How do Georgia and South Carolina respond to Clemson's title?
For Georgia fans, Clemson’s national championship was a maddening reminder of how the past two years have unfolded in Athens.
Remember the 2014 season opener? Todd Gurley and the Bulldogs thumped Clemson 45-21 — though Georgia native Deshaun Watson, then a true freshman, played sparingly behind Cole Stoudt.)
Then there are the fans with the long recruiting memories, who remembered Georgia’s lack of, or late, recruiting of Watson by the previous staff. But for the optimists, it was reassurance that the time for a trajectory toward a national championship is possible in that span.
After all, the recent recruiting success of Kirby Smart has given hope that landing plenty of in-state talent could be enough to hoist the championship trophy. The supply certainly is there: 28 players from Georgia were on Alabama and Clemson rosters for the national title game in Tampa, and six were starters.
For South Carolina, Will Muschamp didn’t waste any time. Moments after the game, Muschamp sent a text to his players: “Game on,” the Charleston Post and Courier reported.
The call to action came before defensive end Dante Sawyer tweeted something akin to a shrug of the shoulders.
today just another day
— Dante Sawyer (@BuzzSawww) January 10, 2017
The University of South Carolina’s official account tweeted a distraction the day after the championship.
Here's a video of some cute puppies playing around on the Horseshoe in case you need to see it today. #UofSC pic.twitter.com/3gj0Udhtwq
— U of South Carolina (@UofSC) January 10, 2017
All three schools have made it a recent priority to add facilities, including the Gamecocks’ administration, which allowed Muschamp to oversee the design of a $50 million operations center. It’s expected to break ground soon. Meanwhile Georgia is nearing completion of a $30 million indoor practice facility. Yet Clemson’s soon-to-be-revealed new facility has a price tag of $55 million and includes such perks as a nap room, barber shop, indoor slide and laser tag.
In the current recruiting class, while Clemson has four commitments from players from Georgia, including three 4-stars, regional rivals have more than held their own, both in the arms race of facilities, and in recruiting.
South Carolina has the top two recruits in the Palmetto State, according to the 247 Sports Composite, and three of the top five. Clemson, meanwhile, has just one in-state commitment: Logan Rudolph, a 4-star defensive end from Rock Hill. Georgia has three of the top five in-state recruits, and 13 of the top 20.
(Clemson, however, has commitments from the No. 1-ranked player in Indiana and the No. 2-ranked player in North Carolina and Tennessee.)
Georgia and South Carolina have proven they can compete with Clemson in recruiting and facility upgrades. The difference for the soon-to-be second-year coaches is how to develop those highly touted recruits and deliver a roster of talented upperclassmen that has the kind of chemistry that brought Clemson to Tampa — and the top of the college football world.
Georgia has no excuse to not be in the national conversation annually. There’s just waaayy too much in-state talent. It’s doubtful that SC will ever get to that level. Not as long as Dabo is at Clemson and Spurrier doesn’t find the fountain of youth.
No argument there, this is why Richt was let go…
Yep, Richt and Bobo missed out on Watson but they knew that Watson’s QB style was not what they wanted. As a Dawg fan or not, it can go 50/50 on the decision that was made.
But the fact of the matter of instate recruiting, is that Richt did have a lot of instate recruits go to out of state schools.
Coach Kirby has now changed this narrative. His recruiting on the 2017 class has been proven and the direction of where the program is positively going coming into fruition. Go Dawgs!
I never understood the “play style” argument for Watson not going to Georgia and really not even recruiting him. He is immensely talented, and has proven that he is more than just a “mobile QB” He would definitely been better than Hutson Mason and Grayson Lambert
Despite living in Gainesville, GA, Deshaun Watson actually grew up a Florida fan. He wanted to play for Florida and he wanted to play in an Urban Meyer style offense. The only reason he didn’t go to Florida was because Muschamp did not run his preferred style of offense. This kid was never coming to UGA. If anything, Florida is the team that missed out on this talented young man.
It’s TN who should be worried after losing a top QB recruit and a top instate WR to Clemson. SC and GA will be just fine. Perhaps if TN can become relevant again, they too could be in the conversation, oh well at least they are better than Van….oh wait, lol.
Well the first thing I thought of would be to win some games in the SEC East, and then try to catch up with those in the SEC West…lolololololololololol……..
Yep, no pun intended, but you do eat an elephant one bite at a time.
i think Kirby smart could catch up if he just recruits well & performs at a decent level with all that talent, however, for me he’s yet to prove that he can be a good coach. However, I can’t personally see SC progression much under Muschamp, I’m still dumb founded that they hired him. Also, one thing that really needs to happen is the renewal of the Clemson-UGA rivalry, I love that one
BBNWildcat2012,
You’re right. Smart can recruit at high level. He’s proved that. However, the jury is still out on whether he can be an effective head coach and develop talent. He needs to prove it this coming season.
