Grading Georgia's 2010 Recruiting Class

Many will point to Georgia's last-minute losses in their 2010 recruiting class and see this signing day as a failure. Others will look at the overall star ranking average of this class and compare it to others (which is actually good). But maybe it would be best to look at Georgia's personnel needs of the present and near-future to determine whether our coaches filled the spots that were really important. So here is a look at each position and the grade assigned to it, depending on depth and talent (based on recruiting star ratings from Scout.com). (note: If a position has top-rated players on the roster, plus multiple backups that are also of high-rating, then it will likely be rated as an A, whether recruited this class or not).

(Another note: I know that star ratings don't always mean much. But the point of listing them here is to show that there are plenty of players already on Georgia's roster who were highly rated when they were recruited. So for the sake of analysis and comparison, star-ratings will be measured as "talent.")

Grading scale:

A: Plenty of talent and/or depth

B: Good talent and/or depth, but could use improvement

C: Lacking talent and/or depth adequate for Georgia

F: Terrible and catastrophic failure of a position for a Div. 1 football team

Offense

Quarterback (A+)

UGA was looking pretty good with 2 redshirt freshmen (Murray and Mettenberger), a 5 star and 4 star according to Scout.com. Then of course there's Logan Gray (Jr.), another 4 star recruit. Three high-rated QBs on scholarship is pretty good, but it certainly didn't hurt to get Hutson Mason, a 3 star out of Lassiter High School.

Running Back (A+)

Once again, the running back position is loaded at Georgia. Caleb King (5 star) and Washaun Ealey (4 star) are now the relied-upon duo for UGA, and they're backed up by Carlton Thomas (4 star) and Dontavious Jackson (4 star), as well as Kalvin Daniels (1 star). But UGA went ahead and grabbed another, Ken Malcome, a 4 star and the #9 RB on ESPN. At fullback, Georgia has 3 experienced returners, Shaun Chapas (3 star), Fred Munzenmaier (3 star), and Justin Fields (1 star).

Wide Receiver (A)

AJ Green (5 star), Tavarres King (4 star), Rantavious Wooten (4 star), Israel Troupe (4 star), Marlon Brown (4 star), and Kris Durham (3 star). Despite losing 5 star Da'Rick Rogers at WR this time around, Georgia did get Michael Bennet (3 star) and Derek Owens (3 star), who could play at CB or WR. The receiver position was already pretty stacked at UGA, and a couple more were added for good measure. With the likely departure of AJ Green after 2010, Georgia should work hard to get a couple more top WR recruits in the 2011 class, but for now, this group looks perfectly fine. Signing another 5 star would have been tremendous, but losing one in recruiting isn't going to bring down this already outstanding group of receivers.

Tight End (A)

Orson Charles (5 star), Aron White (4 star), Bruce Figgins (3 star), Arthur Lynch (4 star). Yet another loaded position. Georgia didn't sign anyone for this position, and they didn't have to.

Offensive Line (A-)

Returning starters are Clint Boling (3 star), Cordy Glenn (4 star), Ben Jones (3 star), Chris Davis (3 star), and Josh Davis (3 star). They're backed up by Justin Anderson (4 star), AJ Harmon (4 star), Dallas Lee (3 star), plus the return of Trinton Sturdivant (4 star). The line looked pretty good before, but can definitely use more depth. Georgia helped to fix that problem by recruiting OG Kolton Houston (4 star and #5 OG on ESPN), OT Brent Benedict (4 star and #11 OT on ESPN), and OT Kenarious Gates (2 star). The line looks solid now. I considered giving this position a B, considering we lack any 5 stars along the O-line, but after looking at Scout's top recruits this year, I noticed that there were only 5 offensive linemen proclaimed "5 stars" in the country. I think UGA loading up on 4 stars and 3 stars should be sufficient.

Defense

Defensive Line (A)

At defensive tackle, we have returning Deangelo Tyson (5 star), Abry Jones (4 star), Derrick Lott (3 star), Ricardo Crawford (3 star), Kwame Geathers (4 star), and Brandon Wood (5 star). Considering the move to a 3-4 defense and now having one DT (NT), we have a few guys for this role, but the trick will be finding the optimum guy for the position. Georgia went ahead and signed 2 DT's from high schools, Garrison Smith (4 star) and Michael Thornton (4 star). That's a good group to choose from for the nosetackle spot.

At defensive end, UGA returns Demarcus Dobbs (4 star), Kiante Tripp (4 star), Justin Houston (3 star), Montez Robinson (4 star), Jeremy Longo (3 star), as well as a few others. But UGA went ahead and got 3 more DE's, because you can never have too many big guys to move around on the D-line. Brandon Burrows (4 star), Jalen Fields (3 star) and Dexter Morant (3 star) were all signed with Georgia. The defensive line is stacked with plenty of depth and a lot of highly rated players.

Linebacker (B)

Georgia returns 10 linebackers, including Akeem Dent (4 star), Darryl Gamble (4 star), Marcus Dowtin (4 star), and Chase Vasser (4 star). UGA got 3 LB's to sign with this class, T.J Stripling (4 star who can play DE or LB), Demetre Baker (4 star), and Alexander Ogletree (2 star). They lost 3 star OLB Deon Rogers to Louisville, but the position is ripe with 4 and 3 stars and a total of 13 LB's. Still, it would have been good to sign a couple more highly rated LB's to fill in the depth at this position to help replace the huge loss of Rennie Curran.

Cornerback (A-)

At CB, UGA has Brandon Boykin (4 star), Vance Cuff (4 star), Branden Smith (5 star), Jordan Love (4 star), Sanders Commings (3 star). This position has pretty good depth and good talent, but could use a little more work. Georgia signed Derek Owens (3 star), and athlete that can play CB or WR, but losing the 4 star CB recruit Nickell Robey to USC weakened this spot in recruiting.

Safety (A)

Georgia has Bacarri Rambo (3 star), Makiri Pugh (3 star), and Quintin Banks (3 star). This position was very thin with the departure of Reshad Jones and Bryan Evans, but UGA fixed that by recruiting 3 safeties, Alec Ogletree (5 star and #4 S on ESPN), Marc Deas (3 star), and Jakar Hamilton (4 star). Although still not quite as loaded as it could be, UGA managed to get two big-time safeties in this class (Ogletree and Hamilton) to solidify the position.

So clearly, these ratings and grades are very subjective. I really couldn't make a great case for any position lacking sufficient talent or depth, despite our big recruiting losses recently. Georgia's big losses from last season were Jeff Owens and Geno Atkins at defensive tackle, Reshad Jones and Bryan Evans at safety, Rennie Curran at linebacker, and Prince Miller at cornerback. This recruiting class signed two more 4 stars to help at DT (along with a couple of 4 stars and 3 stars to thicken up the DE spot), a 5 star and a 4 star for safety, and a 3 star to help out at CB (a position with plenty of talent already). We got extra help at QB, RB, LB, WR, and along the offensive line.

If this was being graded by comparison to other top recruiting classes, the grades might look a little different. But instead, this looks at the overall talent and depth on the roster, and Georgia has plenty of it from past recruiting successes, along with new commits. Overall, I think the coaches addressed the weaknesses we had with this signing class and added extra depth and talent to every position (other than TE, which doesn't really need it yet).