Abandoned on UGA visit, 4-star LB picks Penn St. over Dogs
Georgia lost out on one of its top remaining targets Monday when Khairi Fortt, a four-star linebacker from Stamford, Conn., chose Penn State over the Bulldogs.
Fortt (6-3, 225), who also had North Carolina in his final three, was to make an announcement Monday afterno0n. But The Connecticut Post and Sports Illustrated broke the news on their websites earlier today.
That’s only half of the bad news for Georgia regarding this story. According to BlackShoeDiaries.com, a Penn State fans’ blog site, Fortt really liked the Bulldogs but was disenchanted when the UGA player hosts in charge of showing him around on his campus visit reportedly abandoned Fortt at a dorm party and left him to find his own way home. Fortt made his official visit to Athens on Sept. 12 when Georgia played South Carolina.
Fortt first told the story about the two unnamed Georgia players to ConnPost.com:
“Two guys left me. I was left at a dorm party with people I didn’t know. Once I was just walking alone in the streets. Georgia is a school in the south, in a top conference, the SEC, the weather is warm, I have a lot of family there and the academics are good. It was all how I connected with the players.”
Or in this case literally did NOT connect.
That sidebar made me think about what Georgia Tech recruiting coordinator Giff Smith told me last week regarding the importance of official visits. He said it’s his job to get the recruits to campus but it’s the players’ jobs to “close the deal” with recruits once they’re there. That drew some unfavorable commentary from some bloggers here but it certainly gets some credence after hearing this.
Apparently unsportsmanlike penalties aren’t the only thing Georgia’s players need to be coached-up on.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
110 comments Add your comment
rduck
October 5th, 2009
2:36 pm
Why would UGA players show any dicipline off the field when they sure can’t do it on the field. Another glaring example of the ME 1ST attitude from the Dawg Nation.
lifelong dog
October 5th, 2009
2:38 pm
Enter your comments here
Too many people playing ME-ball on this team.
BlackSmoke
October 5th, 2009
2:38 pm
Hate to hear this….not so much that we missed out on him, but HOW we missed out with players dropping the ball on him. They should know better than to leave him…
Pipepimp
October 5th, 2009
2:42 pm
If Joe Cox was in a foot race with a pregnant woman, the best he would finish is thrid!
Paul's Johnson
October 5th, 2009
2:43 pm
Nice going. Way to show the kid some southern hospitality.
He won’t be the only prospect to have a change of heart as this season plays out.
Red
October 5th, 2009
2:51 pm
Man, that’s too bad. Those two players need to be reprimanded. Maybe the UGA coaches need to take those to players to a south Chicago neighborhood and leave them there and let them find their way back to the airport.
BTW: Heard from an inside source that Caleb King broke his jaw during last week’s game.
bdog
October 5th, 2009
2:52 pm
I hope Mark Rict shows some balls and fires Mike BOBO
Flo-Ri-Duh!
October 5th, 2009
3:02 pm
Can things get worse than this? Whoever is responsible for this should be removed from their job and the players assigned to show him around and abandomed him should be benched for the remainder of the season – no exceptions. That is showing a lack of respect for a potential team mate. On the other hand if this did not happen and he is lieing to give a reason why he really didn’t want to come to UGA any way I would like to hear a response from coach Richt, himself, on that.
Glenn
October 5th, 2009
3:03 pm
This gets back to the question of whether it’s a team or a group of individuals. You can recruit a slew of 4 and 5 star athletes, but if they play like a bunch of individuals, all out for themselves, they may win a lot of games because of physical skills, but when it comes down to close games where they have to play against a “team,” chances are they’ll lose, even to players who aren’t considered as highly skilled.
In the case of this particular recruit, the UGA players were more concerned about their own interests rather than that of the team, and with a history of Georgia pulling in top level classes over the past seasons and not performing to the same level as the other schools that have recruited to the same level as Georgia, it begs the question; why?
Why is it that UGA can’t get the same consistent end results from their recruiting classes as the Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Southern Cal, and Texas?Georgia’s recruiting classes have always been as highly rated as theirs. What makes their programs produce more consistent “winners” than UGA with the same ranked classes? To me, it comes down to coaching.
It’s all well and good to say that you win 9 games a year, sometimes 10, every 6 years or 7 years, but to win consistently, like these other programs seem to be doing with most of the other coaches now in place the same amount of time as Mark Richt (except Florida and LSU, which have already won National Titles), it takes more than being a good recruiter. A head coach has to select good assistant coaches and build a ‘team” to be able to compete year in and year out. If you can do those three things, you will win consistently.
Mark Richt passes the recruiting test, but fails on the assistant coach and team building tests. For UGA to be able to compete again on a high level, tough changes need to be made.You can have the best sports car on the track, but if you don’t have a great driver and great pit crew, you’ll never be the race.
