Someone asked yesterday about who coached who during the Kirby Smart era. In light of the offensive line woes (as many pointed out – a supposed strength that turned into a glaring struggle in 2024) there’s been much blame cast around about a host of characters – was it Bobo? Searels? Luke? Let’s take a look…
First, I used 247 Sports, mainly to be consistent and also because they had the quickest and easiest to dissect metrics. If you feel the calculations are flawed, sue me, I don’t do this for a living…but, I do like data, so I’m not against pulling some of it. It’s not to prove a point, but to give us all some stats to chew on and pontificate during these slow offseason days and weeks.
Editor’s Note: A reader caught that I left out Wilson from Pittman’s 2017 class, so I’ve adjusted around that context.
The Coley/Pittman Years
For context, as we look at these recruits, notice the first column says “Class Of”. While Pittman and Coley (co-offensive coordinator with Chaney) are listed here, it’s important to note that the Class of 2016 was likely more heavily recruited by Richt’s 2015 staff, but Pittman coached them in 2016.
In other words, Ben Cleveland was being recruited by Richt’s staff…which is not to say Pittman and Smart didn’t seal the deal (Kirby Smart was named head coach on December 1st, 2015, and National Signing Day wasn’t until February 4th of 2016). But this does show what kind of perceived talent was in the trenches during the first four years of Smart’s tenure.
To help read the data, the first colored column is the 247 Rating for a player (on a scale to 100) and the position ranking is the ranking the player had compared to all others in the nation at their position. Another note, the position often can change from one recruiting agency to another, say from OT to OG, depending on who the athlete talked to. Pittman’s 2017 and 2018 hauls, by rating average are the third and second highest rated classes in Smart’s tenure, respectively.
The Monken Years
Oh, the Wonder Years. I mentioned yesterday that 2021 featured a starting lineup of almost across the board two-deep NFL talent on both sides of the ball, so let’s look at the recruiting classes once the Pitt Boss left Athens.
One thing to note, the Class of 2020 (Luke’s first to coach) was recruited by Pittman…although Luke was named in December of 2019 as the next OL coach. It was a large class, taking two centers…also notice that starting in 2020, it seems like pure offensive guards seem to disappear. Luke’s first class of recruits, Mims, Fairchild, Morris, and Wilson, although small in number, averaged the highest rating of all classes since 2016. Class size obviously impacts that, since there were fewer “low hanging fruit” in the small class…but did recruiting a smaller class hamstring Georgia in years after 2021? A similarly small class made up the 2022 group, recruited by Luke, the second lowest rated group since the 2016 class.
I’ll point out two things – scan the recruiting agencies for a minute and you’ll notice there a relatively few pure centers ever listed, and by few I mean less than a dozen nationally. This isn’t uncommon as many guards or tackles are converted to center once they land on college campuses. Secondly, and I’m making an assumption here, is that there’s a desire to have huge, road-grading bodies across the line. If you’ve coached high school football, you know that these are unicorns on a team, if you can ever find one, and guess what they typically will play – left tackle. Many of these guys are tackles in high school, but find themselves as centers or guards once they get on a college team. Also, for whatever reason, 247 quit listing athletes as guards and moved to the IOL designation starting in 2021.
The Bobo Years
Searels’s first recruiting class – the Class of 2023 – had an average rating higher slightly lower than Pittman’s first signing class with the Class of 2017. Searels’ Class of 2024 – which has seven players – is tied for the largest class of linemen recruited in the Kirby Smart era since Pittman’s Class of 2020. The average rating for Searels’ Class of 2024 is a tick higher than Pittman’s here, which isn’t bad considering this looked to be a quantity haul. While the Class of 2025 carries a low rating, buzz around the All Star games has it that Gaston could be an early contributor for thee Georgia offensive line.
Of note, though, is that the average rating of Searels classes is lower than Luke’s and Pittman’s.
