On Saturday Joe Cox again flexed his leadership muscle and reminded his teammates of the need to stay out of trouble over the next few months when coaches have the least amount of supervision over the team. The weekend that concludes spring practice is typically one where the team lets loose, but they managed to stay out of the papers this year.

I don’t necessarily believe that there’s always a direct relationship between off-field incidents and in-season performance. In 2003 Georgia had several preseason incidents and suspensions to go along with an SEC Championship ring-selling scandal, and they managed to field the most impressive defense I’ve seen from a Georgia team. So I’m not going to flip out if and when something happens this summer – I’m a lot more worried about things like the running game and pass rush than whether or not the team has facial hair or enjoys themselves downtown. Still, Coach Richt admitted that the incidents and negative publicity last year were a "distraction", and keeping clean certainly won’t have any negative effects on the team.

So far the message has hit home. No one is pretending that the team has adopted the monastic lifestyle, but at least they’ve managed to either avoid police attention or make the right decisions when they do go out. Chip Towers notes that the program had already tallied four arrests by this point in 2008, and they’ve managed (knock wood) to keep that at zero so far in this calendar year.

So far, so good. I’m holding out hope that it’ll continue, but even the quietest offseasons don’t pass without at least one or two incidents. I’d welcome the change.

With G-Day in the books, how did the Dawgs look? 13-3: was it great defense or lousy offense? Did all of that leadership and focus we heard about over the past three months show up in the team’s first public performance since the bowl game? Your thoughts are welcome…here are a few of mine:

• The absence of any major injuries makes G-Day a success in my eyes. The real work of spring is done away from our eyes, and this scrimmage is just a dawg-and-pony show for the fans (and, in this case, ESPN). Getting through it without any more players going down for the year is always a plus.
• The crowd was better than I expected. I’m always skeptical about expectations for big G-Day crowds, and even the presence of ESPN didn’t lead me to expect much this year when the game coincided with Easter and the Masters. But the turnout was solid, and the crowd which spread out would have packed the north and south stands. I think about 35,000-40,000 people showed up, and it was a perfect day for football.
• Unfortunately those who turned out didn’t get much of a show. ESPN producers were probably considering a switch over to highlights of the 2007 World Series of Poker to give viewers a relative shot of excitement. It looked as if we might be in for an interesting day after the flea-flicker on the first play, but when the red team could do little to capitalize on that one long gain it set the tone for a snoozefest.
• You were especially disappointed if you came expecting to see a show from either of Georgia’s two legitimate stars. It’s not that A.J. Green or Rennie Curran played poorly; you just didn’t hear much from either. After a nice catch on the first play of the scrimmage, Green wasn’t heard from again. With the ESPN guys talking about how this broadcast was more of a "show" than a "game", Georgia left its best star largely out of the show. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care about a thing like that from G-Day, but the program invited ESPN and their national coverage. I think we owed them a little better show.
• Injuries of course had already taken their toll on the team, and it was necessary to take the lineups and results we saw with a grain of salt. Just for an example as many as three offensive line starters (Sturdivant, Vance, and Davis) were all out, and the impact trickled down the depth chart. I was thrilled to see Marcus Washington back out there making plays, but I would hope that a senior could get past the true freshman offensive lineman in his way.
• Logan Gray’s nice afternoon was a treat to see not because it creates a quarterback controversy but because it keeps us from doing the usual fan thing of overlooking the reserves in favor of the shiny new freshmen. It also serves to quiet, at least temporarily, those who would rather get Gray on the field at a position – any position – other than quarterback. The guy belongs under center (or in the shotgun, if you prefer). It’s up to the staff now to make creative use of Gray’s skills at quarterback.
• The completed flea-flicker made the first play a success, but Caleb King appeared to make a huge mistake on the play. While King turned around after the pitch back to Cox, a defender shot through to King’s left and would have taken Cox’s head off if not for the no-contact rule. With other backs like Carlton Thomas (and let’s not forget Richard Samuel) showing ability, these are the kinds of things that will affect playing time during the season.
• The play of the secondary – especially Commings and Boykin – made me feel a bit better about the departure of Asher Allen. How much did they have to do with the lack of production from the red team’s top receivers? If there were holes in the defense, they were underneath and in the areas covered by linebackers.
• Though the drops were a big storyline, I’m not especially concerned. Only one drop was by a scholarship receiver, and Aron White hasn’t shown the tendency to drop in the past. If it were Green, Moore, and King littering the field with drops, that might be something. But most of the guys dropping passes aren’t going to be big contributors in the fall.
• It doesn’t take much imagination to see that the tailback position is headed back in the direction of a RB-by-committee. As is usually the case, that says more about the absence of someone stepping up and claiming the position. At best, we’ll see the "three-headed monster" days of Brown, Lumpkin, and Ware. Hopefully it won’t head in the direction of 2003 where a committee of Cooper, Browning, and Lumpkin were far less effective. Carlton Thomas definitely had an exciting debut, but I’d fear for his longevity if he’s forced into an every down role. Used situationally and on returns he could be a very exciting player.

