904Dawg

You hit the nail on the head, Corch. Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college football program. Sure, having great coaching is very important too but, you don't reach the level of dominance Georgia has by just out coaching the other teams. Most of the time it comes down to the Jimmy's and Joe's not X's and O's. Football is a game of matchups. And if overall, your players are more talented & better than who they are matched up with, then 9 times out of 10 your team will come out on top. So how do you make sure that your players are better than the opposition's? By recruiting elite talent and coaching them up. The narrative we all saw earlier this year about how Florida is closing the gap with Georgia, was nothing but off-season fluff invented by the media for one reason... Clicks. The media has to produce "hot takes" during the off-season in order to keep their numbers up. So they'll take the most random point of views to make people curious about about a fabricated storyline. That curiosity translates into clicks on articles, views of videos, and time spent listening on the radio. I say all that with the understanding of how the "closing the gap" narrative was developed. The one thing that you got wrong, Corch, was that FU/Tenn doesn't need to finish above the Dawgs in composite recruiting score in order to close the talent level gap. It's simple math that can show how this is possible. Say Georgia ranks 3rd, 1st, 2nd, and 1st in a four year span of recruiting. That means their average rank would be 1.75. Now FU ranked 15th, 12th, 17th, and 10th, which brings their average to 13.5. That gives us a gap of 11.75. The following (5th) year Georgia ranks 1st while FU "closes the gap" with the 6th ranked group of recruits. So, Georgia's 4 year average is now 1.25 and FU's is 11.25, which gives us a gap of 10. So FU technically "closed the gap" by 1.75 even though they didn't finish above Georgia in the rankings. Basically what it comes down to is that there's only one way to go once you reach the top. And if your opponent hasn't been at the same level as you but they do begin to increase their level then "the gap" does decrease. The ultimate problem with FU's "closing the gap" narrative, is that while they might technically be closing the talent gap, they will never have better talent than the Dawgs until FU consistently ranks ABOVE the Dawgs in the recruiting rankings for at least a 3 year stretch (it might actually take a 4 year). So I'm ok with FU patting themselves on the back and saying that the talent gap is closing. That's because of the fact that Georgia still has more talented team. And because football is a game of Jimmy's and Joe's, the more talented Dawgs will beat up on the improving Gaturds regularly. I enjoy beating a FU team that believes they're a good team more than a crappy one that has lost 4 or 5 times before the end of October.

You're just mad that the team you root for isn't as good as UGA. And you know this is only the beginning of the run of great teams Kirby has set his program up to have. It's not going to get any easier for Auburn to compete with the Dawgs in the near future, much less compete with your in state rival. I know it's just eating at you, knowing that you're 2 biggest rivals are at a completely different level and will be beating the dog sh*# out of your team for at least the next few years. So just accept it, get off your phone/computer, and go cry it out in your barn. The first step to moving forward is acceptance.

You're right in that this wasn't a trap game in the sense that the Dawgs weren't playing a team it almost certainly couldn't lose to. They were playing a very good and dangerous Missouri team with an extremely talented quarterback that can put up points on anybody. But the Dawgs were playing a Missouri team that they shouldn't lose to. UGA has a more talented team in every phase of the game than what Missouri has right now. Even though our ILB's didn't have a great day, I don't know if there's a position group on Missouri's team that I'd rather have over the groups Georgia brings to the table. QB is the obvious argument to that statement. Lock is damn good and can (and has) outplay Fromm on any given Saturday. But honestly, give me Fromm with Fields as his backup every time. I know I've gotten a little off topic but what I'm trying to say is that, for this Georgia team, this was a trap game. It shouldn't lose this type of game. One, in which it's undoubtedly more talented all over the field. But after 15 years of Richt leading the program, the game we watched this past Saturday is exactly the type of game that the Dawgs would have lost with one of its Richt coached teams. So in that sense, it was a trap game. At least for us Dawg fans who went through the ups and downs and head scratchers we got under Richt. So, thank the Lord for Kirby Smart and his staff or we would be 2 games behind Missouri for the SEC east division!

Not a Vandy fan but, I can't believe that you didn't mention Jordan Matthews on the WRs ranked lower list of 2010.

It's actually 1 out of 8 but I agree with what you are saying.