The AJC shared over the weekend a letter from a former baseball letterman calling for a change of leadership for the athletic department. The letter doesn’t break much new ground in its litany of complaints against the athletic department. It wasn’t a great year for some of Georgia’s more visible programs, and Greg McGarity isn’t a popular athletics director these days. Fine.

I couldn’t let this line pass without comment though. Which program would this informed letterman have Georgia emulate?

“Look at Clemson and what their athletic department has done with great leadership and a plan for high success.”

Clemson finished a lofty 52nd in this year’s Directors’ Cup standings. Lest you think that was an off-year, the Tigers were 42nd in 2016 and 57th in 2015. When I say “it’s about the football“, this is what I’m talking about. Clemson’s overall program can barely break into the top 50, but success in the most visible sports creates the perception of “great leadership.” Meanwhile it’s a crisis that Georgia nearly fell out of the top 20.

I don’t bring that up to diminish the concerns expressed in the letter. Success in football won’t eliminate customer service issues, and it won’t make the volleyball program any better. It might be enough that perception matters here: as the AJC notes, the letter gives “an on-the-record voice to the concerns that others have expressed behind the scenes.” Whether it’s based on football (or, in this case, baseball), those shortcomings invite us to find others. The athletics administration doesn’t have many defenders, at least not in the public space. Is that perception recoverable?

Trenton Thompson was already one of Georgia’s more interesting players. As a headliner of the 2015 signing class, he showed early promise and emerged as an anchor of the defensive line as a sophomore. His second season ended with a well-deserved MVP recognition in the Liberty Bowl. After that impressive performance Thompson seemed poised for a triumphant junior season that would usher him into the NFL.

Life isn’t linear, and it had other plans for Thompson. His withdrawal from classes in February after a peculiar hospitalization was one of the most shocking stories of the offseason. Weeks earlier Thompson had been a dominant focal point of the Georgia defense. In February all of that became secondary to his physical and mental well-being.

Fortunately Thompson seems to be back on more solid ground and will be back in classes over the summer. There’s good news on the medical side also. Kirby Smart revealed at SEC Media Days that Thompson “should be full go” for preseason practices.

While Thompson’s first two seasons make big expectations reasonable for 2017, his offseason setbacks add a bit of uncertainty about the player we’ll see. He missed spring practice during his hiatus, and he would have likely missed time anyway due to some shoulder surgery shortly after the bowl game. It’s great that won’t miss any more time, but there has to be some readjustment after missing time in the classroom and on the practice field. Can Thompson return to the player he was against TCU, and how quickly can he get there? Smart likes what he’s seen so far. “He’s gone out and worked out very hard,” Smart said. “His conditioning has been really good. His weight has been really good. I’m expecting him to be full go.”

Thompson’s readiness will be put to the test early in the season. He and his fellow defensive linemen might face their toughest challenge of the season just two weeks into the campaign.

Recently Cy Brown at Dawgnation took a stab at the top five offensive linemen Georgia will face in 2017. Two of them play next to each other: Notre Dame guard Quenton Nelson and tackle Mike McGlinchey. Nelson and McGlinchey are Notre Dame’s Chubb and Michel: two experienced and talented upperclassmen who passed up likely NFL draft selections and returned to their team for a final season. McGlinchey isn’t just a senior – he’s a graduate student. SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic believes that the duo “might be the best double team combo” in the nation.

Might be the best double team combo entering 2107. McGlinchey & Nelson at Notre Dame. 1st step splits defender. Nice pad level & movement. pic.twitter.com/9HO3XvmCHX

— Cole Cubelic (@colecubelic) May 11, 2017

This is the kind of matchup that should be a fascinating game-within-the-game: one of the nation’s best defensive linemen against a pair of excellent blockers. If Thompson is not completely back in form, the Irish duo would have the advantage, and Notre Dame’s new quarterback might have an easier time getting comfortable. But if Thompson can hold his own against this offensive line, it could be the game that launches him and his team toward much greater national recognition.

It’s one thing to say that Georgia recruiting is changing for the better. It’s another to see how that’s playing out. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this story.

Georgia has two bluechip five-star quarterbacks on the roster. It would be rare, if not unprecedented, for a school to get consideration from a third in three years.

Yet here we are: Georgia is being considered by, if not favored by, not one but two of the top quarterbacks in the nation. Justin Fields (formerly a Penn St. commitment) and Matt Corral (formerly a Southern Cal commitment) both have high interest in Georgia. Fields is a dual-threat passer from Georgia who has exploded in recruiting circles during the offseason. Corral is a west coast gunslinger sought by the best teams in the nation. Any program would be fortunate to get either. Corral would be another big arm that could thrive in Georgia’s pro-style system en route to the NFL. Fields is dynamic enough that Georgia would modify its offense to make use of his talent (think Deshaun Watson).