When the Lady Dogs starters get introduced before games, they run out along a red carpet that lists the years of Georgia’s Final Four and SEC championship seasons. That carpet hasn’t needed to be updated for years. Since coming up devastatingly short of both an SEC Tournament title and a Final Four trip in 2004, the Lady Dogs haven’t come close to challenging for either.

It’s been ten years since Georgia’s last visit to the Final Four – the longest drought under Andy Landers. The last SEC championship for the program was in 2001. It’s not that the program has disappeared in the meantime. They’ve made the NCAA Tournament every year and only last season had a streak of Sweet 16 appearances snapped. But there’s no question that the program has slipped, and getting it back won’t be a simple one-year fix.

When Dennis Felton was let go earlier in the year, it was easy to conclude that recruiting and attrition were at the heart of the problems that led to the end of the Felton era. Other than a brief period in 2006-2007, Felton was never able to assemble and retain anything resembling a complete team. Signing and keeping quality players has been an issue with the men’s team for decades. But now the same problems are creeping into the women’s program despite a tradition of success.

The Georgia women’s basketball team announced yesterday that sophomore guard Angela Puleo would be leaving the program. Puleo was put into a tough situation out of the gate as a freshman. In most programs, she would have been brought along as a situational 3-point shooter off the bench. But the roster situation at Georgia thrust her into a starting role immediately, and it was impossible to fill the shoes of Cori Chambers, the most prolific outside shooter in Georgia history.

Puleo’s departure means that the entire 2007 recruiting class of four players, rated by some as a top 10 class, has dissolved and will contribute nothing to the program as juniors and seniors. Puleo will transfer. Jasmine Lee was dismissed. Nicole Stroud’s career was cut short by injuries. Top 20 prospect Brittany Carter barely contributed as a freshman and transferred after one season.

The impact of the evaporation of that 2007 class is more significant when placed alongside the classes that surrounded it. Put it this way: Georgia will have a nice senior class next season of Angel Robinson, Ashley Houts, and Christy Marshall. There will only be three other players on the roster with any meaningful experience – starting or otherwise. Once again incoming freshman will be counted on for significant minutes.

For a number of reasons we’ll get into below, Georgia had hit a dry patch in recruiting. The obvious example is Lawrenceville’s Maya Moore leading UConn to the national title last night. But it’s no longer just other elite programs prevailing over Georgia for local talent. Georgia Tech welcomed the #6 class in the nation in 2008 which featured three players from Georgia all rated among the nation’s top 100 prospects. Meanwhile the Lady Dogs’ sole signee in 2008 was a guard from Alabama. That’s turned around this year with a top 5 class, but can the staff keep it up? And can they avoid the attrition in the incoming class that wiped out the promising 2007 class?

