner has always been a shady character since he was the paymaster for Pat Dye and Bobby Lowder at Auburn.. Garner has an ability to communicate with and recruit thugs. He has never been a good coach. If heads ever start to roll, Adams should start with Garner’s.
joe
January 6th, 2011
11:29 am
UGA83–you hit the nail on the head, but you’re already behind TN
Fire CMR.com
January 6th, 2011
11:30 am
Better do it before it’s too late!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jasont13
January 6th, 2011
11:31 am
Funny Mark how you fail to mention Auburn gave Quan Bray’s uncle a job plus Xavier Dickson’s father always wanted to go to Alabama and he was the crucial part of his sons recruting. Living through your sons shoes.
Law & Order - Athens
January 6th, 2011
11:32 am
In the criminal justice system, football related offenses are considered especially heinous. In Athens Georgia the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Dawgs Unit. These are their stories.
Tail tucked betwix legs
January 6th, 2011
11:32 am
“that really was appalling when Richt said Bobo and Searles have both done a great job. Perhaps he was misquoted.”
Perhaps he smokes crack in his leisure time?
Mark Richt won with Donnan players and BVG.
January 6th, 2011
11:32 am
This ship is sinking ever so deeper.