So, for those of us who enjoy finger pointing, who is to blame? The loudest finger has been pointed at Luke, who, while coaching one line to a National Championship, can easily be discounted by a small body of work and coaching many of Pittman’s recruits. His recruiting hits would include Fairchild, Mims, and Wilson; however, the class of 2022 forward appears to a drop off in talent. While Greene and Bobo saw snaps this year, Greene’s play was questionable at times and Bobo served the center position well while filling in. Freeling appears to have promise and an upside, but to be honest, there’s a lot of names on the list I’ve never heard of. Is this young talent that will prosper given the chance…or is there something going on with coaching and scheme?
When it comes to the head offensive coordinator, it is noted here that Bobo has coached with the lowest rated offensive line corps in comparison to Monkey, Coley, and Chaney, and much can be debated about the offensive game plan coupled with talent to see if there’s a correlation to offensive output and offensive line talent.
So, there’s my best attempt to scrounge up some data that you guys requested. I’m not trying to draw a bunch of assumptions here…just throwing some metrics out to let you scamps discuss. I’m sure there’s a better way to present this, or something to the effect of “attribute these guys to this guy” but I’ll read that feedback and consider how to organize this for the next recruiting analysis – the defensive line.
Bottom line: Whatever the recruits are they pick, they aren’t good. Are they being coached properly? We can’t run the ball. They’ve had 2 years to make it right, either develop them or look at the portal. Greene and Freeling were very high recruits. They are not playing well.
Greene and Freeling were playing hurt, Greene especially. They will play much better once healthy. I’m concerned that none of the other tackles were ready to play.
Sooooo, you’re blaming the recruits, blaming the staff, blaming development, don’t forget to blame bobo….GO DAWGS!!
Our favorite offseason pastime! I blame Bobo. We really do need to have t-shirts made.
You left 5 star Isiah Wilson from Brooklyn, NY off of your 2017 signing class results. He was a top 2 or 3 OT. How will adding him change your metrics?
Don’t forget he was a starter in 2018 and 2019 and was a high round NFL draft pick.
Dammit! I’ll rerun it, tired eyes and parenthood don’t make for the best fact checking sometimes. At least I’m not a politician!
Reran it and edited it…thanks for the catch!
Then came the 2019 asswhipping in the seccg, CKS hatched the “explosive movement”, somewhere in there, the recruitment had to or at least reflect the offensive philosophy/scheme, when injuries, graduation, transfers change the look on the field it also changes your scheme, so to speak…understanding CKS philosophy on “D”, sometimes they can only bend so much to help the “O”, 2024 may have shown that to be true…GO DAWGS!!
Thanks for pulling the numbers! There are several interesting nuggets in this article. 1. While not a certainty, kids that are more likely to be O-line studs in college typically have a rating of 95 or higher coming out of high school. 2. The 2020 Covid year was not good for our O-line recruiting. 3. The Bobo/Searels combo is not good at O-line recruiting. 4. Correct me if I am wrong, but the 2022 and 2023 classes are pretty weak coming off of national championships. 5. The 2025 season could be rough for our offense given these O-line numbers.
There’s a reason offensive line is the most difficult position to recruit. You have to sign quantity based on potential (and for fit for what you want to do with them).
Sam Pittman was a guy who could do recruiting, in-game coaching and development. He was a unicorn at that position.
Similar to Monken, no one Kirby hires into that role is going to meet that standard. That’s why the only thing I can do is trust the guy who has earned our trust to make those staff decisions.
I don’t believe recruiting is the biggest problem with the OL. IMO Bobo and Searel want a heavier slow OL which isn’t blocking down field like they did under Monken which also fits in with Bobo scheme which is not as consistantly productive.
Kirby doesn’t want a slow anything. If Searels wants a “heavy and slow” line, Kirby would have to approve.
Approve or not, it happenedd.
There are plenty of teams that have offensive success with 3- and 4-star O linemen. If we’re saying that we need NFL talent across the board in order to win, then I place the blame on (shocker here) our OC for not being to adapt to the talent that he has available.