Attrition is as much a part of recruiting as actually signing the classes, and it’s a problem that has hit the Georgia women’s program hard in recent years. Even if Georgia missed out on other prospects, those they’ve signed have been plenty good enough to keep the program competitive. The trouble has been keeping them around. Below is a list of some of the players Georgia has signed but lost over the past few seasons before their eligibility expired. Some played for a while; others never made it into school.

• Recina Russell – Big 10 freshman of the year
• Brittany Carter – national Top 20 prospect
• Amber Holt – JUCO All-American
• Angela Puleo – starting shooting guard
• Jasmine Lee
• Nicole Stroud
• Erica Brown – McDonald’s All-American guard

That’s quite a team in and of itself. It’s unfair to put this attrition all on the coaches. Recruiting is an inexact science, and you can never predict who will be able to cut it at the next level. Injuries, academics, and personal issues are risks you take, and they’ve all played a role in this attrition. Regardless, the sum of this attrition and the results in recruiting has been to leave the program with little depth at best and with critical holes at worst.

Part of the problem has had to do with turnover on the staff. In 2005, longtime assistant and top recruiter Michael Shafer was hired away by Richmond. Since then the Georgia staff has been a story of on-the-job training for a number of inexperienced assistants. I don’t think there’s any coincidence that the dropoff in talent has happened under an unsettled and green staff. Finally in 2007 Landers hired Kim Hairston away from Cal, and Hairston’s experience began to pay off and was in part responsible for the incoming top 10 recruiting class. The question remains whether enough has been done to shore up the staff. It’s still relatively inexperienced, and player development has been questionable. With Mark Fox’s arrival on the men’s side, we’re getting a reminder just how important the composition of the staff is to success on the court and in recruiting.

As is always the case with stories like this, bad luck seems to find its way into the picture. Mike Mercer’s knee injury brought a cruel end to a promising season and was, in retrospect, the beginning of the end for Dennis Felton. Similarly, an unprecedented rash of injuries to the Lady Dogs frontcourt in 2005 affected the program for years. Talented players like Tasha Humphrey and Megan Darrah were forced to play out of position for much of their careers, and those teams were never complete enough to advance beyond the Sweet 16.

If all of this sounds like a lack of faith in Andy Landers, it shouldn’t. I believe he’s more than capable of turning it around. The addition of Hairston and the incoming recruiting class is evidence that there’s plenty of fight left. It’s more than just one class and one season though. The top 5 class coming in will temporarily raise the talent level, but the departure of the rising senior class will require another big recruiting effort in order to sustain anything that’s started next season.

The Georgia Sports Blog called it the other day, and now it’s official: Mark Fox has added Philip Pearson to the Georgia basektball staff. Pearson was the right-hand man at Alabama and was the interim coach after Mark Gottfried was let go during the season. Gottfried’s Alabama staff had plenty of experience getting quality prospects from the state of Georgia, and Fox will lean on Pearson’s experience as a member of that staff to rebuild the Georgia program.

An interesting side-note:

Fox said he received hundreds of text messages from people interested in working at Georgia within the first 36 hours after he was named the Bulldogs coach.

So…one more assistant coach spot to fill. Who will get his text answered?

G-Day’s this weekend, and the team has been conditioning and preparing for this scrimmage since mat drills back in February. Fans have a job to do too though – over-analyzing everything that happens in order to make definitive conclusions about where the team is headed this year. The highlight of course is the Johnny Brown / Ronnie Powell Award for an outstanding G-Day performance by a running back who’ll hardly ever see time in the fall. But every stat is fodder for our expert analysis, and none is too meaningless to scrutinize.

To get us warmed up, we’ll start with QB Joe Cox’s line from last Saturday’s scrimmage. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t watch the scrimmage; why confuse things when we have rock-solid stats?

