A year ago, Georgia barely qualified for the national gymnastics championship as the 12th seed out of 12 teams. They had an unheard-of losing streak during the middle of the season. But they peaked and got it together just in time for an incredible performance at the national championships and won the most improbable of the program’s six national titles.

This week they return to the national championships to defend their title under completely different circumstances. They have been a steamroller this season winning every meet and maintaining the #1 ranking. Nearly everyone from last year’s championship team is back. Instead of entering the championships as the wounded but dangerous underdog, they are the strong and dominant favorite. It’s a very different mindset, but they’ve handled it very well all season. As much as it was a surprise that they won title #6 last year, it might be as big of a surprise if they don’t return home next week with title #7.

Chad Simmons of UGASports.com reports that Takais Brown, a 6’8″ power forward from Southeastern Illinois Junior College, signed with Georgia this morning. Georgia went head-to-head with programs like Purdue, Indiana, UNLV, and Cincinnati for this out-of-state prospect – really one of the better unsigned posts still out there – and got him. Dennis Felton identified Brown early in the process, and his persistence was rewarded as Brown favored the Bulldogs over a slew of teams who only recently began to show interest.

His junior college coach Todd Franklin said, “He could be the missing piece for UGA to go to the tournament.” From your mouth to the selection committee’s ears, coach.

Things are looking up for Georgia’s chances with JUCO PF Takais Brown. The 6’8″ Brown is exactly what Georgia needs on the inside heading into next season. Though not the widebody that Anthony Evans was, Brown’s impact could be the same – a capable, physical presence on both ends of the court and on the glass who will make Georgia much more competitive against the frontcourts of the SEC. Brown is down to Georgia, UNLV, and Purdue, and he has reportedly eliminated the home state Boilermakers.

Brown, along with Albert Jackson, could give Georgia their best recruiting haul on the frontcourt since the class that brought Steve Thomas and Chris Daniels to town.

It’s a good thing that the Black team’s first play on Saturday was a 67-yard play-action touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to Mikey Henderson. In one swift stroke, the hype surrounding both Stafford and Henderson was validated, and that was at least something to take from G-Day. Forget that the coverage was horribly blown or that neither Henderson nor Stafford really set the world on fire for the rest of the game. One play was enough.

That’s how it is with intra-squad scrimmages. If the offense does well, is the defense a weakness? If the receivers light it up, do we have a Swiss cheese secondary? And so it was with G-Day – enough rough edges to keep the pessimists sleepless and enough bright spots to get us salivating. Some storylines by position:

Quarterbacks

I’m glad to see a consensus forming around the opinion that Stafford didn’t so much dominate and grab the starting job as everyone else just took a step backwards. Drops aside, it took Tereshinski four series to complete a pass. Cox was intercepted so much that he should be the MVP for the defense. Cox’s performance was unfortunate. He led his units on some pretty nice drives but got nothing out of them and actually gave up points. As for Tereshinski, we saw more of what we saw in the Arkansas and Florida games: a limited arm, preference for the tight ends and other intermediate passes, and very low point production. He did have some of the better pocket presence of the quarterbacks and stepped up for a few nice passes.

Stafford’s performance was all about comfort. Coach Richt pointed out how well he had taken to ball fakes, and that was clear on his first pass. But a bobbled snap and some tipped passes showed that he is still finding his way around the pocket. As I expected, he’ll also have to learn when the play is over and when to throw the ball away or take the sack. Still, if this is just a matter of comfort and experience, it will take a lot to convince me that he shouldn’t be the starter.

Backs

It was the Jason Johnson show. Like Johnny Brown and Ronnie Powell before him, this reserve fullback from Chicago exploded to lead the backs in rushing and also had some nice catches out in the flat. We’ll see a bit of Johnson during the season, but with Southerland and dozens of tailbacks out there, it will be tough to find him much playing time.

As for the running backs, it is becoming pretty clear that at the very least Brown and Lumpkin are heads and shoulders above the rest. Lumpkin has great power and can very often make the first guy miss – a very important skill – and Brown has the explosiveness to break off a big run, though he sometimes gets trapped behind the line. The days of the “three-headed monster” are coming to a welcome close. The depth will still be there, and it will become even deeper with the addition of Moreno this fall. That depth is invaluable and will likely come in very handy at some point this season. The majority of the carries should go to Brown and Lumpkin though, and I hope that even among them one will continue to stand out.

