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
UGA 92
January 6th, 2011
1:24 pm
“Bud from Tucker” very well said.
WDE
January 6th, 2011
1:24 pm
hopping vs hoping
Gbal
January 6th, 2011
1:26 pm
Bradley –
Someone has to be giving you kickbacks to continuiously keep the flow of negative UGA press flowing out of the AJC. I call for an investigation. Is it AU? Bama? …. is it CAM pay? Gotta be something being passed to you to continuously be this bad.
Suicidal Dawg
January 6th, 2011
1:28 pm
I have had it with this losing. I have faith in Speaker Richt, but I am basing whether or not I am going to kill myself on next season. Please help me Dawgs, I am at my wits end, and the prozac is not helping. Win for me Speaker Richt
WDE
January 6th, 2011
1:29 pm
@Dawglasville,
I don’t know what you’re referring to. We’re in the BCS National Championship Game; you might want to check it out – it’s played every year and the winner is determined as the National Champion. I realize that UGA hasn’t had a sniff at a BCS Championship – EVER – so you might not be familiar with it. War Damn Eagle! (WDE, get it now?)
He Hate Gator
January 6th, 2011
1:30 pm
“You’ve got to get a boost from your recruiting class, your freshman class,” Richt said. “I’ve never been on a championship team that didn’t have guys step up and make a difference.”
Hope the rumours are true that Richt will step down if doesn’t sign any of those top remaining in-state recruits…
dubya
January 6th, 2011
1:32 pm
heckuva job brownie….errrrrrr, i mean bobo.
Thuga
January 6th, 2011
1:32 pm
How many halves in a basketball game? These uga tests are so tough!
Pope UGA XXIII
January 6th, 2011
1:33 pm
We already have a 175 lb running back that can barely get beyond
the line of scrimmage, and there’s a lot of talk about the Griffin player
not having much of a chance to be Rhodes scholar. You can’t really
blame these youngsters for going elsewhere, particularly with the AJC’s
journalistic “support” given regularly. On the assumption that they read
these editorials, it’s hard to blame them.
You will know in 5 years how these recruits worked out. For proof,
go to Scout.com, then work backwards and see how many 4 & 5 star
recruits failed to pan out at all of the schools, not just UGA. Take a
look at several schools such as TCU and Boise State who get few, if
any of these top tier athletes, but are coached up & become a strong
cohesive unit by an excellent coaching staff. The only team effort I
consistently saw in Athens in 2010 was the sideline version of NCAA’s
“Dancing with the Stars”.
Let’s worry about the UGA coaching staff doing their job and improve
the team next year beyond this beyond sub-par performance of 2010.
ronald
January 6th, 2011
1:35 pm
Mark- In the midst of your Richt-bashing, I wonder if Xzavier or Quan realize that Richt has winning records against both Bama and Auburn? Richt is 3-1 against Bama, but most people don’t realize that. And before this season’s loss to Auburn, Richt had won 4 straight against Auburn.
Even if these 17 year olds chose to leave the state, the fans (me included) understand what the numbers say and what the “trends” really are. 1 loss to Auburn does not make a trend. 4 wins out of the last five….thats a trend.
Richard Dawson
January 6th, 2011
1:35 pm
FIRE MARK RICHT.
Travis McGee
January 6th, 2011
1:37 pm
I have a theory that explains the last two seasons and Richt’s incoherent presser: Richt had a small stoke in 2008 and is having trouble tracking, focusing and exercising good judgement.
That, my friends, in the only feasible explanation for his downward spiral and bizaar presser.
Shock
January 6th, 2011
1:39 pm
If Bama had fired the Bear after he won 28 games over four years, then the Tide would not have won 44 over the next four. Relax and let the man fix it.
TURBO
January 6th, 2011
1:40 pm
I would blame failure of the recruiting class on Nick Fairley. The only reason…. bradley hasn’t called out Fairley out in a while…. wanted him to feel warm and fuzzy all over again.
WDE
January 6th, 2011
1:40 pm
@ronald,
The “trend” that you’re referring to has to include the present otherwise it wouldn’t be a trend, correct? And the “present” is much more pertinent to a recruit than what happened 2 or 3 or more years ago. Why? Because the recruits will not be joining the team from two years ago, they will be joining this year’s team minus the graduations and early NFL draftees.
UGA is not having difficulties in recruiting THIS year because of what happened in 1980 with the Dawgs or what happened 5 years ago. Even a casual football fan can see the obvious trend at UGA in wins/losses and it is a significantly downward trend.
Shock
January 6th, 2011
1:40 pm
No Richt is not Paul Bryant, but he’s proven he’s better than Hall of Famer Dooley.
We Lost
January 6th, 2011
1:47 pm
We might as well fold up the damn tent. We no longer are SEC caliber, and we are even getting drummed by lowly UCF. We suck at basketball, baseball, and now football. My choice would be to sit out the next 2 SEC schedules until we can find the right man to lead this team. Shut it down for 2 years, add more seats, and luxury boxes, and watch the dollars and recruits roll in. If need be, maybe even step up our pay for play scam. We have one fellow dawgs, we are just not as fiscally reponsible as the the hated tigers. We should sit out 2 seasons, save money, and step up our cheating. That is the only way out of this mess.