6-of-18 for 65 yards. 1 INT, 2 TDs

If your reaction is to think, “well…just one scrimmage, controlled situations, coaches didn’t seem too concerned,” you’ve got a lot of work to do between now and Saturday. Consider these alternative and far more interesting and inflammatory reactions:

Good: Defense is back! If our starter can’t complete 50%, we must finally have something cooking in the secondary. Look out Teeblow!

Better: 33%? Cory Phillips was a better quarterback than that. Hell…Terrence Edwards was too! We’re in deep trouble if this is the best we have.

Now consider the stats for Aaron Murray (6-of-10, 132 yards, 2 TDs) and Logan Gray (7-of-9, 1 TD), and you come up with Best: QUARTERBACK CONTROVERSY!!!!11!

Mark Fox was introduced as Georgia’s newest men’s basketball coach at a Friday morning press conference, and my impressions were favorable. He spoke well of the opportunity, knew what made Georgia an attractive option to him as a coach and to prospective recruits, and looked at ease in his first appearance in Athens. The hard work starts now, but it was a good first impression. The key points:

Contract. Fox’s contract is a 6-year deal worth $1.3 million per year.

Staff. Fox will being at least one assistant, Kwanza Johnson. It’s expected that Associate Head Coach David Carter will be promoted to replace Fox at Nevada.

Fox was clear that he places a high priority on hiring an assistant familiar with the area. It’s an obvious need, and he didn’t shy away from it. Fox’s contract is about a full million dollars less than the rumored deal put together for Mike Anderson. Fox might or might not have access to all of that extra cash to build his staff, but at least we know that the funds are there to put some very attractive offers out to some impact assistants.

I have to be honest…as much as I convinced myself that yesterday’s story was a meaningless plant, part of me was wondering how I’d come to terms with Frank Haith as Georgia’s next coach. No matter how I spun it, the thought was depressing.

Fortunately we don’t have to worry about making such a mistake. Mark Fox is the guy, and I have to agree with Paul here: I like it. He’s maintained a strong mid-major program, recruited well at that level, won NCAA Tournament games, and has beaten several major programs along the way.

Fox is hardly a no-name. He might be unfamiliar in these parts because, let’s face it, who in this part of the country knows anything about West Coast hoops much beyond UCLA and Gonzaga? But he’s been a candidate before for other major positions (Nebraska, for example), and he was even mentioned as a possible candidate at Arizona this week. We can’t let our own provincialism keep us from recognizing a decent coach.

The main knock against Fox seems to be recruiting – specifically, will a guy whose roots and experience don’t go much further east than Kansas be able to hit the ground running in the talent-rich state of Georgia? This is a valid concern since missing out on key in-state prospects has been a problem plaguing Georgia basketball for decades. Still, I think the concern might be overblown to some extent. Why?

• First, Fox – as an assistant and head coach – has been able to attract quality, even NBA-level, talent from several states to a mid-major program in Reno, Nevada. The conference, location, resources, and local talent base are all comparative advantages for Georgia. It will take time getting up to speed and making the connections in the area, but the skills are there.
• Second, and this is a key point many are overlooking, is that Fox won’t be the only one recruiting. Fox likely will not command the $2+ million dangled in front of Mike Anderson, so there should be more than enough room in the budget to bring on at least one proven assistant with experience and connections in this area. It couldn’t hurt to call someone like this.

Rough edges

Fox’s reputation unfortunately includes incidents where his temper has gotten the better of him.

It’s true that Fox’s Nevada team beat Anthony Grant and VCU head-to-head just a few months ago. It’s also true that Fox missed the last eight minutes of the game after getting tossed with his team down 60-51.

No big deal, coaches get tossed all the time. But more disturbing was a March 2007 incident in which Fox "yelled profanities and appeared ready to use force toward a police officer and game officials" after losing in the WAC tournament. Fox admitted fault and added that "I’ve got to realize when the game ends, it ends."