Receivers/Ends

I need to go back and look at this more closely, but I don’t recall a single outright drop by a wide receiver. There were several contested balls that weren’t caught of course, but the open catches were made. That wasn’t the case with the tight ends. Three huge drops punctuated the first half, and Milner once again cost Tereshinski the opportunity to get on track early. Chandler likewise had two first half drops, one of which earned some mild criticism from Coach Richt on the TV broadcast. Chandler had a much better second half and ended up with one of the higher receiving totals of the afternoon. We’ll probably get a chance to see what the freshman Ward can do at TE.

The receivers as a group didn’t have a poor day. Mikey Henderson maintained good balance on his touchdown reception. Kenneth Harris proved to be incredibly dependable and pretty fearless going across the middle. If Georgia has some receivers who can be effective downfield, there is a huge role for Harris underneath. Kris Durham showed some very nice hands if not blazing speed. Gartrell got in there for a few good grabs. Receivers had a bit more difficulty with passes to the outside. Massaquoi was more or less shut down by Paul Oliver. Quarterbacks had placement problems on many passes. Out routes were frequently jumped. Overall, I didn’t see receivers outworking defensive backs to make plays, but they did make the catches when the ball was delivered to open spaces.

Offensive line

Some good, some bad. The line was most effective on the delay running plays. Pass protection was iffy, but you never know how much of that is the line and how much of that is some outstanding defensive ends knowing the plays they see in practice every day. Shackleford probably had the most disappointing day.

Defensive line

Nice performance. The ends are solid, and tackles Owens and Weston really impressed. The DL frequently had to hold back and keep from unloading in the backfield. We’ll see how the depth holds up here, but I’m very encouraged by the top of the depth chart.

Linebackers

Very active. The position changes seemed to have worked out well. Tony Taylor looked much more at home as did Jarvis Jackson and were very disruptive against the pass. Marcus Washington looked good as well.

Defensive backs

Clearly the story of the day was the play of the cornerbacks. Paul Oliver has blossomed into Georgia’s next dominant corner, and he has the size to bang around with the bigger receivers. Flowers was also effective. The biggest buzz of the day might be about high school senior freshman Asher Allen. Allen was involved on the broken play that allowed the first score of the game, but he was also involved on a number of nice defensive plays including a 100+ yard interception return for a touchdown on an underthrown fade pass from Joe Cox. On that play, Allen got a chance to show the speed which has him a candidate to return kicks. Safeties weren’t as spectacular, but they were still decent. Battle, Byrd, and Kelin Johnson got their nose in on several plays.

Special teams

The kickers don’t get a chance to show much, but it was good to see that Bailey is OK after Asher Allen forgot compounded his mistake on the long touchdown pass by rushing (and running into) Bailey on the extra point. Asher also got a lot of time fielding punts and looked shaky on several of them. We saw on his interception return that he has the speed to be a great return guy, but he’ll have to work on becoming sure-handed back there first.

This just doesn’t make sense…

Prior to SEC play, the Diamond Dawgs were perfect at Foley Field. They remain perfect against nonconference competition, even beating highly-ranked Clemson.

But in SEC games, Georgia is 1-5 at home. Meanwhile, they are 4-2 on the road in the SEC including a series win at #3 Mississippi State this weekend. It’s still a bit too early to think of things in these terms, but a road series win over a Top 5 team is pure gold come NCAA selection time.

Is there any way we could contact future home opponents like Tennessee and South Carolina and see if they wouldn’t mind hosting the series instead?

The good news is that Georgia is at Tech this Wednesday. Let’s hope the road is kind once again.

It’s a big weekend in Athens on both the academic and athletics sides.

Academics first – two people at the top of the political food chain stop into town:

• Former President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush, Gov. and Mrs. Sonny Perdue, and a host of other dignitaries converge on campus today to pay tribute to the late Sen. Paul Coverdell at the dedication of UGA’s new $40 million Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences.
• 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards will deliver the keynote address at the UGA Law School’s Working in the Public Interest conference.

The Coverdell Center is an important addition to campus. We’ve seen this structure go up in the Coliseum parking lot for the past couple of year, but I don’t think many of us know about the hi-tech science that is going to be going on in there.

On to athletics. Three major events from which to choose:

• G-Day of course will draw the most people to campus on Saturday afternoon.
• The NCAA Gymnastics Southeast Regional will also be held on campus Saturday night
• Georgia’s track teams will also host the Spec Towns Track & Field Invitational

All that’s missing is some tennis and a baseball series. It’s spring, and Athens is in bloom.

