(obligatory headline)

Georgia has added Wake Forest graduate transfer quarterback Jamie Newman to the program. He enrolled at UGA last week and will be available for spring practice as the Dawgs begin the process of finding Jake Fromm’s successor. Oregon was considered to be Georgia’s top competition, but Newman drew interest from several major P5 programs who were losing their starting quarterback.

With Newman at the helm Wake Forest rose as high as #19 in the 2019 AP poll before the bottom fell out at the end of the season. He finished 2019 with 26 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Like most of us trying to get an idea of what Newman brings to the team, I’ve watched more Wake Forest football in the past few days than I did during all of the 2010s. I have very little idea what to expect. Wake’s coach is Dave Clawson, so Newman ran an offense with a heavy dose of RPOs. The stats tell us a couple of things:

• His stature (6’4″, 230 lbs) is roughly comparable to Justin Fields (6’3″, 223 lbs).
• Newman’s 574 rushing yards and 6 rushing TDs in 2019 would have rated second on Georgia’s team behind only D’Andre Swift. His 3.19 yards per carry on the other hand wouldn’t have cracked the top 10 among Georgia ballcarriers.
• He was a high-volume ballcarrier with at least 10 rushing attempts in all but three games, but there were few explosive runs: Newman had only three games with a run longer than 10 yards.
• Newman threw an interception in all but four games. Better decision-making is surely going to be an area of early emphasis by his coaches.
• Newman’s 2019 completion percentage followed a very Fromm-like trajectory: the year started strong, but he was over 50% in just one of Wake’s last five games. The Deacons had some key injuries at receiver during the year at the same time that they faced a couple of the ACC’s tougher defenses.

I doubt Newman would have transferred in without an expectation to start, but it’s not a done deal yet. He’ll compete for the job with the three scholarship quarterbacks already on the roster: Carson Beck, D’Wan Mathis, and Stetson Bennett. Newman’s odds to start seem good – Mathis still hasn’t been cleared for full contact, and Beck will be a true freshman. A lot could happen before August, and there’s no need for Kirby Smart to name a starter. (In fact, it would be completely on-brand for Kirby Smart to put off naming a starter well into preseason leading to dozens of repetitive dead-end questions and speculative articles. Isn’t that what the offseason is for?)

Does Newman’s arrival hint at a change in Georgia’s approach on offense? Not necessarily. His rushing stats draw your eye, but he’s a passer first and will look to develop his throwing in a pro-style offense ahead of entering the 2021 draft. In fact, he might be the best downfield passer Georgia has had in a while. His running ability helps in three ways. First, he’ll have the freedom to salvage busted passing plays just as any quarterback, including Fromm, can. Newman might be able to get a few more yards out of those scrambles and help Georgia sustain more drives. Second is as a credible threat to keep the ball on read option plays. Georgia’s inside and outside zone reads were more or less single-option running plays, and opposing defensive fronts could key on the tailback. Fromm wasn’t going to run the ball himself, and Georgia used play-action less in 2019, so odds were that the tailback was getting the ball. Newman has experience running read option plays, and the threat of him keeping the ball could open things up for Georgia’s fleet of tailbacks. Along those lines, Newman’s experience running an RPO-based offense could help with what Georgia is trying to do with its own RPOs. A running threat at quarterback turns any RPO into a triple option: hand off, pass, or keep. Georgia will have better weapons at the skill positions than Newman had at Wake Forest, and explosive threats at receiver and tailback could present headaches if the quarterback also has to be accounted for.

Again, what we know of Newman is the sum of the highlights we’ve hastily queued up since his name appeared on Georgia’s radar. National pundits (even Mark Richt!) seem to like the move. There seems to be univeral acclaim that Newman was the best prospect available from the pool of graduate transfers or unsigned true freshmen. Most illuminating might be this piece from Pro Football Focus that named Newman the third best returning quarterback in college football behind only Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields. The money line: “Joe Burrow is far and away the highest-graded quarterback throwing to a tight window, but Newman is second — and third isn’t anywhere near him. He also limited his uncatchable pass rate to the fourth lowest.” Those attributes will be important in bringing along a talented but inexperienced group of receivers.

That’s fairly high praise – the PFF list didn’t include any returning SEC quarterbacks (including Trask, Nix, or Hilinski, and Mac Jones looked more than capable when pressed into service at Alabama). Georgia fans might be wary that a transfer from Wake Forest could become one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks in short order even if someone like Kyle Trask isn’t Joe Burrow. It’s especially tough to project Newman’s prospects at Georgia when the 2019 season ended with such dysfunction in the passing game. Mobile quarterback or not, a vacancy on the staff leaves unanswered questions about the direction of Georgia’s offense in 2020. Those questions weren’t enough to keep Newman from identifying Georgia as the best destination for his senior season, but who designs the offense will be something Georgia fans watch during the offseason as much as who ends up executing the offense. For now Kirby Smart did what he had to do and landed the best available solution to replenish his quarterback depth chart for another season.