Hot & Heavy

Unlike last season, the Georgia Bulldogs’ recruiting efforts have been raging hot and heavy leading up to the season with Mark Richt and company already receiving verbals from 26 different recruits. Last summer was a quiet one for Georgia with just one player committing leading up to the 2011 season. That shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise though, considering the “Dream Team” that had just put pen to paper and the fact that Georgia was coming off of a rather down season. Players didn’t want to immediately go and compete with players from the “Dream Team,” especially with the true freshmen likely to occupy a majority of the starting roles for some time.

This recruiting cycle has seen a much different beginning with several top recruits committing early and playing the role of Pied Piper to bring other recruits in. Brice Ramsey of Camden County, Tray Matthews of Newnan and Sandy Creek’s Shaq Wiggins have been in the ear of countless recruits, urging them to consider the Dawgs, and it has worked. 

In the last two days, Georgia has picked up more help in the defensive secondary, which will be an area of need in the upcoming recruiting class. Having plenty of extra scholarships helps, but the likely reason is that Mark Richt targeted this class after the 2011 class, knowing he spent too much time wrapping up the Dream Team to get an early jump on the 2012 class. He moved his efforts to the 2013 class and it has been working out thus far.

Georgia is looking to potentially sign 33-35 guys this February with perhaps as many as 10 enrolling early and counting towards last year’s class. If Richt and Georgia can keep securing commitments and hold on to all of these pledges, Georgia could very well be looking at two straight SEC East titles and a top three recruiting class come February.