We currently have a top 15 recruiting class and we made a bowl game in his first season with very little experienced talent and you still question his ability to coach. I’m not saying South Carolina is going to win a National Championship but if you don’t think Muschamp has done an awesome job so far, you’re extremely naive.
He may have done a better than expected job in year 1, but I don’t think he’s improved since Florida, he can recruit, but look what happened with all that talent at Florida. I’m not saying that it will turn out like, but he will need more than 1 season to prove me and everybody else wrong
” . . . still dumb founded that they hired him.”
I can’t help but think that Will Muschamp was probably their 4th or 5th choice, but the crux of the matter was that nobody else with any better credentials wanted this job. Unlike Georgia, South Carolina was & remains a multi-year rebuilding project. For all his success at USC – unprecedented in their entire history of playing intercollegiate football – Steve Spurrier when he bailed on them last year in mid-season left next to nothing in terms of SEC- or ACC-level talent. But one thing he did leave them with was greatly raised expectations. Until their 2010-2013 run, USC fans would celebrate being bowl-eligible, & would be ecstatic over 8 wins in a season. Nowadays that won’t suffice to keep the boosters & fans happy, especially after their arch-rival made back-to-back appearances in the College Football Playoff & won the 2016 national championship.
On top of the unrealistic expectations, USC in-state has to recruit against Dabo Swinney. Whatever his shortcomings as a coach at Florida, Muschamp does bring a reputation as an ace recruiter. Only time will tell if he’ll get the job done at USC, but in my opinion they could’ve done a lot worse. If they’re willing to give him time, he should be able to get them back to competitiveness in the SEC East, though I’m skeptical about them getting back to 11 wins any time soon.
Georgia would be the obvious program to reach a national title game before South Carolina. I’ve always said, Georgia is a sleeping giant in the east of they could just get the right coaches to bring them to that national championship level. They have always been good at recruiting, just lacked the coaching to win the big ones. Smart is a good coach but I’m not sure about the OC pick. Chaney isn’t a great OC. Pick a better OC and Georgia will be dominant in the east.
South Carolina is going to have a tougher path to any type of championship. Muschamp is a good recruiter and he’s proving that so far by looking at his 2017 class. Not bad for a coach who took over a sinking ship. I need to see more from Muschamp and his staff to know whether he’s learned his lessons from Florida. Getting 3 more wins from the previous season, still puts SC at a mediocre level in the SEC. Also, having Clemson in their backyard pulling in top recruits, is going to be hard to compete with.
You mention the Gamecocks have top 2 players from SC but Clemson has #2 player from NC. Guess who has the #1 player from NC? Gamecocks. Spurrier was a great coach but a very lazy recruiter. Once his great recruiting assistants left and he hired crappy recruiting assistants to replace them, the ship started sinking.
2017 talent level is not very high in SC, but the 2018 class has some studs like Xavier Thomas who most believe the Gamecocks lead for, along with guys like Josh Belk, Rick Sandidge (NC) and others. 2018 class will be the real test to see where the Gamecock program is headed.
Georgia will have the talent but Florida has better coaching. Florida will win the east and Kirby Smarts seat will be blazing hot.
wrong. 1 you don’t know who will win 2. 2018 is circled by georgia fans not 2017. Kirby sees 2019 no matter what (probably with two conference appearances and hopefully UGA’s first conference title since 05. Thanks Richt)
Show me one thing Kirby Smart did in 16 that tells one he can coach this team on gameday. UGA fans sound like that song and dance up in Knoxville about Butch Jones. Next year…year after next…by year 4…..
I remember when Will Muschamp was the next great thing. How’s that working out. The only question is, is Smart the next Butch Jones or Will Muschamp.
2017 will tell us UGA fans where this team is headed. My guess is we will be good but Cheney will see his last year at Georgia if he dont improve hias play calling. He has got to use Eason’s strengths to help him grow. If he plays Eason like he did in the second half of the TCU game then all will be fine. Forcing him to up at he line pro style is not one of Eason’s strengths. Running the pistol and shotgun is. That also goes the same for the O-line. When he made room for Brandon Kublanow to pull and block more effectively for Chubb and Michel we were able to run the ball. He needs to be more creative with the offense.
Say what you will about Mike Bobo. He could light up a scoreboard. If Mark Richt had gone back to calling plays when Bobo left, he’d still be the HC at UGA. Mark Richt would have won 10 games with the 16 team minus Brian Shottenheimer.
Your mom won 10 dudes in a hot dog eating contest.