Ga is for losers
January 6th, 2011
1:47 pm
You guys said to say are total losers. No recruit is going to go to uga whne the coach is on the HOT SEAT. its worse off to keep him than to fire him! idiots!
FSU part Two
January 6th, 2011
1:49 pm
look you guys are fsu part 2 plain and simple…Look at fsu once they got rid of bowden…mark richt is DONE! fire him and move on…my high school coach is better!!!
He Hate Gator
January 6th, 2011
1:52 pm
Richt defenders can only live in the past.. What about the now ?
“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.”
- Winston Churchill
Andy In Blairsville
January 6th, 2011
1:52 pm
Isn’t UGA good at volleyball or something like that?
Wheresyourlaptop
January 6th, 2011
1:53 pm
Please leave the state Mark Bradley. All you do is bash the state of Georgia whether it be the Dawgs or the Bumblebees. Why would anyone want to go to an in state school when they read the biggest paper in Georgia and constantly see articles bashing them? Your a tool who hides behind a keyboard and printer ink.
dawgfacedboy
January 6th, 2011
1:53 pm
Going 6-7 and losing to UCF has less to do with it than the direction the program is and has been heading. Texas didn’t even qualify for a bowl and they still have the number 1 class and the pick of whoever they want in the state. If this could be considered a “rebuilding year” and nothing more then it wouldn’t have affected recruiting.
Fact is we have only been relevant 1 season in the last 6. Not surprised at all by this. Won’t be any better till things change.
JB
January 6th, 2011
1:53 pm
I didn’t know that it was Ntl signing day and everything was done? C’mon, Bradley. Really???
If it’s Feb and this is the result, fine but in early Jan???
HBTD!!!
buck strickland
January 6th, 2011
1:54 pm
Mark, you’re not helping. As usual you’re part of the problem.
Can Richt
January 6th, 2011
1:55 pm
4-8 next season for Richt. I will be pulling against UGA until they can him. I am a big UGA fan but until Richt and his yes men are gone, I have no other choice but to pull against UGA. I am amazed that there are still fans that think Richt will turn it around. 4 out of 5 years of dissapointments. Yes 2006 is a black mark on Mr. Richt because he lost to Vanderbilt. You never lose to Vandy as a UGA head coach.
You know its a sad state of the program when Mississippi State and South Carolina are ahead of you.
Do fans and administration like Richt because he is a nice Southern God Fearing Gentleman? Becuase that is not a reason to keep someone.
nauti-dawg
January 6th, 2011
1:58 pm
I was in Dallas this fall – the newspaper there seriously covers high school football better than the AJC covers college. It must not be owned by Cox. Bradley couldn’t get a job covering El Paso High School with them.
Buckeye
January 6th, 2011
1:59 pm
If I had a dollar for everytime someone wrote in some combination “Richt” “fire” or “has to go” on this blog I’d send to the tatoo parlor to make him hole and send the rest to Pastor Newton’s church.
Mike
January 6th, 2011
1:59 pm
Give it a rest, Mark. This is not a 2009-2010 development here.
1) UGA has not managed to lock down the absolute top talents in this state since 2004. They usually dominate the top 15, but not the top 5. Tray Blackmon, James Davis, Eric Berry, Cam Newton, Jonathan Dwyer, Morgan Burnett, Omar Hunter, Greg Reid, Jarvis Jones, Da’Rick Rogers, Markeith Ambles…all top impact players from the state that have gone elsewhere since 2005.
2) Recruiting rankings are greatly affected by how many players you recruit. The Dawgs only have 15 commits right now. Most teams ahead of them have 19-25. Last year, UGA signed a smaller class as well (19). Every team ahead of them signed at least 20. Auburn? 32. In fact, UGA was top 10 last year until Rogers switched to UT who was sitting just outside the top 10. That basically switched UT and UGA. UT got Rogers because they also offered his 1 star QB buddy which neither Lane Kiffin or UGA were willing to do.
Buckeye
January 6th, 2011
1:59 pm
whole
Andy In Blairsville
January 6th, 2011
2:02 pm
Stop bitching at Bradley for being down on the puppies!
Have you forgotten all the pre-season newspaper articles in 04, 05, 06 and probably 07 when he said THIS was going to be the year the puppies FINALLY won a NC?
Did you forget back in August 2010, Bradley wrote another article stating the puppies have a cupcake schedule and should win 10 or 11 games?
All Bradley doing is stating the obvious now and that is 2010 was a pathetic excuse for a losing season, Richt has one foot out the door, UCF embarrassed UGA and quality recruits would rather go out of state than play at UGA.
Atlanta Jacket
January 6th, 2011
2:02 pm
UGA gets top recruits every year – some make it, some don’t, but the few who do actually “make” it seem to do more in the pros than in Athens. Auburn is one player away from turning back to 5-6 and Alabama will dominate as long as Saban is there. Sometime kids just want to get the heck out of dodge.
zeeeeeeee Nachos aka the "Living Legend"
January 6th, 2011
2:03 pm
JB – Bama is not a good as people want you to believe
WTF??? Did you see the Crapitol One Bowl? They beat the living hell out of a one loss Big 11 team.
