The wailing and gnashing of teeth has to stop. Look, we all got our hopes up with what seemed like a fair amount of traction with Sav’ell Smalls, Noah Sewell, Tate Ratledge, Arik Gilbert, Jay Hardy, and others early on and then the decommitments of BJ Ojulari and Mordecai McDaniel have further taken the wind out of our sails. But, I think it’s a credit to the staff how we were in fighting position with the best programs in the country for elite recruits and we, admittedly, lost ground after a horrific start (which the staff also recovered from and finished strong) and the complete meltdown that Ratledge, a kid who lives in Georgia and was committed to UGA, decided to stick with his commitment despite Pittman leaving.
Where we are as a program was UT was looking up at UGA, UF, Missouri USCe and UK just in the East (and had lost to Vandy three years in a row). Well, we are looking down at all but UGA and UF now. I think there are cracks showing in Kirby’s program and I think Mullen is a great coach but poor recruiter. Just as one example, UF’s class is higher ranked than ours but look at how many DBs are in that class. A recruiting class needs to address needs and cannot be too heavy on any one position group. Do you remember when Dooley went a whole class without an OL and the consequences that wrought? I like our class (and potential class) better than UF’s due to it addressing across the board needs.
In sum, last year’s class was pretty darn good. This one is shaping up to be pretty good too. I’m not sure why anyone is crying about a potentially program changing QB in Harrison Bailey, a DL class of Omari Thomas, Dominic Bailey, and Tyler Baron (who I expect will be part of the class and will either be a DE or OLB) and we still have a shot at Jay Hardy (probably not a great one though), a LB class of Bryson Eason, Martavius French, and Tamarion McDonald and a good shot to add Morven Joseph (who I think Pruitt coveted from the start) and Khari Coleman (who appears to be a solid addition), and a DB class of Keshawn Lawrence and Doneiko Slaughter. In addition, we added some maulers on the OL (and keep in mind that OGs are poorly ranked every year) and some solid RBs and WRs. We have a chance to add a true stud in TE Darnell Washington.
My prediction is we close the ESD with Washington, Baron, Whitehead, Joseph, and Coleman and that gets us to 23. We will save a couple spots to really dig in on 3-5 uncommitted prospects to fill in the gaps with the last two spots. I also think 2021 will be a better class than 2020 on paper and in actuality.
