Non-Stop Kirby Smart

Try one month of Dawg Post for a $1 today...

ATHENS - The expected news that the No. 1 JUCO player in the country picked the Dawgs continues Georgia’s recruiting momentum.

Can it stop?

Probably not. Look out Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher… Kirby has his mean machine in red and black pointed at your skulls. He wants to take the No. 1 ranking home with him; as if there is any confusion on that front.

And I’m getting close to convinced that’s going to happen. There are three outlets now who rank college football recruiting classes. One of them, ESPN, is particularly slow updating their math. Even with the Worldwide Leader’s tardiness, we know that Georgia is riding a bullet to the top of the recruiting rankings. 

Georgia is ranked No. 1 (247), No. 2 (Rivals) or No. 3 (Tardy) right now. And that’s with either three fewer recruits than Alabama or seven fewer than the Aggies. And counting those numbers actually does matter.

The space is there for Georgia to grow into the No. 1 spot. We can’t say that for the Aggies, and Alabama is going to have to press on and defend against Georgia’s onslaught at the same time. We can’t know for sure just how many prospects each program will sign, but needless to say A&M is running out of space quickly, Bama is modestly and UGA still has some room to grow. 

Programs like Clemson (22) and Michigan (18) are probably too far along in their classes and too far behind the Dawgs to make a real run at the No. 1 spot. Oregon (19) needs some 5-star power to get momentum to play with the big boys in the rankings. Oklahoma (16) and LSU (19) have a couple 5-star prospects, but aren’t hitting the high average prospect rating the Dawgs and Tide are. 

And then there is the reality that Kirby and his band of, well, savages are going out and taking whatever they want. Borders are no more a hurdle to them than the air we walk through. Georgia, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Mississippi… 

There are no borders. Kirby and company are bank robbers - and they go wherever they can get the biggest score. That this class is already the most spread out I can remember in UGA history is my travel problem… and perhaps the assistant coaches' as well. 

But the end result of this pattern is the destruction of the notion that Alabama is the only dominant force in college football recruiting. We could have said that this time last year. Perhaps we could have said that after Kirby and crew nailed down the No. 1 class earlier this year. 

We can’t say that any more. And with the painful self-destruction going on at Ohio State right now it is clear that this Bama-Georgia battle has gone from a three-way fight to two conference partners with swords drawn. 

On guard, and I’m not taking about Ben Cleveland.