Draft Watch: Florida vs. Georgia (Jack, FL)

10.31.09 @ 3:30 PM Eastern on CBS

1) Tim Tebow: Stock Up/Stock Down – There’s no question Tebow’s stock is down, although no one can question his talent—he is an amazing college football player who could break Herschel Walker’s all-time SEC rushing touchdown record this coming Saturday in Jacksonville, ironically against the Dawgs. Even though Walker did it in just three seasons, it’s impressive for a quarterback to surpass the legendary runner regardless of how many more games he’s played. But we’ve seen great college quarterbacks do little to nothing playing on Sundays, and Tebow could fall under that category. He is not a polished passer. Sure he completes some nice passes; he isn’t awful, but he simply doesn’t look like an NFL passer. This season his numbers have taken a major dip, and he is coming off a game where two of his passes were returned for touchdowns by the Mississippi St. Bulldogs’ defense.

2) First Gator defender off the board – Depending on who decides to leave early, senior MIKE Brandon Spikes could be the third Gator defender to hear his name called in April. The most talented Florida defenders are defensive end Carlos Dunlap and cornerback Joe Haden. At 6’ 6” and 290 pounds, Dunlap is an absolute beast coming off the edge. His combination of size and athleticism at the end position is unparalleled in college football, which is why many scouts will have Dunlap rated as the top defensive end if he declares. The same could be said of Haden should he decide he is ready for the NFL once his junior season is over—the 5’ 11” Maryland native is as talented as any cornerback in the nation. Haden took his lumps as a true freshman, but has developed into one of the game’s top cover corners. Spikes, who is listed as “probable” after leaving the Arkansas game with a groin injury and sitting out last week’s contest versus Mississippi State, still figures to go in the first round, but it will more than likely be in the bottom half.

3) Georgia’s best defense prospect is – There are several names to choose from, starting with defensive tackles Jeff Owens and Geno Atkins, followed by linebacker Rennie Curran, cornerback Brandon Boykin and safety Reshad Jones. Right now, neither Owens nor Atkins has been their most productive interior lineman—that would be Kade Weston. Boykin is just a sophomore, while Jones is still a better athlete than he is a football player. That leaves us with Curran, Georgia’s stellar outside linebacker. He is undersized and is limited to playing in a four-three defense where he can be protected by his defensive line. Nevertheless, he is an outstanding football player and his speed, recognition skills and tackling ability don’t need protecting. Curran’s 72 tackles are 29 more than Jones, who is second on the team. Curran may not have the upside of Atkins or Jones, but he is certainly a good enough football player to play at the next level.

Photos Courtesy of SEC Sports Media

CFI Countdown: #8 Georgia Bulldogs

2008 Record: 10-3 (SEC 6-3)
Bowl Game: Won Capital One Bowl vs. Michigan St. 24-12
Location: Athens, Georgia
Stadium: Sanford Stadium (92,746)
Head Coach: Mark Richt
Overall: 82-22 (9th season)
@ Georgia: 82-22 (9th season)
Link to UGA Football Page

There are no number one rankings or Heisman favorites. There aren’t nearly as many magazine covers, and there isn’t a potential number one overall pick in the NFL Draft. But none of that means this group of Dawgs can’t be better than last year’s bunch. This year’s team won’t be as flashy and doesn’t have the same potential, but they should be a tougher, more physical team.

When the Bulldogs Have the Ball

Offensive Coordinator: Mike Bobo (3rd season)
Scheme: Pro Style Offense
Starters Returning: Seven
Key Losses: QB Matthew Stafford, RB Knowshon Moreno, WR Mohamed Massaquoi

Even though Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno left with a combined three years of eligibility remaining, there is confidence that the offense could be better in 2009, and that might not be such a crazy idea. In senior quarterback Joe Cox they have the ideal replacement for Stafford. Now obviously, Cox doesn’t have the same fastball, but his arm is good enough and he has really stepped up as the leader in Athens according to all accounts. Replacing Moreno’s running and energy might not be easy, but sophomores Richard Samuel and Caleb King don’t lack for talent. There may not be one superstar back, but when was the last time Georgia didn’t field a deep and talented stable? A big reason for the good feelings is a healthy offensive line, especially if sophomore tackle Trinton Sturdivant can come back 100 percent after missing all of last season. He was impressive as a true freshman starter at left tackle in 2007. Other players with All-SEC potential include sophomore center Ben Jones and junior guard/tackle Clint Boling. This group is deep and talented—a weakness from last season has become a strength. If you are looking for a potential superstar on offense look no further than sophomore A. J Green, who made an impression around the SEC as a true freshman last season. Green is fast and capable of stretching the field with the size to go up and get the football in traffic—he’s a dynamic playmaker that will be near impossible to stop one-on-one. Senior Michael Moore has big-play potential as well, and there are high hopes for red-shirt freshman Tavarres King.

