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Published Dec 12, 2019
The Peach State Recruiting Slide
Patrick Garbin  •  UGASports
Team & Research Writer
Twitter
@PatrickGarbin

Evidently, it remains a top priority for UGA under head coach Kirby Smart to recruit the state well—close Georgia’s borders.

“I would never change how we recruit the state of Georgia,” Smart said in late October. “It's home base, it’s primary, it’s A-number-one, most important.”

Still, there’s the notion that UGA has seemingly slipped somewhat in signing top-notch talent from the state of Georgia. With the early signing period looming, UGASports ran the numbers to see if there was any validity to the idea.

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By year beginning in 2001 through 2019, the following is the number of Rivals100 prospects from the state of Georgia to sign with UGA. Noticeably, after the Bulldogs signed six Rivals100 recruits from the Peach State in both 2017 and 2018, they landed just three last year. In addition, and not evident in the graph below, of the 11 Rivals100 prospects from Georgia for 2020, only two have committed to be Bulldogs: No. 13 Tate Ratledge and No. 18 Broderick Jones. Eight of the remaining nine have committed elsewhere, while the one who’s undecided (No. 42 Phillip Webb) is seemingly not signing with Georgia.

In all, from 2001-2019, UGA signed 65 of the 144 Rivals100 prospects from Georgia. Other schools that signed at least a half-dozen during that time: Tennessee - 12, Clemson - 9, Auburn - 8, Florida State - 8, Florida - 7, and Alabama - 6.

Interestingly, the number of Rivals100 prospects from the state has increased in time: from 2001-2014, the average was 6.57 per year, compared to 10.5 annually from 2015-2020. This increase helps explain why, although UGA has averaged landing more Rivals100 prospects from Georgia during the Smart era (4.5 from 2016-2019) than the Mark Richt regime (3.13 from 2001-2015), the head coach’s percentage signed of Rivals100 recruits from the state actually favors the latter (Richt- 46.1 percent; Smart- 42.9 percent).

Here's a breakdown by year of UGA’s Rivals100 signees, the number of those from Georgia (the total number of Rivals100 prospects from the state), and the number of those from out of state:

Breakdown of UGA's Rivals100 Signees (2001-2019)
YearTotal Rivals100 SigneesIn-State Rivals100 Signees (of total number from state)Out-of-State Rivals100 Signees

2001

2

2 (of 7)

0

2002

2

2 (of 4)

0

2003

4

4 (of 4)

0

2004

5

5 (of 8)

0

2005

4

0 (of 6)

4

2006

6

2 (of 4)

4

2007

2

1 (of 6)

1

2008

6

5 (of 9)

1

2009

6

3 (of 6)

3

2010

4

3 (of 7)

1

2011

6

5 (of 8)

1

2012

6

3 (of 8)

3

2013

1

1 (of 8)

0

2014

6

3 (of 7)

3

2015

8

8 (of 10)

0

2016

4

3 (of 10)

1

2017

8

6 (of 10)

2

2018

12

6 (of 10)

6

2019

8

3 (of 12)

5

Although UGA has seemingly slipped in recent years landing top-notch in-state talent, in all fairness, the Bulldogs have been an out-of-state-signing juggernaut. From 2001-2015, UGA averaged 1.4 Rivals100 prospects from out of state, compared to 3.5 from 2016-2019.

Therefore, it makes sense for 2020 that although the Bulldogs have just two Rivals100 prospects committed from the state, there are four committed from out of state—No. 27 Kendall Milton, No. 38 Mekhail Sherman, No. 44 Marcus Rosemy, and No. 80 Sedrick Van Pran—and there's likely even more to come.

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