Richt's Recruiting- QB edition

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HurricaneVision

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Now that we have the majority of the coaches named and we know basically the offensive and defensive systems we will run I wanted to take a look at Richt’s recruiting during his time with Georgia. I’ll be going through his recruiting position-by-position until I get through all 293 recruits from 2003 to 2014. I chose 2002 to start for a couple of reasons:

- It’s easier because most of the sites start at 2002
- It’s difficult to evaluate him on the 2001 recruiting class due to limited time to put a class together

I’ll start with the position that Coach Richt is known for: the QB’s.

Richt recruited 12 QB’s during this timeframe and they averaged 6-3, 206 and averaged 3.85 stars per recruit. Here are the 12 recruits:

Joe Tereshinski- 6-3, 205 and 4.00 average stars. From Georgia and made 5 career starts.

Blake Barnes- 6-3, 218 and 3.50 average stars. From MS and made 0 career starts and left program.

Joe Cox- 6-1, 192 and 3.00 average stars. From NC and made 14 career starts.

Matt Stafford- 6-3, 210 and 5.00 average stars. From TX and made 34 career starts. #1 NFL pick.

Logan Gray- 6-2, 190 and 4.00 average stars. From MO and made 0 career starts.

Zach Mettenberger- 6-5, 229 and 4.00 average stars. From GA and made 0 career starts. Went Juco and then to LSU.

Aaron Murray- 6-1, 198 and 4.67 average stars. From FL and made 52 career starts. Drafted into NFL and still playing.

Huston Mason- 6-2, 190 and 3.00 average stars. From GA and made 15 career starts.

Christian LeMay- 6-2, 200 and 4.00 average stars. From NC and made 0 career starts. Left program.

Faton Bauta- 6-2, 222 and 3.00 average stars. From FL and made 1 career start.

Brice Ramsey- 6-3, 205 and 4.00 average stars. From GA and has made 0 career starts thus far.

Jacob Park- 6-4, 210 and 4.00 average stars. From SC and made 0 career starts. Never made into program.

What takeaways can we glean from this information?

Richt does not care about location for his QB
He recruited four of the 12 QB’s from the state of GA, two from FL, two from NC, then one from MS, MO, TX respectively. Not to mention he had five star Jacob Eason committed from the state of WA.

Richt places an emphasis on size in his QB
Interestingly, the smallest of them all, Aaron Murray, ended up being the best one.

Rodney Garner was a much better Recruiting Coordinator than John Lilly
Garner was RC until 2012 and Georgia’s recruiting fell off after that time.

Richt attracts top-QB talent
He recruited an epic class in 2009 when he landed Aaron Murray and Zach Mettenberger, but Mett never started a game for Georgia. DJ Shockley is widely regarded as Richt’s first recruit at Georgia and he had a great redshirt Senior year, though David Greene- a player that Richt did not recruit- started the first four years for Richt over Shockley and others. Shockley is also the only “dual-threat” type QB to start an entire season for Richt. It’s apparent that once Richt tabs a QB as the starter, they have to fall on their face to lose the job, which helps explain the high number of QB transfers he’s seen.

I think we all expected Richt to fare well in QB recruiting, and he has. He likes pocket passers who can read the middle of the field and get the ball to his playmakers. He loves QB’s who excel off play-action and who are smart with the ball. I’ll head to RB next; another position Richt has fared quite well with. I’ll post a compilation post with all positions at the end, but feedback I’ve received when I get too long with my posts inspired me to break them up into positional groups.
 
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Meticulous as always thanks for the post Vision! Who do you think is going to be recruiting the QB's now? I pray he keeps the Kid from Ocala.
 
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Richt will attract even more top talent at QB now that he is a playcaller. Expect us to be in the running for Mills next year, and Lawrence the year after. QB U is back.
 
I wouldn't be too worried about the fact guys transfer under him. That always happens at the position when a young guy gets tapped in as the starter. Richt had a 3 year starter in Stafford and a 4 year starter in Murray. So it is to be expected that guys would transfer out, although I'm pretty sure Mettenberger was kicked off the team by Richt, who by the way wont put up with any ****, and will kick people off the team without hesitation.
 
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He coached 15 years at uga and coached Greene, Stanford, Murray - they were starters for 11 of those years. I'm not including Shockley who was good for a year and also people forget that richt signed Zach Mettenberger also (but later transferred to lsu). Sure, richt signed some duds but as far as %s go, I think he did fairly well. Very few coaches have the qb track record that he's had.
 
Great info. Richt has been very hit or miss at QB and has struggled the last few years.


I am not so sure that it's been up and down...he is just loyal to the front runner and these 3 guys were good solid QBs who couldn't be beat out.......his first 4 years he had Greene, Matt Stafford for 3, and Aaron Murray for 4 years...


Jacob Eason probably his next 3/4 yr starter
 
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Great info. Richt has been very hit or miss at QB and has struggled the last few years.