Well here’s my take, and I know this for damn sure. You can look at who recruited what group and look at stars and averages and all the numbers you want, But I can see with my own eyes the steady decline in our offensive line. I’m willing to give Searles the benefit of the doubt, so since he will be playing with HIS recruits this coming year with their better ratings and so on, we should see an improvement, RIGHT. However, I’m not sure that’s going to happen and that will be on Searles and coaching.
I saw it with Richt and I’m seeing it with Kirby. I know Monken gave the okay to hire Searles, but did Monken already have his plan in place knowing he was leaving and just went with it, inquiry minds want to know!
1 – It usually takes offensive lineman 2 years to grow into starting roles.
2 – Pittman had Freshman starting at OT.
The question I have is if the OL played through injuries all year, why weren’t we able to substitute better along the OL if the player brought in were more talented.
My only conclusion is, at best, Searels is an average recruiter/assessor of talent and an average coach.
IF I’m reading this correctly, we were consistently landing top 10 OL recruits in each class. Then we dropped to recruits in the 10 to 20+ range. Those are approximations, but those top 10 guys are predominantly the ones in the nfl now. Looks like Pittman and Luke did fine recruiting – and particularly landing top recruits.
The drop in OL recruiting clearly began with Searels. There’s an increase in the number of OL recruits under him, but the talent level took a big hit. Again, that’s if I’m reading this correctly.
I’d also add if you’re going to recruit in the 10 to 20+ range you better have an OL coach who can develop players who otherwise wouldn’t become starters on a top 5 team, OR a guy who’s a superior OL coach. Searels doesn’t strike me as fitting either of those descriptions.
I think you have summed up my perspective on the man when he left Athens 15 years ago.
Here’s a little more insight no one talks about.
Who was the OL Coach when Mack Brown was fired at Texas?
Who was the OL Coach at VT in Beamer’s last year’s before he was forced out?
Who was the OL Coach at Miami when Richt was fired at Miami?
And Searels has never coached anywhere that the OL got better each year.
#Facts. #Undisputable #Undeniable (Please encourage him to get promoted elsewhere)
Wish I could
Last of all, these charts don’t give me much hope for the future of the OL. We’re essentially banking on recruits in the 20+ talent range to step up to be a top 5 team. Several of the 12 recruits in the ’24 and ’25 classes are essentially in an extended tryout.
Agreed. Forget the average column and simply look at the number of top 10 players by year. One small caveat though: I don’t put a ton of faith in these recruiting rating services. I think of them them as more of a guide.
Should we go portaling for Northern Illinois Univ O-linemen?
All I know is that Bobo needs to improve his offense. If that means hiting the portal, or changing his coaches, or changing his playbook, then fine. Do it. Gotta put up more points on the board. If he doesn’t then I cannot imagine Kirby keeping him on past next year. You guys should print and sell official GTPR “I blame Bobo” t-shirts in anticipation for next year. They would work whether his offense sucks or sets records.
This year’s team had so many problems…and still beat Texas twice on the way to the SEC Championship…that isolating data like this is a bit of a fool’s game. Stipulate that there was a drop-off in OL talent but injuries were a huge factor. Then look at the RB’s, WR’s, TE’s, QB play ad nauseum and this was just not a great team. Good…not great. Same true for the Defense.
On to the Spring Game and QBR stats!
I think we matched up really well with Texas’ pro style offense with a non run threat QB. Our defense saw it in practice and scrimmage every day against the Dawgs offense. Tech ran a basic ass read option with a QB who could tuck it and go and moved the ball at will.
Thank you for spotlighting this critical area of UGA talent acquisition. Its been proven you can win natty’s without 1st rounders on the OL (Clempson, anOSU) but the old-time Saban/Smart philosophy increases the odds tremendously. Getting all the shiny offensive pieces to work with goes for naught without DGD’s in the trenches. I’m not at Defcon 1, but all Dawg fans need to be concerned and hopeful they’re developing some of these guys.
Easily done with autocorrect but the typo that made Todd Monken Monkey made me laugh harder than it probably should have. As somebody who isn’t feeling good about college football in general and Georgia in particular I needed a laugh. Thanks.
Dadgummit. I see it now.