One of the great stories of this year’s basketball season was the Army women’s team. The Army program was more or less in wretched condition, and new coach Maggie Dixon, at 28 years of age, took over the team just 11 days before the start of this season. What happened was an improbable storybook season – Army came from nowhere to win their first regular season and tournament Patriot League titles and earned the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament bid.

Dixon was hailed for her turnaround job. Her brother, Jamie Dixon, is the head coach at Pitt, and both Dixons led teams to the NCAA Tournament this year, earning quite a bit of national attention. The entire Army and West Point communities rallied around the success of the women’s team. When they won the conference championship, Army cadets – the guys – rushed the court to hoist the triumphant women on their shoulders.

On Wednesday, the 28-year-old Dixon collapsed during an afternoon tea after suffering an “arrhythmic episode to her heart.” She passed away Thursday night.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski followed the Army story during the season and has a very fitting tribute to Dixon’s passing.

In the span of three weeks, this incredible story right out of a Disney script has turned into a gutwrenching tragedy.

I’ve tried to remind people many times over this offseason of the QB battle before the 2001 season. Richt had just taken over, and he had to choose between redshirt freshman David Greene and junior Cory Phillips. A freshman DJ Shockley would redshirt. Phillips of course had game experience starting several games over the last half of the 2000 season. In hindsight, it seems like an easy decision. But as late in the process as a couple of weeks before the season opener, Richt kept the competition alive and still referred to the two as “co-starters”.

The situation in 2002 was a bit more muddled. Greene was the starter, but Phillips had slid to third team behind the impressive freshman Shockley. Though Greene kept his starting job, this time was the birth of the infamous rotation that would define the Georgia quarterback position for three seasons. Had an early-season foot injury not derailed Shockley in 2002, the line between starter Greene and backup Shockley might not have been so tidy.

All this is to put the current quarterback derby in perspective. Richt has not two or even three but four candidates to evaluate. He has been deliberate not to shake up the depth chart during spring and has used words like “marathon” to describe the extent of this process. Those expecting serious movement or shuffling of the depth chart much before mid-August will likely be very disappointed and unnecessarily frustrated. With several candidates, Richt has said that the process might even stretch into the season.

That’s where I have a bit of concern. I can’t see very much good coming from a midseason change unless that transition is planned and very well explained beforehand. If someone starts the season and loses the job because of poor play (or even, God forbid, a loss), he and Richt will be crucified for having the wrong guy out there to begin with. If on the other hand the starter is undefeated and playing reasonably well and still gets replaced, there will be plenty of outcry from the “if it ain’t broke…” crowd that was out in full force during the David Greene years. A tough situation either way if this isn’t settled in large part before the season.

Coach Bobo has at least indicated that the decision might at least be pared down to two guys at some point in the preseason. That’s a good step, but it means that the race for the #2 spot is just as interesting and has some pretty important implications of its own. Consider…

• Barnes. It’s not necessarily his last chance, but not making the top two means that at least one younger player has moved ahead of him. In order to start or see significant playing time, he’d have to improve enough to beat out younger players in the future. A thumb injury late in spring practice probably doesn’t matter much to the coaches, but not seeing him in action at G-Day will definitely leave him out of the fan discussion as they parse every snap of the spring scrimmage.
• Tereshinski. Not making the top two means he would have been dropped from the pre-spring starter to the third team. It’s not unprecedented – see Cory Phillips who went from significant starting action in 2000 to the third team in 2002. And no one, I would hope, thinks any less of Phillips’s contributions to the program. It has been assumed that Tereshinski would simply be left behind in the wake of the freshmen, but he’s had an outstanding spring and is not going down without a fight. But you’ve seen him on the field for three years – would you expect any less than a strong fight from him?
• Cox. Not making the top two is a little less dramatic for Cox. He’ll still have plenty of time to rise on the depth chart. But another season back on the scout team might be a little frustrating. He’s been described as steady, smart, accurate, and consistent. Comparisons to Zeier and Greene don’t hurt either.
• Stafford. The wunderkind. The book on Stafford is becoming pretty clear, and it makes perfect sense. Part of becoming a college or even pro quarterback is learning when to take a sack or throw the ball away because the play is busted. The 60-yard jump balls across his body that made for great high school highlights turn into interceptions in college. But, honestly, if this is the main shortcoming in Stafford’s game right now, he’s ahead of most college juniors out there. It’s hard to imagine Stafford not making the top two, but if he doesn’t, it’s an instant sign that he’ll be redshirted. On the other hand, if he is among the top two it would be a huge waste of a potential redshirt season if he does not see significant playing time or even a starting role.