I am not so sure that it's been up and down...he is just loyal to the front runner and these 3 guys were good solid QBs who couldn't be beat out.......his first 4 years he had Greene, Matt Stafford for 3, and Aaron Murray for 4 years...


Jacob Eason probably his next 3/4 yr starter

He didn't sign Greene. Did a really good job coaching him though.

I don't really care about him being loyal. He signed all the QBs on the roster, so I'm sure he should have felt some loyalty to all of them.

In 15 years, he signed 2 QBs who did a a great job at UGA. Shockley was good 1 year, so 3 if you want to count him. Those 2 guys played a ton and were great, but that's still pretty up and down.

His bad QB recruiting the last few years is why he's here.
 
A 10 year run of Greene, Shockley, Stafford & Murray is about as good of a 12 year run you can ask for. It's so hard to have consistently good QB play.

The last 2 years were difficult for Georgia fans because the backfield was stacked, but it was painful watching their QB's throw downfield.
 
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I
Great info. Richt has been very hit or miss at QB and has struggled the last few years.


I am not so sure that it's been up and down...he is just loyal to the front runner and these 3 guys were good solid QBs who couldn't be beat out.......his first 4 years he had Greene, Matt Stafford for 3, and Aaron Murray for 4 years...


Jacob Eason probably his next 3/4 yr starter

He didn't sign Greene. Did a really good job coaching him though.

I don't really care about him being loyal. He signed all the QBs on the roster, so I'm sure he should have felt some loyalty to all of them.

In 15 years, he signed 2 QBs who did a a great job at UGA. Shockley was good 1 year, so 3 if you want to count him. Those 2 guys played a ton and were great, but that's still pretty up and down.

His bad QB recruiting the last few years is why he's here.

Fair enough - perhaps with him being more involved in the offense and hands on with the QB than he has been in recent years changes that.....meaning we benefit greatly in his hunger to select, develop, and direct those future QBs.....
 
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Great info. Richt has been very hit or miss at QB and has struggled the last few years.


I am not so sure that it's been up and down...he is just loyal to the front runner and these 3 guys were good solid QBs who couldn't be beat out.......his first 4 years he had Greene, Matt Stafford for 3, and Aaron Murray for 4 years...


Jacob Eason probably his next 3/4 yr starter

He didn't sign Greene. Did a really good job coaching him though.

I don't really care about him being loyal. He signed all the QBs on the roster, so I'm sure he should have felt some loyalty to all of them.

In 15 years, he signed 2 QBs who did a a great job at UGA. Shockley was good 1 year, so 3 if you want to count him. Those 2 guys played a ton and were great, but that's still pretty up and down.

His bad QB recruiting the last few years is why he's here.

Fair enough - perhaps with him being more involved in the offense and hands on with the QB than he has been in recent years changes that.....meaning we benefit greatly in his hunger to select, develop, and direct those future QBs.....

Exactly what I'm hoping for. If the offense explodes this year with Richt and Kaaya he'll have his pick of QBs. He'll just have to pick the right guys.

I hope he opens things up a little from the last few years at UGA and goes back to the fast break style he ran at FSU. Bring some excitement back, and it'll just be another thing he can sell to recruits.
 
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Great info. Richt has been very hit or miss at QB and has struggled the last few years.


I am not so sure that it's been up and down...he is just loyal to the front runner and these 3 guys were good solid QBs who couldn't be beat out.......his first 4 years he had Greene, Matt Stafford for 3, and Aaron Murray for 4 years...


Jacob Eason probably his next 3/4 yr starter

He didn't sign Greene. Did a really good job coaching him though.

I don't really care about him being loyal. He signed all the QBs on the roster, so I'm sure he should have felt some loyalty to all of them.

In 15 years, he signed 2 QBs who did a a great job at UGA. Shockley was good 1 year, so 3 if you want to count him. Those 2 guys played a ton and were great, but that's still pretty up and down.

His bad QB recruiting the last few years is why he's here.

Yeah, this is why I included the blurb about the Recruiting Coordinator. Really, the reason he's here is his 2013/2014/2015 classes had a lot of guys who didn't pan out (despite being highly rated). Early on '15 of course, but John Lilly was a really bad RC and I'm happy he isn't on Richt's staff quite honestly.

Bringing in three All-SEC QB's, recruiting a fourth albeit for another school, and then developing a fifth in David Greene (who never played for another coach) is a pretty good track record. I haven't done the exact research yet, but I do not believe another coach has recruited/coached five all-conference QB's currently.
 
Idk how much of the last few years QB recruiting is on Richt. I'm sure he oversaw everything but he was pretty hands off with the offense, that was all Bobo. I know for a fact when they recruited Ramsey for example the offer, the communication, the visits, etc. were all Bobo. My buddy coaches for Camden and says he never saw or spoke to Richt about Ramsey.
 
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