The recruiting of Corral and Fields sets up some intriguing chess moves for the summer. Corral is planning on taking visits in July and committing before his senior season. Fields might take his visits a little later. It’s possible that Kirby Smart will have decisions to make both in terms of this recruiting battle and the identity he wants for his offense. Does this timing affect Georgia’s approach? It shouldn’t.

Modern recruiting never stops. The best recruiters continue to recruit through Signing Day – even their own commitments. Because verbal commitments are nonbinding, coaches must always work on their own pledges even as they attempt to flip prospects committed elsewhere. They also continue recruiting positions at which they have commitments. First, they must line up contingencies if their commitments flip or become nonqualifiers. Second, there’s a chance that other prospects might emerge during the process.

That’s to say that Georgia’s recruiting of both Corral and Fields will press on even if one or the other commits to Georgia or to any other school. While we might debate which could be a better fit or have a higher ceiling, the real shame would be missing out on both of them when Georgia seems to be in such a good position at this point. Georgia would gladly take a commitment from Corral or Fields, but that commitment wouldn’t stop Kirby Smart from continuing to recruit the other.

I’ll be thrilled if Georgia lands either – the quarterback room in 2018 would be as deep and as talented as it’s ever been. Even if you don’t follow recruiting, this situation and how it plays out should give us some signals about Kirby Smart’s plans and preferences for the future of his offense.

I read pieces like this and wonder if we’d be seeing them – or if they’d resonate nearly as much – if Georgia were to win the SEC East in football this year.

I’m the polar opposite of the football-only fan, and I have no time for the subset of our fans (and they do exist) who are openly hostile when resources are directed to anything but the football progam. At the same time, I won’t pretend that anything but football sets the agenda and mood at Georgia. When you appear – and especially feature – on lists of most tortured fan bases, it’s going to color how you view most everything else.

There hasn’t been much going on in Sanford Stadium for at least two years. The Auburn game last year was certainly an exception, but any good feeling generated by that close upset win was erased weeks later when Tech came back from 13 down in the 4th quarter. It’s been a long time since that glorious early September evening in 2014 when the Dawgs were on top of the college football world and it looked as if Georgia, and not Clemson, was poised for bigger things.

When things aren’t going well on the football field, especially for such a lengthy period of time, your eye starts to wander to everything else that’s off. You’re annoyed by the in-game music. You are irritated by the wait for a bite to eat and the conditions in the bathroom. You start to question why you got up at 5:30 AM to have some semblance of a tailgate for a noon kickoff. Eventually you ask yourself why you continue to pay as much as you do for this experience when you could be just as disappointed in the comfort of your own home. In a few months, you’ll see that some other Georgia team lost to Florida, and all of the football dread will come washing back over you. We’re in a bad place right now.

I don’t mean to dismiss legitimate concerns with the state of the athletic department. Are there issues that can be laid at the feet of the athletic director? Personnel decisions certainly. Resources and facilities are also up there, though I don’t think Butts-Mehre has been asleep at the wheel in facilities. We’ve had messy incidents with the swimming program, the tennis programs, and even within the athletic department itself. Taken together, it’s not a good look and not an indication of a healthy culture. That’s all worth exploring, but does the average Georgia fan really have the stomach for that, or is it enough to tip the scales when compounded with our football dissatisfaction?

I do think each sport deserves to be evaluated individually, so it’s important to discern what exactly we’re griping about. I don’t remember the state of the athletic program when Georgia was five yards from the national title game in 2012. Successes like that of the track team or the men’s tennis run or softball’s WCWS season a year ago didn’t seem to move the needle much – certainly not relative to a Homecoming loss to Vanderbilt. If there’s worry over the athletic department, it’s mostly to do with its ability to support a championship football program.

Georgia – all of it – needs a successful 2017 football season. Structural issues in the athletic department, whatever they might be, won’t necessarily be cured by a few more wins, but how the sausage is made is not a careabout for many Georgia fans – so long as the end product is palatable. The bad news is that it’s going to be a while before we have an opportunity to get that good news. We’ll get some shots in the arm from recruiting, but that’s no substitute for the real thing. Even if the football team starts well, we know that expectations for 2017 involve a win in Jacksonville and an SEC East title. That’s still six months or more down the road, and that’s a long time to carry around this much angst.