Lots to think about. But as this plays out, just keep Richt’s track record in mind. He’ll take his time, but he’ll also have the right guy(s) out there at the end of the process. It will be interesting to see the reactions (and overreactions) to what we see tomorrow. For most, it will be our first glimpses of Cox and Stafford, and we’ll see how Tereshinski looks now that he has stepped out from role of backup and caretaker. It’s unfortunate that Barnes won’t be part of the discussion, and I hope fans don’t totally write him off because he is not part of the action tomorrow.

Are you ready?

In just two days, fans will get their one brief fix of live football between the bowl game and the 2006 season. Like the addicts we are, we’ll head to Sanford Stadium to watch a controlled scrimmage. And like addicts, we’ll take the closest thing we can get and obsess over it hoping it gets us through to our next fix.

That said, there are a few areas I’m interested in. Most are on defense. Linebackers seem like a hodge-podge and have since Tony Taylor injured himself two years ago. Depth and stability used to be the cornerstone of that position. Linebackers weren’t especially a strength nor a liability last year, but when you’re used to some outstanding production from the position under VanGorder, that’s a drop off. We’re also switching out three of four starting defensive backs, and the fourth is in a fight for his starting job. There’s no shortage of talented candidates back there, but I’ll be interested in how they shake out.

As for the offense, we know it will be more or less plain vanilla. Defensive pressure won’t be anywhere near up to season levels. There will be some nice runs. But of course most everyone will be looking at the four three healthy QB candidates and ready to proclaim the season starter based on Saturday’s performance. Woe to he who doesn’t impress; the “bust” label is waiting for you.

But the best part of G-Day is the Johnny Brown Award. This is given by fans who see a reserve have a great G-Day and want to know during the season why coaches don’t play him or have him much higher up on the depth chart. Ronnie Powell was a two-time recipient of the award. This year, I bet it will be one of the many young defensive backs. For their sake, I wouldn’t be upset if it’s a wide receiver (Kris Durham enters the game as the favorite) – we need some good press in that area.

As anticlimatic as the men’s NCAA final was on Monday, the women made up for it on Tuesday. Maryland trailed Duke by as many as 13 points and looked beaten in every way during a bad first half. But they put together a run midway through the second half to set up an incredible finish. Down by 4 with less than a minute remaining, Maryland hit two huge baskets, including a deep three-pointer by Kristi Toliver with less than ten seconds remaining to force overtime. Toliver is a freshman, and she stuck a three-pointer over 6’7″ Allison Bales with the game on the line. That’s what the NCAA Tournament is all about. Duke held the upper hand for most of the overtime, but a missed free throw by Bales opened the door for Maryland to take the lead, and they did with just over 30 seconds remaining. Duke didn’t score again and couldn’t get a good look on a potential tying three-pointer of their own as the clock ran out.

I know many of you don’t follow the women’s game, but this was as good as it gets in sports. Good storylines (Maryland’s youth vs. Duke’s veterans desperate for a title), good drama (Maryland’s comeback), good individual moments (Bales’ dominant performance, Toliver and Coleman leading the way as freshmen), and a Hollywood ending. This was a very memorable tournament all around.

The women move right into the WNBA draft today, and two Lady Dogs – Alexis Kendrick and Sherill Baker – hope to get the opportunity to play professionally. I’ll have their draft results later today.

This should come as no surprise. That smile was too big for Georgia. It was too big for Pittsburgh or even the United States. In his first visit to South Korea, the home country of his mother, Ward’s infectious personality has made him as much of a hit there as he’s been at every stop along his path to NFL superstardom.

Ward of course is not just a sports icon; he’s also a symbol of hope for the historically-repressed children of mixed race in Korea. “You came back a hero,” South Korean President Roh said. “Children growing up in South Korea can have big dreams by watching Hines Ward.” We think Ward’s a pretty decent example for kids back here in Georgia as well. Character like his crosses borders and cultures.

After watching most of the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, two disappointing themes run through both tournaments.

Where were the stars?

Look at the finalists for the Naismith Award. Rudy Gay (UConn), Adam Morrison (Gonzaga), J.J. Redick (Duke), and Allan Ray (Villanova). None made it to the Final Four. Zero. Redick and Morrison fell flat in the Sweet 16, and Ray and Gay couldn’t lead their teams past the regional finals. The tournament allowed other players like Davis, Skinn, Noah, and Farmar to step forward, but honestly none except maybe Noah had the impact on the game that one of the Naismith finalists could have.

