This years John Jenkins?

During last year's season it was obvious that one of the biggest immediate fixes for the team needed to be at the nose on defense and running back on offense. Richt and company recruited two of the best possible fixes for that by bringing in a top running back as well as a top junior college transfer to fill the holes needed to win right away. This off season we again have a hole at running back and so Richt again has brought in one of the nations best at running back in Keith Marshall. Another huge need for next year is along the offensive line as Georgia lost three starters including both tackles. Georgia had already gotten commitments from Chester Brown, Greg Pyke and top rated offensive tackle John Theus. Many believe that Theus will be ready to come in and compete for a starting position as a freshman. Tackle however is a very hard position for a freshman to excel at in a freshman season. Richt in order to provide more competition and depth at tackle went out and got one of the best junior college tackles in Mark Beard. The advantage of a juco player is that their bodies have had time to mature more and while juco strength and conditioning programs are not as good as a division 1 programs they are a step ahead of most high school programs. With a huge number of players returning for next year if Beard can have half the impact that Jenkins did last year it could be another huge step forward for Georgia. One advantage that Beard will have over Jenkins is that he will be enrolling in January giving him longer to learn the schemes and be a part of Georgia's strength and conditioning program for an entire off season.

Early look at next year's roster.

I put together a quick look at next years roster. I broke it into position groups and added in the players who are already committed. I denoted expected starters, former walkons, and rising seniors. The projected needs are simply the bare minimum of what the number of recruits we need to get at a position in addition to what we already have committed. The good thing is that other than on the offensive line and possibly running back we won't need the freshmen to come in and contribute as much as last years group. Last year's class had to contribute for us to have the type season we had. This incoming group will be more of a situation where anyone who works their way into playing time on offense, defense or special teams will be more of a bonus than something we have to have. I will update this and make changes after the bowl games and again after signing day.

ILB	OLB	Safety	CB
Amarlo Herrera	Sterling Bailey	Marc Deas	Sanders Commings*#
Ramik Wilson	Ray Drew	Shawn Williams*#	Jordan Love
Michael Gilliard*#	Reuben Falougi+	Chris Sanders	Branden Smith*#
Alec Ogletree#	Jarvis Jones#	Baccari Rambo*#	Devin Bowman
Christian Robinson*	T.J. Stripling	Corey Moore	Damian Swann
Brandon Burrows	Chase Vasser		Nick Marshall
	Cornelius Washington*#
Commits:
Kent Turene
Needs:
1	1	1	2
NT	DE	Special Teams	*Rising Senior
Kwame Geathers	Arby Jones*#	Ty Frix+*	#Projected starter
Mike Thorton	Derrick Lott	Nathan Theus	+Walkon
John Jenkins*#	Dexter Morant	Blake Sailors+
	Garrison Smith#	Connor Norman+
		Quintavious Harrow
Commits:
Jonathan Taylor	James DeLoach	Marshall Morgan
John Atkins	Leonard Floyd	Collin Barber
Needs:
0	1	0
TE	FB	TB	WR
Orson Charles*#	Alexander Ogletree#	Isaiah Crowell#	Michael Bennett
Arthur Lynch		Richar Samuel IV*	Marlon Brown*
Jay Rome		Carlton Thomas*	Rhett McGowan+
		Ken Malcome	Chris Conley
		Brandon Harton+	Malcolm Mitchell#
		Kyle Karempelis+	Justin Scott-Wesley
			Sanford Seay
			Tavarres King*#
			Rantavious Wooten*
Ty Smith	Quayvon Hicks	Keith Marshall	Blake Tibbs
			1
0	0	1	1
OG	OT	C	QB
Chris Burnette#	Watts Dantzler#	David Andrews#	Christan LeMay
Kenarious Gates	Zach Debell	Ben Reynolds	Hutson Mason
Kolton Houston	Hunter Long		Aaron Murray#
Dallas Lee#	Xzavier Ward
	Austin Long
Commits:
Greg Pyke	John Theus#		Faton Bauta
Chester Brown
Needs:
0	1	0	0
Graduated
Figgins	Ben Jones
Glenn	Anderson
White	Troupe
Bogatay	Walsh
Butler	Boykin
Tyson

Senior GALA

The guys over at leather helmet blog have a good list of which recruits will be in attendance for the GALA this weekend. In addition the guys we are still hoping for commits from there is a large number of players that are already committed that will be in Athens for the weekend. The weekend is one of the biggest recruiting weekends of the year. With the committment earlier this week of Keith Marshall Georgia could really close out strong with the class of 2012 with a few committments from guys attending this weekend. Hopefully things will go great this weekend and we put more pieces in place for the next 3-4 years.

Looking to the future part 2 - recruiting

Again this being a bye week I am taking the time to look towards next year but in a different way, recruiting needs. This past recruiting season Richt had some immediate holes to fill and he was able to do so with the class that was signed. Crowell was expected to play a big role from the start and depth was needed at wide receiver, linebacker and in the secondary. For the future there were also a great number of linemen signed. A couple of those linemen have played this season but not in any major role, next year they will be counted on to not just play but to start. This coming signing day Georgia will not be looking at any position with a desperate need to have any of the class of 2012 come in and start as there will be only two open positions on defense and 4 on offense. All of the positions that need filling already have a backup that has played a significant role this season except for on the offensive line. However on the line aside from the three guys with starting experience, Gates, Burnette and Lee, there are 9 other scholarship players who will be returning to compete for the starting jobs. The kicking and punting jobs will be open to incoming freshman and Georgia already has commits from two of the country’s best. They will be expected to come in and win the starting job right away.

With these things in mind I looked at the roster and projected what positions needed help right away to provide the depth a coach would like at each position and then at what positions there are a high number of juniors and therefore will need help down the line but not as immediately. Here is where we stand for next year:

RB – returning - 4, needs - 1, 2 juniors, no commits
FB – returning - 1, needs - 1, no juniors, 1 commit
OL – returning - 12, needs - 3, no juniors, 3 commits
TE – returning 3, needs – 1, 1 junior, 1 commit (this does not taking into account if Sturdivant returns and switches to TE)
WR – returning – 8, needs - 2, 3 juniors, 2 commits
QB – returning – 3, no needs, no juniors, no commits.
DE – returning – 4, needs – 2, 1 junior, 3 commits (one of the commits is a hybrid and may move to OLB once on campus)
DT – returning – 3, needs 1, 1 junior, 2 commits
OLB – returning – 7, no needs, 1 junior, no commits
ILB – returning - 6, no needs, 2 juniors, no commits
CB – returning - 6, needs 2, 2 juniors, no commits
S – returning - 6, needs 0, 2 juniors, no commits

As you can see Georgia has filled all of its “needs” for next year in recruiting except at running back and corner. Both of those needs are much more an issue of depth than a need for someone to come in and play right away. With 14 commits already and only 3 positions of what I consider need that would leave the coaches with 7 extra scholarships to make the team deeper at other positions and to simply take the best available guys around no matter the position. I also firmly believe you can never have too many linemen on either side of the ball so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Georgia to use a few of those “extra” scholarships on the offensive line. The bottom line is that the class of 2012 is that outside of the specialist Georgia will be looking to fill in the depth chart for the future. Any player they pick up this year that can compete right away is a bonus, not the necessity that it was for the class of 2011.

*disclaimer – at this point it is too early to know if anyone will be going pro early but the two I would keep my eye on for that are Rambo and Charles. Charles would be one of the top tight ends in the draft and Rambo because he took a long look at going pro last year. There might be a surprise early entry to the draft but those are the two I consider the biggest possibilities.