Bob
October 5th, 2009
3:08 pm
Dropping the ball in more ways than one. I hope we can make for it with the kid even if has decided to commit to Penn State… perhaps another visit is in order.
Portland Dawg
October 5th, 2009
3:09 pm
Wow, I’m speachless. The wheels are coming off.
dawgno91
October 5th, 2009
3:09 pm
Fire Mike Bobo? I don’t remember him being the Def. Coordinator that gave up a touchdown at the end of the game. The defense can not tackle. They haven’t been able to tackle for the last 3 years. That is a coaching issue. They can’t cover. That is a coaching issue. They can’t line up correctly. That is a coaching issue. We continue to recruit “5 star” athletes instead of football players. We need football players that know how to win instead of just “athletes”. How many of the “5″ star players from Stephenson in Atl have done anything. Get back to South Ga and get some hard nosed football players or continue to look like loosers.
Ginger
October 5th, 2009
3:10 pm
What the ____???? Are we not any smarter than that…..The 2 guys should have rolled out the red carpet………..unless they really did not like Fortt….We don’t know the whole story here folks…may be best that we left Fort there…….need to know the whole story.
Dave H.
October 5th, 2009
3:11 pm
“You can have the best sports car on the track, but if you don’t have a great driver and great pit crew, you’ll never be the race.”
Well spoken, Glenn.
Paul
October 5th, 2009
3:13 pm
Alright, this is very irritating that he had a bad experience while on his trip. If it occurred the way he says it did, then he made the right choice and it sickens me, however, we shouldn’t chastise these unnamed players unless we know the full story.
What if he came to the party, was having too good a time, and didn’t want to leave. What were the players supposed to do, carry him home unwilling? I doubt that would have won him over either! I seriously doubt any host(s) would arbitrarily leave a recruit at a party unless he was willing to be left.
ATLnative
October 5th, 2009
3:16 pm
Speaking from someone who has a son that went through the recruiting process, I can tell you first hand that the official visit plays a huge part in the recruiting game. The guys leaving him at the party could have been for various reasons. 1-They decided they really didn’t like the guy. 2-They decided that someone else (likely a girl) had a better offer for them for the evening. 3-They were the wrong guys to have host the recruit to begin with. If the coaching staff had learned enough about the recruit to bring him in on an official visit, then they should have known his personality and what he was most interested in learning about/doing during his visit. They should have set him up with a player or players who had the same interests. That is part of the way the recruiting game is played, and unfortunately it sounds like either the UGA staff dropped the ball or the players they trusted did. Either way, the recruit is likely tainted against UGA and any further efforts from the coaching staff to land his signature are probably wasted.
scott
October 5th, 2009
3:16 pm
He is a kid, cry me a river, you folks here are idiots. He may stink anyway, never played a down in CFB. How many titles does PENN ST have the last 10 years??? Give me a break, another fast strong kid will fill his place, talk about “ME” attitude. Be a big boy and hang out with folks, he is a yankee and wants to stay a yankee, good! SEE YA!!
uuugh...
October 5th, 2009
3:23 pm
Yeah Scott…Penn State always recruits crappy LB’s.
MC
October 5th, 2009
3:23 pm
The lack of discipline shown by the players with this recruit reflects the lack of discipline on the field. Lots of stupid penalties shows poor player self-discipline and real problems on the coaching staff. And I’m not talking about the bogus celebration penalties (which are always bogus in my opinion).
Dawgs Fan
October 5th, 2009
3:24 pm
Please, this kid is making a decision on whether someone held his hand at a dorm party. He should have asked one of the pretty girls to show him home. Something you could never do at a tech party!
GEORGIA97
October 5th, 2009
3:25 pm
CMR is losing this team and the season in a hurry. I think he’s just lost the desire to coach with passion and Willie needs to be on the next train out of Athens.
Brett
October 5th, 2009
3:27 pm
I think everybody is getting a little out of hand. This guy was an inside committ to PSU early on. I’m not sure you’d want to compete with a school known as Linebacker U for a kid like this.
These kids get the opportunity to travel the country and have some fun during the recruiting process but the bottom line is he was a PSU lean from the start and it ended up that way. I don’t think you could put this on the coaching staff or his on campus experiences.
–MTS
Dano
October 5th, 2009
3:27 pm
I guess we should assign the CHEERLEADERS to host the recruits instead of the players, eh? Then they’ll see REAL southern hospitality! UGA would NEVER lose another recruit, especially to a school surrounded by ski slopes!
Jethro Tull
October 5th, 2009
3:28 pm
Does this really surprise anyone? Nice work THUGA.
Is CMR exclusively using Rivals/Scout to determine who he wants ala Miami’s admitted routine? The story of this program just gets better everyday. CMR has returned this program where Ray Goof left it in the mid-90’s. Enjoy!!
