Alright Venters, It's the offseason and as this past season progressed, I started thinking, "Man, we've got a couple kids on this team that are all-timers, like the best ever in school history at their position -- or at least on the all-time team." That's when I knew we were in a pretty good spot. Of course, this is all opinion, and I'd love to hear your comebacks on certain positions.
I started w/ a little criteria:
All-Time UGA team
DL - David Pollack
DL - Bill Stanfill
DL - Jordan Davis
LB - Jarvis Jones
LB - Roquan Smith
LB - Nakobe Dean
LB - Boss Bailey
CB - Champ Bailey
CB - Deandre Baker
S - Terry Hoage
S - Jake Scott
WR - AJ Green
TE - Brock Bowers
T - Andrew Thomas
G - Edgar Chandler
C - Peter Anderson
G - Max Jean-Gilles
T - Matt Stinchcomb
WR - Terrance Edwards
QB - Aaron Murray
RB - Herschel Walker
RB - Frank Sinkwich
K - Kevin Butler
P - Drew Butler
KR - Brandon Boykin
PR - Isaiah McKenzie
Some interesting notes. I've got a father/son on the team and 2 Bailey Brothers. If I'm honest, the three hardest decisions were:
I started w/ a little criteria:
- Individual Awards. If you won a Heisman or Individual Award, you pretty much automatically got the nod. We fans can have subjective ideas about who is "better," but I'm looking at production, not potential (i.e., I believe Gurley is among the 2 most talented backs we've ever had, but injuries and suspension simply quelled his production). Sometimes the indy award trumped career production. I gave the nod to Drew Butler over Camarda at punter because of the fantastic 2009 season, though Camarda's average was about a half a yard better.
- All-American. If you're an All-American, you get the nod over someone who wasn't. Easy at some positions, not so easy at others. Multi-year all-Americans (like individual awards) almost always helped you get the nod.
- Avoiding recency bias. Simply, it's easy to say that a more recent player would dominated 30, 50 or 80 years ago. But that's not the point. The game has come so far. Nutrition, training, weights, scheme and coaching have improved so much. I tried to give credence to older guys who were simply elite back in the day. I'm a half-way oulde (45), but I'm an historian of the program, so I appreciate the guys from back in the day. With the training and coaching of today, there's no reason to believe they wouldn't have stayed elite. They dominated their time.
All-Time UGA team
DL - David Pollack
DL - Bill Stanfill
DL - Jordan Davis
LB - Jarvis Jones
LB - Roquan Smith
LB - Nakobe Dean
LB - Boss Bailey
CB - Champ Bailey
CB - Deandre Baker
S - Terry Hoage
S - Jake Scott
WR - AJ Green
TE - Brock Bowers
T - Andrew Thomas
G - Edgar Chandler
C - Peter Anderson
G - Max Jean-Gilles
T - Matt Stinchcomb
WR - Terrance Edwards
QB - Aaron Murray
RB - Herschel Walker
RB - Frank Sinkwich
K - Kevin Butler
P - Drew Butler
KR - Brandon Boykin
PR - Isaiah McKenzie
Some interesting notes. I've got a father/son on the team and 2 Bailey Brothers. If I'm honest, the three hardest decisions were:
- Big Max at guard. We don't have a strong history at guard (it's getting better). I also think it's fair to rate guards and not just say 5 OL. I think Salyer is one of our best OL ever, but he just never played guard enough, and the tackles were kind of no brainers.
- Boss at LB. The other 3 are no-brainers, but I could be convinced of another here (Knox Culpepper, Ben Zambiasi). And there may be another I'm forgetting. But Boss was all-american. I think Ogletree was better, but...production.
- Sinkwich over Chubb. Chubb is the 2nd leading rusher in SEC history behind the Man. But, the National Championship season in '42 and the Heisman simply put Sinkwich over the top for me.