It was a good story to see George Mason and three other semi-surprise teams in the Final Four, but when you combine the lack of the superstars with the absence of some traditional powers made for a Final Four that didn’t interest many people, and you saw that in some low ratings for the final. Oh, I know UCLA is a big name, but this program had been on the back burner for so long that the name doesn’t pack quite the same punch. There was no traditional East Coast or Midwest power in Indy, so there wasn’t much interest.

On the women’s side, you had Ivory Latta (UNC), Seimone Augustus (LSU), Courtney Paris (Oklahoma), Cappie Pondexter (Rutgers). Might as well count UT’s Parker there also. Pondexter and Paris bowed out in the regionals. Parker and her “dunk” also didn’t play in Boston. (Cue ESPN slitting their wrists over no UConn or UT in the Final Four.) Latta and Augustus made it to the Final Four where they didn’t play like Player of the Year candidates. Latta, fighting through injury, was out of control and ineffective. For all the showmanship and the love affair she claims to have with the camera, that camera showed her coming apart and her teammate Larkins looking much more like the leader. Augustus couldn’t get open because her teammates couldn’t hit open shots and gave Duke no reason to discontinue a double-team on Augustus. As with the men, the absence of the Naismith finalists give some exposure to deserving players like Duke’s Currie or Maryland’s Langhorne. Still, the absence of some stars and the others falling flat makes for a tough Final Four to follow.

Where was the offense?

Don’t tell me it’s good defense. There has been some dreadful offense right up to and including the Final Four. It started with South Carolina and Florida setting offensive basketball back 40 years in the SEC Tournament final. LSU’s upset of Duke featured long scoreless stretches for both teams and a poor shooting night for Redick. LSU made it into the Final Four scoring 50-60 points. UCLA made it to the Final Four with spotty offense and only a late collapse by Gonzaga kept them from paying for it sooner. Villanova’s Player of the Year candidate Allan Ray shot 5-for-19 in the regional final as that team’s explosive guard-led offense sputtered to 62 points.

It doesn’t get much better for the women. LSU stayed in the top five and made it to their third-straight Final Four with only two scoring threats and zero outside game. Tennessee became vulnerable on offense as their point guard situation deteriorated. UConn had a great tournament from Turner, a bit less from Strother, and very limited help elsewhere. Even Carolina’s loaded offense sputtered from outside and nearly cost them as early as the Sweet 16. Maryland is in the national title game with freshmen and sophomores because they can score. Duke might be the deepest team in the tournament, and they need it as their players – even Currie – show up on offense inconsistently.

Put it all together, and these tournaments have been a lot more about coming up short than they have been about excellence. The battle last year between superstar-packed Illinois and UNC seems a world away. The limited stories of excellence like Noah and Langhorne shine brightly as a result.

As an aside, there’s a lot of sniping, mainly from college football snobs, that this year’s tournament is a good example of the downside of the playoff format. Maybe so – this was a down year and for the first time since 1980 no #1 seed made the Final Four. There were serious flaws in the quality of play and players as I note above. But it’s a bit like judging the BCS on 2001 where Nebraska made the national title game without even winning its conference. Every game counts, indeed. College basketball will be back, and there is still nothing in sports like the entire month of March which unfortunately went out more like a lamb this year.

Damn.

Looking back, hindsight shows that Florida won because they were one of the more complete teams in the tournament. UConn was another, but their arrogance took away their edge. Florida had great guard play, dominant posts, role players off the bench, and momentum. Nice formula for success these days. So many other teams had much more gaping holes. Duke had a dropoff in consistency after its two stars. Villanova found out what would happen when its guards weren’t hitting. UCLA showed that they don’t yet have the offensive punch to match its defense. LSU showed that it didn’t have the class of guard play to support the strong frontcourt.

Florida didn’t have many of those shortcomings, at least not at a significant magnitude, and so the only question would be whether or not this team could buck the trend of Donovan’s former teams and hold themselves together. The departure of talented headcases Walsh and Roberson were supposed to hurt the team, but they were young, talented, and didn’t know better as they made their way through the season as a team of role players playing at a high level. From Noah to Green, the one thing the Gators did have was speed. Pure speed. When your forward is the first man down the court, you’ve got a tremendous advantage. It was humbling watching Noah against Georgia’s frontcourt this year – he made the Dawgs look even slower than they were.

