Georgia Football: Is Mark Richt Fighting a Quarterback Fire? (video)
Is Georgia football in trouble at quarterback heading into the 2015 season? Depends on who you ask.
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There is smoke around the Georgia quarterback position and Coach Richt looks like a fireman.
Where there is smoke and a fireman, there’s fire. Mark Richt is concerned about the Georgia quarterback position.
Consider: 1) No quarterback named starter entering fall camp. 2) Georgia’s brief look at Notre Dame transfer Everett Golson. 3) the transfer of Virginia quarterback Greyson Lambert. That’s a three-alarm blaze.
The company line is that Georgia just needs more arms on the team. “I think we have guys who are capable of getting the job done,” Barrett Sallee of bleacherreport.com quoted Richt. “We have three on scholarship. I’d always feel better with four or five on scholarship, quite frankly. We are just in a year where we have three.”
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That explanation rings truer with a clear number one quarterback determined, or with a quarterback that can make the plays needed to win games in the Southeastern Conference. Whether Faton Bauta, Brice Ramsey, Jacob Park, or the recently added Greyson Lambert can make the plays needed is an open question.
Consider this, Lambert started in nine games at Virginia in 2014 only to lose the top spot in the spring. Would Lambert transfer to Georgia without the confidence he could compete for the starting spot?
Here is a look at Lambert’s highlights from the 2014 Virginia season.
Said Mark Richt to the AJC/com’s Seth Emerson “It’s just like at any position, if you’ve got guys that are interested in your school you spend time with them, talk to them and see if it’s a good fit. I mean, everybody’s gotta compete for their job, and that’s true for all sports. So this is really no different.” If Lambert comes to Georgia, he will get a shot to start.
Despite owning the backup role last season, Ramsey did not distance himself from challenger Bauta to take hold of the 2015 starting quarterback spot. Bauta performed well in the spring, but many observers feel he lacks the tools to play quarterback at Georgia. Park received rave reviews as the fulltime scout team quarterback in 2014. Unfortunately, scout team work does not prepare a quarterback to make pre-snap reads and post-snap progressions.
The rationale for no quarterback grabbing the reins begins with Offensive Coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s new playbook, erasing Ramsey’s advantage of experience.
“We’re all starting from zero. It’s not like one of us knows the playbook more than the other.” Bauta told Ethan Burch of Dawg Post.
Then there is the argument that with Jacob Eason (6’5” 205 Lake Stevens, WA, Lake Stevens Senior), the top quarterback recruit in the country, coming to town in 2016, this year’s quarterback is just a sideman to be replaced by the incoming star. Sounds great, but there are games to win or lose in 2015 first.