They lost 3 games correct, how many did the leg-humpers win last year??
OWNERSHIP – good bye
A pattern at UGA w/ Richt
January 6th, 2011
2:03 pm
Generally, over his era, Richt signs some real good to great offense players. We know who they are now and who they were and what they did or did not accomplish.
My issue with Richt for several years now is that UGA does not go after big, tough, bad attitude linemen for both sides of the ball. Once in a blue moon he will get a so called 4 or 5 star O linemen like Sturdivant. Boling, coming in was unranked but he did develop mainly, because Boling has a competitive heart and he is fairly tough. Note the play on words? Boling has made AA honors as a frosh and later on. He, unlike 80% of the UGA linemen will be missed by the alums. Tyson?? Jones, Lott? Anderson, Gathers? They as a group are simply awful and are too weak to play in this league. Here lies the problem for UGA. THIS area is why we are losing games to go 6-7. Awful.
The D side of the line of scrimmage is awful and this is R Garner’s responsibility. UGA is physically weak and not very deep, on the D line. TG is very concerned about this.
The line of scrimmage in HS or Pee Wee ball or in the SEC is where it matters. UGA could win their share of games, 80-%- 85%-95% of the time going forward, had we developed our lines of scrimmage with beefy, bad a–ed linemen. These two areas are huge failures.
For this reaosn alone, heads at UGA should roll. This is not that tough to discern gang.
Too little and too late for me. Change must take place right now. Problem is that UGA cannot afford to let them go. Too much $$ to do that so we sit for another ugly, dismal year. UGA will be about the same or due to a horrible 2011 team attitude ………………worse.
UGA class of 71 & 73
dawg gone
January 6th, 2011
2:03 pm
Wow!.. “Richt & the Bear”..thats like night & day difference.
Wait till 2012!…Richt will fire himself.
Mark Bradley
January 6th, 2011
2:04 pm
Actually, I picked Georgia to go 9-3 in 2010, Andy. But thanks for the thought.
GT fan
January 6th, 2011
2:06 pm
Mark you need to un-load on Paul Hewitt.
Alabama | MrSEC.com
January 6th, 2011
2:07 pm
[...] post this story on the Recruiting Page, but since Mark Richt is in such hot water, we thought the decision by two Georgia blue-chippers to not sign with UGA merited homepage coverage.2. Richt will make tweaks to his program inwardly, not publicly.3. The [...]
Crumpy likes to hug college co-eds
January 6th, 2011
2:07 pm
Maybe Saint Richt should hire Cecil Newton to help him recruit this year.
Andy In Blairsville
January 6th, 2011
2:07 pm
I was close?
kgb
January 6th, 2011
2:10 pm
Lets take a look at recruiting rankings comparing the teams in the NC game and a couple of other well known under achievers. One might easily conclude that recruiting rankings don’t mean squat.
2007 2008 2009 2010
GA 9 7 6 15
Aub 4 20 19 4
Oreg 11 19 32 13
ND 8 2 21 14
O-me
January 6th, 2011
2:10 pm
Crumpy, Mark was against Cam and his father for two are more weeks.(go back and read his post)..you need to keep up. Mark is #1.
Crumpy like Vortex cheeseburgers
January 6th, 2011
2:11 pm
I just got crumped
jerry royster
January 6th, 2011
2:11 pm
whoever said it earlier. when you win, highly rated players will choose that school over an underperforming team the majority of the time. it’s not a criticism of uga and current players, but that’s the facts. and that press conference with coach richt was bizarre and did not inspire confidence. i mean, i was speechless. if i were highly touted player that wants to win and be a contender each year, i’m not choosing georgia or other middle tier teams. kirby should be around for a little while next year considering the pay raise.
Quan Smith and Brandon Bray are one in the same
January 6th, 2011
2:12 pm
Bray and Smith ( UGA’s # 1 ) are the same type of player. Both fast and both small.
Smith is a very average D back ( one pic vs UCF ) and that was it for 2010. Maybe he had one more 2010 pic. So what?
What would UGA do with a Quan Bray? We do not know yet how to develop his predecessor in Brandon Smith. They are identical kids.
Losing the Drew kid, Rome and Crowell and that Valdosta kid Mitchell who caught a long TD pass would be disastrous. Wait and see how it goes.
Go Dogs.
Stir the pot....
January 6th, 2011
2:13 pm
Dont look to deep in to this Mark…..This is 2 recruits one of which claims to have flipped a coin and the other obviously sees Crowell coming to UGA.
dawgman
January 6th, 2011
2:15 pm
(((((((((((((((((((WE DID NOT WANT THEM ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Chi Town
January 6th, 2011
2:17 pm
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah. Im getting laid this semester in T-town.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah!
Mike
January 6th, 2011
2:17 pm
Bruce Miller
Delbert D.
January 6th, 2011
2:18 pm
Time for some comic relief. Check out the Mack Brown photo in the AJC’s “Highest paid college coaches” slide show.