Recruiting, She's Over or, Put Away the Hemlock

OK. Georgia's overall recruiting class could have been better, and it appeared it was going to be until about the last week leading all the way up to Wednesday morning. A few highly regarded defensive players and possibly the best WR prospect the state of Georgia has had in over a decade all left the Dawgs standing at the altar. You always want to sign the best and most complete class you can every single year, and there is no two ways about it: Georgia's class looked like it was going to be better than it turned out.

Having said all that, it's really not that big a deal. Again, I want to reiterate that it could have been better, but let me also repeat...It's really not that big a deal.

Georgia needed to get some depth on defense, and that's what they did. They also needed to make sure to get about 3 solid offensive line prospects (something I think we'll see each and every year to avoid past issues along the O-Line). Obviously, any time you have a chance to get one of the elite players at a position, you want to try to do that, but wide receiver was really not an area of absolute need this year. Georgia filled out the D-Line, and got some "flex" guys that could end up at DE/LB, or S/LB, and got one of the better true safeties out there. I would have liked to get one more top-tier CB, but that is really the only true shortcoming I saw.

Recruiting, at the end of the day, is a bit of a crap shoot. Like craps, it's predicated on a degree of odds. So, yeah, you want to give yourself the best odds possible that a particular class will grow into a junior/senior class of All-SEC caliber players. You do that by signing as many highly rated kids as you can. However, those are still just odds, and there is still a very good chance this class will be as solid as any Georgia's had when it's all said and done.

To put it in perspective, and without calling out any Bulldogs of years passed, but say Georgia had signed one more 5 star and one more 4 star. The class would then have been ranked in the top 10 in most lists. Well, it's no secret that we've had more than one 5 star, and plenty of 4 star kids that, due to injury or simply never blossoming, never even started a game.

I don't want to get into a debate about the value of the rankings system, and am certainly not suggesting that rankings don't matter. I'm simply making the point that there is an extremely fine line between being ranked 15th, and being ranked 9th, and one year of 15th is far from a death sentence for Georgia. So, just relax, breathe, and get ready for spring ball. You might not have heard, but there's supposed to be a pretty decent battle for QB lined up.