This is a long read so for you Twitter kids with a 15 second attention span, go ahead and reply "TL DR" and move on. I understand.
For those of you who are interested in considering real issues about QB recruiting and have a few minutes, I hope you enjoy this.
I have had an opportunity to observe close hand the recruitment of four DI QB's, including three who made it to the NFL (two only briefly) and one who will likely make it in the future.
Unlike any other position, a high school QB has a much different recruitment than any other position.
It is rare for a major college to sign more than one QB a year, so QB's have to get their spot very early, and therein lies the problem.
You cannot take an OV until your senior season, but an elite QB must commit before then or he will lose his spot at a given school.
Justin Fields would be a rarity, who committed in his senior year. But remember he committed early to Penn State to hold his spot before decommitting.
For QB's without financial means, it is very difficult to visit schools on your own dime, especially schools across the country.
One of those I knew well really struggled to make visits on his own. He literally was strongly considering committing to a school he had not visited. He ended up going (and starting) for an SEC school several states away that he had visited only once.
For colleges it's a crap shoot, but each year it is the most important recruiting decision any school can make.
If you miss on a QB, especially two years or more running, you can be in deep trouble.
The fallback is getting a transfer like Bryant from Clemson or Shea Patterson at Michigan.
In 2015 we missed on everyone. So we picked up Greyson Lambert in the summer. If not we would have been in really big trouble. Think about it.
Without any doubt if you don't have a great QB you just can't win. I don't care how great the OL and DL are, and they are very critical, it's the QB that you absolutely must have.
Let's look at Georgia and you will see we have made a few good choices but also some very poor decisions in just the last ten years:
2009 Aaron Murray 6.0 5 star
Zach Mettenberger 5.8 4 star
2010 Hutson Mason 5.6 3 star
2011 Christian Lemay 5.9 4 star
2012 Faton Bauta 5.7 3 star
2013 Brice Ramsey 5.8 4 star
2014 Jacob Park 5.8 4 star
2015 None (Greyson Lambert summer transfer)
2016 Jacob Eason 6.1 5 star
2017 Jake Fromm 6.1 5 star
2018 Justin Fields 6.1 5 star
2019 John Rhys Plumlee 5.7 3 star
Go back and look at that five year period from 2011 to 2015. Wow.
I personally believe Jake Fromm will be here four years and leave as one of the greatest UGA QB winners of all time. So we should be good through 2020.
I also do not believe Justin Fields will transfer to another school to play QB. I know a little bit about his situation and I think he will stay and contribute and get better every year.
Justin played for a wonderful high school coach, and an excellent HS, but he was not in a true pro style offense where he could learn to go through progressions in a sophisticated offensive scheme. He has enormous potential, but it's a process that you really can't learn in practice. So he needs reps, and he will get them.
That said, the states of Texas and Georgia have a wealth of high school coaches running extremely complicated offensive schemes and QB's in the right HS are not only are getting much better prepared to compete the day they walk on a college campus but many, especially in Georgia, are playing extremely high level competition, including nationally ranked teams.
That's going on all over Georgia.
Look at the situation with Brice Ramsey, a DGD. Brice committed, I believe, two years before he was even a starter on his high school team. He had enormous potential.
But Brice sacrificed his potential QB future by being absolutely loyal to his local high school, Camden County, which ran the wing T. I say that as a true compliment to Brice and his family.
But, because he had never been in a sophisticated passing offense, not even his senior year, Brice came to UGA totally unprepared to compete.
So he redshirted, and then was a backup, and he never had any chance to get reps under SEC pressure. He didn't play in HS and he didn't play as a freshman, so how could he ever be prepared to face defenses in the SEC?
I will say if Greyson had not come inn 2015 we may have thrown Brice out there for a season and he might have become a solid QB. But we'll never know.
I can't imagine how great Brice may have been if he had played several years in HS in a true passing scheme as so many kids all over Georgia are doing. He would have been a totally different freshman when he arrived on campus.
The elite QB's today who want the best chance to make it to the NFL evaluate three things:
1) path to the playing field with an honest opportunity to complete;
2) offensive scheme; and
3) QB position coach.
FYI our QB coach is James Coley, our co-Offensive Coordinator and a great recruiter with an impressive offensive background and three years as QB coach at Miami.
We have our commit at QB for 2019.
Whoever we sign in 2020 will have a redshirt year, I believe, to watch Fromm finish his career and watch Fields also help our team. That's certainly not a bad thing.
I personally do not think Fields will be here past 2020. I think he's three years max, and of course Fromm will also be gone.
Although it would be great if Justin will still be here for his fourth year, I believe we will have a brand new QB starting for us in 2021.
I don't know if our staff is contemplating a transition from a pro-QB style to a DT scheme in the future, but I do know this:
We absolutely can't miss in our evaluations at this position in the next two years, 2020 and 2021.
If we do, we'll be in serious trouble.
