Georgia Football’s unlikely ‘Nightmare’ scenario
As national signing day looms and several months of great momentum being built up, some UGA fans are starting to worry about an unlikely ‘doomsday’ where Georgia is not able to close out strong. We take a quick look at what this scenario might look like and how the class would look even if it did.
It starts with decommits:
Nothing makes a signing day start off badly quite like a surprising decommit. Its unlikely, but possible that a couple of UGA’s current commits end up flipping to other schools. Devonte Wyatt and Robert Beal have both been flirting with South Carolina this past week and for all his faults, Will Muschamp can certainly recruit. If both of these players were to leave the class, it would take UGA’s class down to 21 players and likely leave 5-6 scholarship offers available.
While ‘flips’ are a great story line for reporters to talk about as signing day gets closer, the likelihood of these two particular flips occurring is quite small. Both players are from Georgia and both have been committed to UGA for some time. I don’t see either of these flips as very likely, but there is a chance so for the purpose of this piece, lets say they flip.
UGA losses 4 Star DT Devonte Wyatt and 4 Star OLB Robert Beal to South Carolina
Chance of happening: 10%
The hits keep coming:
The next step in this ‘nightmare’ scenario is Georgia being unable to close on any of the prospects they have targeted for national signing day. That means that not only do they not sign Aubrey Solomon and Nico Collins, but that they also miss on everyone else.
That means that Markaviest Bryant ends up at LSU, Leonard Warner at Stanford and several other players also abandon Athens at the last minute. Now this is another unlikely scenario, UGA has some very strong targets announcing tomorrow and while I don’t expect them to sign all of them, I do expect them to sign 2 or 3. Again, for the purpose of this exercise, lets pretend the following happens:
Aubrey Solomon signs with Alamaba
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Nico Collins signs with Michagin
Markaviest Bryant signs with LSU
Jamyest Williams stays committed to South Carolina
Leonard Warner signs with Stanford
TD Slaton signs with Florida
Ameer Speed signs with Virginia Tech
Latavious Brini signs with FIU
Eric Stoke signs with Ole’ Miss
Larrell Murchinson signs with Ole’ Miss
Chance of happening: 5%
That is an awful lot of misses, 10 to be exact. While I do think that most of the players above go elsewhere, it seems incredibly unlikely that UGA will miss on all of them. There are too many players there who have close links to Georgia and playing time up for grabs for many of them.
The dust settles:
Ok, now that’s over, its time to look at what the UGA class would look like if everything went wrong. The answer to that, is pretty damn strong. Even with those 2 decommits and no more players signing, there’s a great chance that UGA still secures the #3 overall ranked class in the country. Georgia is comfortably ahead of Michigan who with a current class of 27 players, maybe have room for 2 more. Florida State only has 21 players and are at #5, but they also only have ten 4 and 5 star commitments compared to what would be 18 for UGA.
In short, while the scenario above is incredibly unlikely to happen, it is even less likely to take Georgia out of the top 3 this year. The rest of the class is simply too good for that to happen and that is a testament to how well Kirby Smart and his coaches have done in 2017. After several years of gut punches on National Signing Day for the bulldogs, even a complete strikeout tomorrow is not going to wipe the shine off this class.
Next: A more positive guide to tomorrows action!
Alright, that’s enough depression for one article. I’ve done my part to try and lower expectations and prevent fans from feeling too disappointed if we miss some players tomorrow. Lets all keep our fingers crossed and hope for a big National Signing day for the Dawgs that we can all celebrate!