Sports

Attrition, bad evaluations thwart Georgia's good recruiting work

By Chip Towers
Oct 6, 2010

To review the recruiting classes that comprise the 2010 Georgia football team is to see a group of prospects that was considered among the best in the nation.

Beginning with the Class of 2006 -- which had a consensus No. 4 rating among the three recruiting services that assign such values -- the Bulldogs' recruiting classes over that period received as a group an average national ranking of No. 8 from Rivals, Scout and ESPN.

Yet here are the Bulldogs, stumbling into the midpoint of the season with a victory over Louisiana-Lafayette, but none in the SEC.

"I thought they would struggle this year. ... But 1-4? I didn't see that," said Jamie Newberg, a national recruiting analyst for ESPN.com. "In my opinion, Georgia should never be 1-4."

That's because Georgia always recruits well, Newberg said. Between being housed in a state that produces the fourth-most FBS (formerly Division I-A) signees in the country and being a traditional football power, the Bulldogs are in position to reload every year.

No other program -- not Florida, not USC, not Texas -- had each recruiting class ranked among Rivals' top 10 teams each year from 2001-09, as coach Mark Richt did. Only last year, when Georgia slipped to No. 21 in Scout's rankings, has a Richt class finished outside the top 20.

"This is definitely my biggest challenge," said UGA recruiting coordinator Rodney Garner, who has overseen the assemblage of each of those classes. "I've never been in this position before. But it's like I told the players, in life you're going to have to deal with adversity. Either you're going to fight your way through it, you're going to fight for your family, for your job, for your career, or you're going to give up."

So what happened? In a word: Attrition.

While Georgia signed Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and Reshad Jones in 2006, they also signed Michael Lemon, NaDerris Ward and Tony Wilson, who left UGA without completing their college football careers. Others simply did not live up to their billing.

The same pattern can be found in each class since then:

The script has yet to be written on the 2010 class, but it already had one member dismissed after a DUI arrest (linebacker Demetre Baker). Two others were denied admission (Jalen Fields, Lonnie Outlaw).

"I think you've always got to factor in that you're going to have X amount of misses, whether it's due to injuries, whether it be that a kid just doesn't develop the way you thought he would, someone may have gotten into trouble," Garner said. "So you've got to factor the attrition that's going to happen. But still, can we do better? Yes. We must do better. That's our job."

Such miscalculations are not unique to Georgia, experts say.

"Everybody misses on some kids," said Chad Simmons, South recruiting manager for Scout and Fox Sports. "It's an inexact science. I think they've actually done a pretty good job in that regard. You always have to recruit to your needs, and I think Georgia has always done a pretty good job with that. You can't control when guys like Knowshon play two years and go pro or guys get medical redshirts and things like that. That stuff is out of your hands."

In any case, even if recruiting has been part of the Bulldogs' problem, it unquestionably will have to be part of their solution. More than two dozen prospects are expected at Saturday's game.

"We've got to continue to sell the program in a positive way," Garner said. "I think if you look at any program, they all go in cycles. That's just how things work out. Some kids may see this as an opportunity to come in earlier and play. But this definitely makes you sense the urgency that's out there. We've got to upgrade in every area."