If you’re winning and your coach is intense, emotional, and confrontational, fans love it. He’s a fighter and driven out of his mind to win. If you’re losing, the same coach is out of control, reckless, and an embarrassment. If the coach is Bobby Knight, he’s all of those things. Fox doesn’t have Knight’s win total yet, and both Georgia and the SEC won’t have much tolerance for an explosive coach who can’t control himself. With Damon Evans’ vision of a "CEO of basketball", those rough edges are going to have to get polished up quickly.

The Process

With all but the introduction left, people are beginning to look back at the process and ask did Damon Evans accomplish what he set out to do?

I keep seeing the claim that Damon Evans vowed to "make a splash" with this hire. I’ve read Hale’s interview with Evans. I’ve seen what Evans had to say to Jeff Schultz. I definitely see evidence of Evans’ lofty goals for the program ("I want to win championships," he said. "I think we have to awake the sleeping giant."). I also see some specific things he was looking for in this coach.

Evans said he wants a coach who has experience running a major program. He wants someone who understands how athletics and academics work together. Finally, he wants someone "who can get out there and recruit players and bring some talent to the university."

So I’m looking for a CEO of basketball, someone who possesses outstanding leadership, understands the role of athletics as it relates to being at an institution of higher learning the academic component someone who is going to help our young men grow and develop athletically and academically, and someone who has a great knowledge of basketball, someone who can recruit players to this institution and, just as important, someone who can gauge the Bulldog Nation.

What I don’t see is evidence of Evans promising to make a flashy, big-name hire that makes a splash. If you can point me to it, I’d appreciate it because it seems as if everyone but me heard him say it. Of course such a hire would have been nice. A big, recognizable name would have been a clear success (as far as the process goes), but the lack of one doesn’t necessarily mean failure. If you go by what Evans actually said, we’re not that far away. One can quibble whether Fox has "experience running a major program," but you’d have that same discussion with someone like Anthony Grant.

I have a real problem with lumping Grant into the "big name" category which includes others like Capel and Anderson. Grant, though successful within his conference and respected as a recruiter for his job at Florida, is no more accomplished as a head coach (and perhaps even less so) than Fox. Grant’s advantage is his aforementioned experience recruiting in the SEC which is no small thing but also not enough to call him an obvious missed opportunity.

Regardless, Fox won’t be able to escape comparisons to Grant as long as both coach in the SEC. Fox’s performance, recruiting, and accomplishments will be measured out of the gate against Grant. Georgia’s not exactly short on rivals, but now even the Alabama game is going to carry a little extra significance.

Did Evans and those involved with the search aim high and miss? Sure. There was nothing wrong with that, and, given the outcome, it didn’t hurt to try. The commitment to the program is there, and we ended up with a quality coach.

Expectations

While I agree with Evans’ goals for the program, I have my own expectations for Fox and the program. Some are longer-term, some are not. With the talent in place and only a short recruiting period left before next season, it could be another long year. I realize that. There are opportunities though for some immediate results. We eventually want Georgia men’s basketball to be a championship-level program and perform at the level of many other Georgia programs, but these are some milestones along the way.

• Assemble a staff that can recruit the state of Georgia out of the gate. With major holes at both shooting guard and small forward/wing, filling those holes is job #1 just to be competitive next season.
• Beat Tech. Let’s not forget the most important thing for a coach of any sport at Georgia. The Dawgs haven’t lost to Tech in Athens since the series went home-and-home in 1995, and I don’t plan on that changing next season.
• Embrace Georgia. Dennis Felton, right or wrong, was criticized early on for being flippant with and even standoffish to the fan base. Silly things like the lack of red in his wardrobe were pointed out. While these were trivial things (and the death of Kevin Brophy cemented him as part of the Georgia family), they served as footholds for future complaints and negativity as Felton struggled to build his program.
• Improve performance on the road. Paul’s done extensive work showing just how bad Dennis Felton’s road record was. He also points out a glimmer of hoepe by highlighting some of Fox’s bigger road wins at Nevada. The ability to win on the road is the mark of a successful and disciplined program that doesn’t need its own crowd in order to be motivated for a game.
• Drastically reduce attrition. You can’t build a program by starting over every few years. As important as recruiting is, keeping the student-athletes in school, out of trouble, and on track to graduating is just as important.
• Sustain a winning SEC record. The competition might have increased with the addition of Calipari and Grant to the league, but the SEC still offers plenty of opportunities to win games. Look…we’re not even asking for a conference title (yet). Just get us above .500 in the league and keep us there.
• Finally…make the NCAA selection show must-see TV for Georgia fans.

