UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2009 > February > 03
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Expect high drama on signing day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When I first broke into the sports writing business back in the 1980s, there were basically two ways I kept up with recruiting. I’d buy the reigning recruiting magazines of the day — you know, Lindy’s Southeastern, Max Emfinger, etc. — and I’d call my recruiting “source,” a guy named Don in Commerce who for whatever reason always knew exactly whom the Georgia Bulldogs were after and exactly when they’d get them.
It’s a little different nowadays. All due respect to Rodney Garner and Lance Thompson and all the other reputed recruiting superstars in coaching, but you’d have to have your head in the sand not to be able to identify the best prospects these days. Between Rivals.com and Scout.com and UnderArmour, there must be a hundred camps nationwide that start measuring, weighing and testing potential prospects as high school freshmen and sophomores. Between that, some actual games and YouTube, there’s not much guesswork as to which kids can run, throw or bench a Volkswagen.
That said, the competition for these prospects has never been more fierce. After all, everybody knows who the best ones are and they all want them. Therein lies the thrill of the chase for millions of “recruitniks.”
Which brings us to national signing day Wednesday and Georgia’s pursuits. The Bulldogs have already assimilated a nice class. By all accounts it’s a national Top 10 group, even though it’s smallish in nature. But what was expected to be an anticlimactic signing day when the Bulldogs thought they were at near-capacity in September will be anything but on Wednesday.
Thanks to some unexpected roster activity (ie: Stafford, Moreno and Allen turning pro, couple of players shown the door, one or two not getting admitted) Georgia ended up with more scholarships available than expected. The trouble is, thinking they were close to capacity, the Dogs narrowed their focus to superstar national targets at the expense of showing more love to some promising in-state prospects. That could be a good thing if they land a few of those big fish this week — or really bad if they don’t.
So now, according to our resident recruiting guru Michael Carvell, it has come down to this: There are basically six main targets on Georgia’s wish list heading into the final 24 hours — WR Marlon Brown, TE Orson Charles, LB Jarvis Jones, OT Bobby Massie, CB Greg Reid and S Jawanza Starling. We’ll all learn about Reid, the relative late-bloomer from Lowndes County, when he announces at 7 p.m. Tuesday night at Austin’s Steakhouse in Valdosta (insert meat market joke here). Apparently Charles isn’t going to decide until well after signing day. The other four will have Wednesday announcements.
If Georgia landed half these remaining targets the recruitniks will be dancing in South Lumpkin Street Wednesday afternoon. Whiff on them all and they’ll be taking away the glass mugs in Athens’ pubs.
So there’s my rundown on national signing day for the Dogs. Our experts will be breaking it down and rating it for you six ways to Sunday over the next couple of days. Meanwhile, we’ll be there to chronicle the flips and the flops and the drama. Let me know what you think is going to happen.
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