A lot was made of the Florida offense vs. UCLA defense showdown, but that made people ignore the other matchup – Florida’s defense against UCLA’s offense. As I posted on the DawgVent over the weekend, Florida plays decent defense themselves, and UCLA would have to prove that its defense wasn’t just a crutch for poor offense. Turns out that was pretty accurate. Florida played some shutdown defense, swatted away any shot near the basket, and there was no way that Farmar was going to carry UCLA singlehandedly.

Any SEC fan who had the pleasure knew what was going to happen at the beginning of the second half. The Gators, true to form, came out of the locker room firing from outside and quickly turned a situation where UCLA was just hanging on into a bloodletting. Donovan, only a year removed from some questions after a few high-profile teams and superstars made a habit of packing it in early in the postseason, now has a national title.

Can they repeat? The superstars of the tournament fizzled in the regionals, and new names like Big Baby, Farmar, Noah, and Skinn shone through. Noah’s NBA stock has to be at a peak now. Taurean Green is an incredible guard who has pro skills. But even if it’s just a cast of guys like Horford, Humphrey, Brewer, and Richard coming back, Florida is as stocked as any SEC team and still has a potent inside-outside game.

Damn.

I’ve always appreciated college professors who can get over the institutionalized academic snobbery and realize how cool it is to have college athletics just a short walk away. In these professors you usually find a good sense of humor, sharp wit, intelligent observations, and the ability to relate to students much better than colleagues who resent athletics. Because they’re intelligent and typically experts in their fields, you sometimes get interesting perspectives on things when these professors apply their academic passions to questions of pop culture and sports.

George Mason’s law and economics programs are pretty well-known and regarded especially in conservative and libertarian circles. A couple of their more well-known economics professors, Peter Boettke and Alex Tabarrok, have an article in Slate where they compare the assembly of the GMU economics department, the GMU basketball team, and baseball’s “Moneyball” principle – the science (or art) of finding undervalued players.

Professor Todd Zywicki, of GMU’s law school, has further thoughts on the subject and a key observation:

Larranaga suggests that even now the big-time programs probably wouldn’t really want any of these GMU kids because they are not the individual superstars with brilliant talent that those teams are looking for. So it is not that somehow those programs “missed” these kids, but rather that those programs have a different model of talent acquisition. It is only when melded together in Larranaga’s system, with the emphasis on the way in which their individual skills complement one another within the system, that their total value is maximized.

I can see that. Especially now that you can’t even plan the composition of your program three or four years down the road, many schools just look to fill up on the best talent and see what happens from year to year. If you try to take a longer-term approach, your power forward has left for the NBA, the point guard has transfered to get more playing time, and the nice mix of players you were trying to craft has fallen apart. You’re stuck with marginal talent and no synergy.

This is the risk Dennis Felton currently must take at Georgia. He is recruiting post players for 1-3 years down the road hoping that they will fit into a program of established guards and role players. If the posts don’t pan out or something happens to the progression of guards currently in the program, the plan is seriously jeopardized. But this is the strategy Felton must use, because the superstars just aren’t coming to Georgia (for now). He’s got to trust his vision and hope their skills working together make the team better.

We come across this question often at Georgia, particularly during football recruiting. Georgia football is in a position to recruit both the nationally elite prospects (the superstars) and also the prospects who might not have as much talent but were leaders on winning programs or have some sort of exceptional work ethic or character. How often do we hear, “give me a three-star kid who wants to work hard and play for Georgia over some five-star prima donna?” (Of course, we usually hear that only when the superstar is considering another school and it’s time for the sour grapes.) Still, there have been plenty of examples lately at UGA (David Pollack and Thomas Davis come to mind) where above-average but not necessarily superstar prospects find a niche to maximize their value. We know how inexact the science of ranking prospects can be.

PS…This fact mentioned by Zywicki is just stunning: “Will Thomas (of GMU) and Rudy Gay (of UConn) both went to high school in Baltimore and…Thomas’s teams are now 8-0 playing against Gay’s teams in their careers.” Wow.

Chad Simmons of UGASports.com reports that Mark Richt has picked up his second commitment for 2007 – DE Conrad Obi of Grayson, Ga. Always a plus to get a quality in-state player, but check out this list of offers: “Obi already had offers from Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and some others, but he was waiting on this Bulldog offer.”

The recruiting decision is more difficult for some than others, and that frustrates fans who think that the team should only recruit those who really want to be a Dawg and that those prospects shouldn’t dare hesitate on that decision. Of coure that’s not realistic, but Obi is a commitment that should make those fans giddy. He’s an outstanding prospect, waited on a Georgia offer after hearing from some of the top programs in the South, remained in-state, and got his decision overwith early in the process to be able to concentrate on his senior season.