Chip Towers is reporting in the AJC that Damon Evans will meet with Clemson’s Oliver Purnell and Miami’s Frank Haith in Detroit.

That does not mean we plan to offer the job to either.

This is the kind of thing I was talking about the other day. Georgia and Evans have no motive to leak anything about their candidates or even those with whom they’d like to chat up for advice. Evans wasn’t even a source for anything having to do with Mike Anderson. Purnell is in the process of negotiating an increase with Clemson, and Haith is just trying to defend himself after failing to make the NCAA Tournament. Each has a motive for appearing to be a candidate for other jobs.

As Roger Clarkson of the ABH reminds us, the Final Four is always the annual meeting of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Just about every coach in the nation will be there. Evans is likely to speak with dozens of coaches in Detroit, not just Purnell and Haith. He’s not going to offer the job to all of them. And not every one of them are going to leak the fact that they’re meeting with Evans to the press.

Just keep in mind that “talking with”, especially at an event like this, is not necessarily related to “interview”, “candidate”, or “offer forthcoming.”

If you wonder why Frank Haith’s name keeps coming up (a coach who has never finished better than .500 in his conference), consider that he shares an agent with none other than Dennis Felton. Joseph “Ricky” Lefft also represents Tubby Smith.

ESPN reports that Mike Anderson will remain at Missouri, signing a new 7-year deal.

It’s hard to compare offers head-to-head with all of the different incentives that are separate from the base and guaranteed money, but it looks as if Anderson chose to remain at Missouri despite an offer speculated to be several hundreds of thousands of dollars higher from Georgia.

It’s certainly a bad blow, and the public rejection is egg on the face. No way to spin that. There are other quality coaches though, and the numbers reportedly involved in the Anderson offer have to be attractive to some of them.

Make no mistake, this isn’t a failure of effort. Georgia put their best foot forward and outbid Missouri. Offering over $2 million for a hoops coach is a serious indication of commitment to the basketball program and would make Georgia one of the higher-paying programs in the nation. That’s a good first step, but now it’s time to close.

As to who might be next on the list, there’s all sorts of speculation, but little of it can be believed. If the search firm and athletic department were this quiet up to now, they’re not suddenly going to publish a list of the next three guys to be contacted. A lot of the names you might hear will surface simply because opportunistic agents are trying to get their guys talked about.

And don’t forget Wednesday’s date…

Just a reminder…if you haven’t ordered or renewed your football season tickets yet, today’s the final day. It’s also the last day to order road game and extra home game tickets. All Hartman Fund donors have the ability to order Tennessee Tech, Vandy, Arkansas, and Oklahoma State tickets.

You can order/renew online at Georgiadogs.com.

You can tell the search firm hired to consult on the Georgia men’s basketball coaching hire was doing its job when the headline on the AJC this morning read, “UGA coaching search remains a mystery”. Chasing planes, sketchy rumors of meetings in Atlanta that never happened…it was a frustrating Monday trying to nail down hard information on what was going on with the search. Meanwhile, Alabama has a coach, Virginia announced their new coach on Monday, and Kentucky made a move for John Calipari of Memphis seemingly overnight. Was Georgia, after all this time, going to be left out?