Sorry for the long post fellas. Thanks for reading and will enjoy your thoughts.
For those of you who are interested in considering real issues about QB recruiting and have a few minutes, I hope you enjoy this.
I have had an opportunity to observe close hand the recruitment of four DI QB's, including three who made it to the NFL (two only briefly) and one who will likely make it in the future.
Unlike any other position, a high school QB has a much different recruitment than any other position.
It is rare for a major college to sign more than one QB a year, so QB's have to get their spot very early, and therein lies the problem.
You cannot take an OV until your senior season, but an elite QB must commit before then or he will lose his spot at a given school.
Justin Fields would be a rarity, who committed in his senior year. But remember he committed early to Penn State to hold his spot before decommitting.
For QB's without financial means, it is very difficult to visit schools on your own dime, especially schools across the country.
One of those I knew well really struggled to make visits on his own. He literally was strongly considering committing to a school he had not visited. He ended up going (and starting) for an SEC school several states away that he had visited only once.
For colleges it's a crap shoot, but each year it is the most important recruiting decision any school can make.
If you miss on a QB, especially two years or more running, you can be in deep trouble.
The fallback is getting a transfer like Bryant from Clemson or Shea Patterson at Michigan.
In 2015 we missed on everyone. So we picked up Greyson Lambert in the summer. If not we would have been in really big trouble. Think about it.
Without any doubt if you don't have a great QB you just can't win. I don't care how great the OL and DL are, and they are very critical, it's the QB that you absolutely must have.
Let's look at Georgia and you will see we have made a few good choices but also some very poor decisions in just the last ten years:
2009 Aaron Murray 6.0 5 star
Zach Mettenberger 5.8 4 star
2010 Hutson Mason 5.6 3 star
2011 Christian Lemay 5.9 4 star
2012 Faton Bauta 5.7 3 star
2013 Brice Ramsey 5.8 4 star
2014 Jacob Park 5.8 4 star
2015 None (Greyson Lambert summer transfer)
2016 Jacob Eason 6.1 5 star
2017 Jake Fromm 6.1 5 star
2018 Justin Fields 6.1 5 star
2019 John Rhys Plumlee 5.7 3 star
Go back and look at that five year period from 2011 to 2015. Wow.
I personally believe Jake Fromm will be here four years and leave as one of the greatest UGA QB winners of all time. So we should be good through 2020.
I also do not believe Justin Fields will transfer to another school to play QB. I know a little bit about his situation and I think he will stay and contribute and get better every year.
Justin played for a wonderful high school coach, and an excellent HS, but he was not in a true pro style offense where he could learn to go through progressions in a sophisticated offensive scheme. He has enormous potential, but it's a process that you really can't learn in practice. So he needs reps, and he will get them.
That said, the states of Texas and Georgia have a wealth of high school coaches running extremely complicated offensive schemes and QB's in the right HS are not only are getting much better prepared to compete the day they walk on a college campus but many, especially in Georgia, are playing extremely high level competition, including nationally ranked teams.
That's going on all over Georgia.
Look at the situation with Brice Ramsey, a DGD. Brice committed, I believe, two years before he was even a starter on his high school team. He had enormous potential.
But Brice sacrificed his potential QB future by being absolutely loyal to his local high school, Camden County, which ran the wing T. I say that as a true compliment to Brice and his family.
But, because he had never been in a sophisticated passing offense, not even his senior year, Brice came to UGA totally unprepared to compete.
So he redshirted, and then was a backup, and he never had any chance to get reps under SEC pressure. He didn't play in HS and he didn't play as a freshman, so how could he ever be prepared to face defenses in the SEC?
I will say if Greyson had not come inn 2015 we may have thrown Brice out there for a season and he might have become a solid QB. But we'll never know.
I can't imagine how great Brice may have been if he had played several years in HS in a true passing scheme as so many kids all over Georgia are doing. He would have been a totally different freshman when he arrived on campus.
The elite QB's today who want the best chance to make it to the NFL evaluate three things:
1) path to the playing field with an honest opportunity to complete;
2) offensive scheme; and
3) QB position coach.
FYI our QB coach is James Coley, our co-Offensive Coordinator and a great recruiter with an impressive offensive background and three years as QB coach at Miami.
We have our commit at QB for 2019.
Whoever we sign in 2020 will have a redshirt year, I believe, to watch Fromm finish his career and watch Fields also help our team. That's certainly not a bad thing.
I personally do not think Fields will be here past 2020. I think he's three years max, and of course Fromm will also be gone.
Although it would be great if Justin will still be here for his fourth year, I believe we will have a brand new QB starting for us in 2021.
I don't know if our staff is contemplating a transition from a pro-QB style to a DT scheme in the future, but I do know this:
We absolutely can't miss in our evaluations at this position in the next two years, 2020 and 2021.
If we do, we'll be in serious trouble.
Sorry for the long post fellas. Thanks for reading and will enjoy your thoughts.