Roll Tide Roll
October 5th, 2009
3:29 pm
Time for a blackout.
wethotkitty
October 5th, 2009
3:29 pm
C’mon, with all the hot tail in Athens can u blame a kid for ditching a Yankee high schooler. Obviously, he wasn’t a good wing man. Bet the players “scored” though!!!
oldschooldog
October 5th, 2009
3:30 pm
Perhaps his hosts had the foresight to know this was a guy who should be left standing at the altar? And “losing” a linebacker prospect from CT to PSU is not much of a shock anytime.
Will
October 5th, 2009
3:31 pm
The kid was obviously a douche, otherwise he wouldn’t have been left. Do they not have cellphones in Connecticut? Because I am sure he had the numbers of other players and recruits that day, he could have called someone else to take care of him. The South Carolina game was at 7:45 so the two player hosts may have been tired from the four hour game, I know I was.
Chip Towers...
October 5th, 2009
3:31 pm
has banned me from his blog.
AtlPSU
October 5th, 2009
3:33 pm
WE ARE…. PENN STATE!
CarRamRod
October 5th, 2009
3:34 pm
Scott…Penn St. has 2 Big 10 titles in the past 5 seasons
RxDawg
October 5th, 2009
3:43 pm
Eh…whatever. So he walked home from a party, big deal. For all we know he could of dissapeared in the crowd or something. Maybe he was making out with some pretty girl and our boys let him be. Who knows? It still sounds fairly petty for a reason not to commit to a school. If he liked Penn St, he liked Penn St. Besides, PSU is known for having great LB’s anyways. Good luck to him and next…
RxDawg
October 5th, 2009
3:45 pm
Exactly Ginger, this sounds sketchy at best. Theres a lot of fill in the blanks in that story.
UGA-LY
October 5th, 2009
3:47 pm
has anyone stopped to consider the circumstances around this?
is it possible this kid was drinking and the players didn’t want to be seen with him?
is it possible he wanted to stay out much later than they did?
is it possible he was “hooking up” and they got tired of waiting for him?
hey, we’ve all been there. well, those of us that actually went to college.
Pago Flyer
October 5th, 2009
3:48 pm
Hope this kid enjoys playing in the snow and ice. And State College, in the middle of no-where. Pretty funny..
dixie clear
October 5th, 2009
3:48 pm
did he really say the academics are good???????….that’s funny!!
Score one for the Lions
October 5th, 2009
3:50 pm
Scott, when was the last time Georgia even played for a National Championship? Oh yeah…1982..and they lost to….PENN STATE!!!!
Fortt, welcome to Linebacker U!!
CarRamRod
October 5th, 2009
3:51 pm
Even if the kid is the biggest tool in the world, the players had no right to abandon him at a party. The players have only one responsibility and that is to ensure that the recruit is taken care of. It is not their job to decide if the kid is a douche and won’t fit in with the team, that’s up to the coaching staff. The coaching staff obviously spent loads of time and money recruiting the kid, so to do something like this speaks volumes about the character of players at uga. Absolutely a Me first attitude.
Bud Flu
October 5th, 2009
3:52 pm
Lmfao…@ questioning Mark Richt’s manhood.
Chris
October 5th, 2009
3:54 pm
To Glenn –
I agree withy our points, but you should be aware that UGA has won 10 games a year basically EVERY year Mark Richt has been.
UGA-LY
October 5th, 2009
3:55 pm
um, i think the players have more than “one responsibility”… let’s see, there’s ummmm… class and studying. practice and studying. more practice and studying. more class and studying.
Tech75
October 5th, 2009
3:55 pm
I’m with Ginger on this one.
Granted the player escorts shouldn’t have just left him there, but there may have been a reason.
We’ll never find out, though.
DamntheButcher
October 5th, 2009
3:56 pm
FIRE WILLIE MARTINEZ That Somebeotch needs to be gone already.
Dawg Man
October 5th, 2009
4:04 pm
ANY DICIPLINE AROUND THE PROGRAM????????????
Bud Flu
October 5th, 2009
4:05 pm
I still remember that game last year, when willie martinez got back to back penalties, for not enough men on the field, and one for too many men on the field. Finally, Mark Richt….(it took all he had) walked down there and asked him politely what was going on.
Dawg Man
October 5th, 2009
4:05 pm
WHO WERE THE TWO MORONS IN CHARGE OF EM? GREAT JOB PUTTING THESE KNUCKLE HEADS IN CHARGE!!!
CarRamRod
October 5th, 2009
4:06 pm
Sorry UGA-LY…in this situation they had one responsibility. I don’t think housing majors do much studying though
Dawg Pound
October 5th, 2009
4:07 pm
See ya later bud!!! You were not a true Dawg anyway!!!
Saint Simons
October 5th, 2009
4:07 pm
UGA = one big Jerry Springer show
GOLDBERG
October 5th, 2009
4:08 pm
How about some journalism here? Chip Towers is taking all this reported information as “fact” and then editorializing. Nice job AJC. I’ll take the Macon paper any day. At least their beat writer is a professional.