Now Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com reports that Georgia has indeed offered Missouri’s Mike Anderson a deal somewhere in the $2 million / year range. Missouri’s counteroffer was expected to be only around $1.3 million per season. According to Schlabach, “Anderson spoke to Georgia athletics director Damon Evans on Monday…and is back home pondering his future.”

Now the questions begin:

Will Anderson wait to see if Memphis offers?
Will Memphis, a Conference USA program riding high in an NBA market on the flashy style of Calipari, look instead to someone with NBA ties or with at least as large of a personality as Calipari?
Will Missouri be able to dig deep enough to match Georgia’s offer?

There’s still plenty of uncertainty, but at least we know now that Georgia has identified and put their best offer out to their top target. Now, we wait…

UPDATE: Of course even this story has to be challenged. According to the AJC and Anderson’s agent, there is no offer yet though Georgia is interested. You can parse the words if you like – is this an agent playing games? Have Anderson and his agent been given the terms of an offer but nothing formal on paper yet? Clearly there is some understanding of what the offer would look like. “Georgia appears to want to make a commitment to basketball and Damon probably has the most to offer,” admits Jimmy Sexton, Anderson’s agent.

On it goes…

With apologies to the Gym Dogs, it’s been several months since there’s been a sporting event in Athens with as much buzz as this upcoming weekend’s baseball series with LSU. Georgia remains at or near the top of the polls depending on whom you ask, and LSU is actually ranked ahead of Georgia by Baseball America.

Georgia has now swept consecutive SEC series and, most recently, took three games on the road up in Knoxville. Rich Poythress, though hitless on Sunday, finished the series 6-for-10 with four homers and 10 RBI.

LSU is currently in third place in the SEC right behind Georgia with a 6-3 conference mark. They’ve taken two out of three in all of their conference series to date.

Even before Georgia gets to LSU, they have a midweek home-and-home series with Clemson. The Tigers aren’t ranked, but they’re a respectable 18-7 and will be a quality midweek test.

If you want to get out to Foley Field and take in the games this weekend, act fast. The Saturday game is already sold out, and the other days aren’t far behind. Georgia set an attendance record earlier this year against Mississippi State, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the mark broken again this weekend. The scene outside the stadium should be as good as it gets during the regular season with Kudzu Hill, the Left Field Lounge, and the visiting LSU fans mixing in.

• Tuesday: Clemson – 7:00
• Wednesday: @ Clemson – 7:00 (CSS)
• Friday: LSU – 7:00
• Saturday: LSU – 3:00 (CSS)
• Sunday: LSU – 12:00

Quarterback prospect Nick Montana (yes, Joe’s his father) paid a visit to Alabama and Georgia last week, and the AJC’s Michael Carvell had a chance to discuss the visits with Nick. When asked what he found appealing about Georgia, Montana said,

If Georgia is turning out first-round draft picks like (Stafford) at quarterback, then I think anyone would take a close look at Georgia. They just put a lot of guys in the league. I also like that Georgia wins. They were ranked No. 1 at one point last year.

Lots to like about that quote. First, no knock on David Greene or D.J. Shockley, but quarterback has been the one position at which Georgia has historically struggled to develop high draft picks. Even a legend like Fran Tarkenton was only a third-round pick. Stafford is a surprisingly polarizing figure among Georgia fans, but he’ll also be the highest draft pick among Georgia quaterbacks since Johnny Rauch was selected with the second pick in 1949. One has to think that the stature of Stafford helped with Aaron Murray last year, and it even appeals across the country to someone like Montana. Good to see that changing.

The second bit is a nice wake-up call to some Georgia fans. Despite all of our kvetching and quibbling about what’s wrong with the Georgia program, the perception of the program hasn’t suffered as much as we might think. He also noticed Georgia’s preseason ranking last season. It seems like common sense that elite prospects would want to go to high-profile programs that win and are ranked high, but you’ll have to convince those who prefer that Georgia embrace the low-profile underdog role.

Will Georgia even become a finalist for Montana? Who knows at this point. His offer sheet is long and truly national, and he’s just starting the process. Right now it’s enough that Georgia has enough national standing to merit a visit and serious consideration from such a prospect.

It’s hard to mention Montana without Rice, and there’s a related story here. While Joe’s son begins the recruiting process with multiple offers from top programs, the son of the other half of the legendary Montana-to-Rice combination is walking on at UCLA this fall (h/t The Wiz).

The addition of Kentucky to the list of schools looking for a basketball coach has been a possibility hanging over the process for a while now, and now it’s a reality. Billy Gillispie is out at Kentucky, and another opening serves to muddy the waters for those of us waiting to see which coach will end up at Georgia.

Whether or not Kentucky goes after Travis Ford at Oklahoma State or someone else, it’s still likely going to affect Georgia’s search. Even if Kentucky doesn’t hire someone from Georgia’s list, the domino reaction set off by the Kentucky hire could reduce or change the pool of available and interested candidates. It’s also likely to slow up the process since some candidates and agents will wait until after Kentucky moves before pursuing offers elsewhere.

Want another bit of uncertainty from a major program? People are beginning to ask about Jim Calhoun’s future after this season.

Yesterday in getting to know new scholarship kicker Brandon Bogotay, I posted that he tallied 20 touchbacks on 52 kickoffs. That’s a 38% clip. For a guy who’s supposed to be able to kick it through the end zone, that 38% rate might seem a little low. Someone on the DawgVent asked why we were using a scholarship for a kickoff specialist who only gets touchbacks around 40% of the time.

At the time I didn’t know whether 38% was low, high, or average. We know it was a sight better than we had last season. How would it compare to the competition around the southeast?

• South Carolina (Succop): 25 touchbacks on 61 kickoffs…41%
• Ole Miss (Sparks): 10 touchbacks on 72 kickoffs…14%
• Florida (Sturgis): 12 touchbacks on 90 kickoffs…13%
• Auburn (Byrum/Hull): 4 touchbacks on 48 kickoffs…8%
• Georgia Tech (Blair): 5 touchbacks on 62 kickoffs…8%
• Clemson (Buchholz): 5 touchbacks on 64 kickoffs…8%
• Tennessee (Cunningham): 3 touchbacks on 40 kickoffs…7.5%
• LSU (Jasper): 4 touchbacks on 76 kickoffs…5%
• Georgia (Walsh): 4 touchbacks on 75 kickoffs…5%
• Alabama (Tiffin): 2 touchbacks on 75 kickoffs…3%

Observations:

• Tennessee and Auburn had really, really bad offenses last year…sheesh. It can’t be said enough.
• All-SEC placekickers (Colt David and Joshua Shene) didn’t handle kickoff duties.
• A kicker who can get touchbacks more than 15% of the time seems to be pretty rare in these parts. I’ll leave it as an exercise to someone else to find out if 2008 was a down year for touchbacks.
• If Bogotay can maintain his touchback rate at Georgia, he’ll be one of the best in the nation. If he is only half as effective at Georgia, he’d still likely be the best in the region.

Of course you have to have all sorts of caveats when comparing JUCO stats to those of SEC and ACC kickers. It’s not as poor of a comparison as high school stats and video though. You’re kicking from the same spot regardless of the college. We also don’t know what happened on the kickoffs that weren’t touchbacks. Were they shanks? Out of bounds? Line drives that were returned to the 40? Or were they also kicked deep but returned anyway?

Since touchbacks and kicking it through the end zone are actually not as common as we might have thought, we can’t forget that most of the time – even with the best of kickoff specialists – the coverage unit is still going to be just as important as the guy kicking off. I’m fine with not getting a touchback, but if we can at least get the ball close to or slightly inside the goal line, hopefully we’ll see far fewer returns like this next season.