Top Pro Prospects: 1) SS A. J. Green (SO), 2) OT Trinton Sturdivant (SR), 3) OT/OG Clint Boling (JR)

When the Other Team Has the Ball

Defensive Coordinator: Willie Martinez (5th season)
Scheme: Multiple 4-3
Starters Returning: Six
Key Losses: CB Asher Allen, LB Dannell Ellerbe, DT Corey Irvin, DE Jarius Wynn

Last season the feeling was that Georgia would have one of the best tackle tandems in the SEC, if not the nation. Then Jeff Owens went down for the season with an injury in the season opener and Geno Atkins had a lackluster season...time for take two. Owens, a medical red-shirt after the injury, has a second crack at his senior season and the hope is Atkins, who many thought would leave early, will play up to his potential. There is also quality depth behind the two seniors. They also lacked a premiere pass rusher a year ago, which they hope will be rectified by sophomore Justin Houston, who brings big-time ability. Leading the linebacker corps is junior Rennie Curran from his WILL position—he is undersized but boy can he fly, and he packs a wallop when he gets there. Junior Akeem Dent, a solid tackler, mans the middle, with SAM Darryl Gamble very capable in coverage. Senior Marcus Washington is yet another player working his way back from injury. At cornerback, senior Prince Miller returns, with sophomore Brandon Boykin ready to step in for the departed Asher Allen. Allen was among the SEC’s best before declaring for the draft, but Boykin could even better. The most talented player on the Georgia defense, and maybe the entire team, is junior safety Reshad Jones. A wise decision was made when he decided to return to Georgia—good news for the Dawgs and Jones. As talented as Jones is—his size and speed combo is as impressive as any defensive back in the nation—he still needs to work on his understanding of the game.

Top Pro Prospects: 1) SS Rashad Jones (JR), 2) LB Rennie Curran (JR), 3) DT Jeff Owens (SR)

The Schedule

It will be an interesting September in Georgia and it all begins in Stillwater as they travel west to take on the Oklahoma St. Cowboys. A win there will send a message that this season, the Bulldogs will fulfill their potential. They follow that up with consecutive SEC games—South Carolina and at Arkansas—before closing the month out with Arizona St. between the hedges. If September is interesting, then October is downright enthralling. It starts off with a home game versus LSU and ends in Jacksonville against Florida. Those two tilts sandwich road tests at Tennessee and Vanderbilt. The also play border rival Auburn and visit in-state rival Georgia Tech in November. Wow—that schedule is a doozie.

Pivotal Point

Get healthy and stay healthy, particularly in the trenches. It seemed like every week the Dawgs threw out a different starting five along the offensive line, which is no way to win football games in the SEC. Line play on each side of the ball needs cohesiveness, no matter the talent. Sturdivant, Boling, Jones, and sophomore Cordy Glenn are all projected among the best at their respective positions. Last year Stafford and Moreno didn’t lead them to the Promised Land, in part because of the woes up front. This year they could win because of the line. The same could be said on defense—Atkins and Owens make everyone better.

CFI Final Analysis


The 2008 Bulldogs didn’t handle having a bull’s-eye placed on them with a pre-season number one ranking well. (Not that 10 wins is a bad season.) They were the hunted. Now, they are the hunter. Can they pull off the upset in Boone Pickens Stadium? Can they stack up with the Bayou Bengals? Take a deep breath—could they knock off the Florida Gators? Will they reclaim their status as top dog in the Peach state? It says here that headman Mark Richt and company will relish that role and have a better season than people think.

College Football Insiders Top 25 Countdown:
The Next 25 (26-50) Plus 18 Bowl Teams
#25 West Virginia Mounainteers
#24 Tennessee Volunteers
#23 Clemson Tigers
#22 Pittsburgh Panthers
#21 Michigan St. Spartans
#20 Utah Utes
#19 Oregon Ducks
#18 Florida St. Seminoles
#17 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
#16 Boise St. Broncos
#15 North Carolina Tar Heels
#14 Penn St. Nittany Lions
#13 Mississippi Rebels
#12 Oklahoma St. Cowboys
#11 California Golden Bears
#10 Iowa Hawkeyes
#9 Virginia Tech Hokies

Photos Courtesy of SEC Sports Media

Q&A: Mark Richt, Head Coach, Georgia

Click To Listen to the Interview

What can you tell us about Matthew Stafford and his chances of being a top-ten pick?

Richt: Well, everything I’m hearing is he will be a top-ten pick. I think he is worthy of that grade. Very talented guy, he is built to be an NFL quarterback - in my opinion - (he is) six (foot) three-ish, maybe closer to six-three and a half and he’s a trim 230-235 (pounds). He is very strong and durable, he is very agile. His arm is unquestioned in its strength, but also he can make really any throw you would want a guy to make. He is highly intelligent. He loves the game. He’s a humble guy who wants to put the team first, he’s exactly what everyone is looking for. I think he will be a very high pick - if not the first pick.

Have you ever been around anybody who can spin the football the way Matt does?

Richt: Well, the guys that I saw spin the football like that were: (John) Elway, (Dan) Marino - really those two - up close because I was a free agent quarterback with the Broncos when Elway was a rookie. We were both rookies at the same time...he stayed about seventeen years, and I stayed about seven days. But I got to see him (Elway) up close, and he was very, very impressive - even though I was supposedly competing with him. And then Marino, the very next camp when I was with the Dolphins, I got a chance to see him throw and he was different than most anybody else I had ever seen. Jim Kelly (college teammate at Miami) was a fantastic passer also. But just pure arm-strength, I think Elway and Marino were those kinds of guys. Stafford absolutely fits into that category.

Do you think Stafford made the right decision to leave, and what’s something – had he returned – that he could’ve improved on?

Richt: Well, the thing about Matt is that he had to make the best decision for him and his future. He’s not afraid of a challenge. He felt like he was ready; he didn’t feel like his draft-status could’ve improved much at all from this year to next-year’s draft. I would have had a very difficult time saying, ‘Hey Matt, you need to stay because next year you might be a higher draft pick.’ So it came down to: ‘Do you want to try and stay and win a championship, or do you want to try and win a national award?’ But the reality is if he gets drafted as high as most people think he is (going to be), in order to get enough insurance, disability insurance, at the college level, it would have been impossible to come even close to the money he probably will make on his first contract. It would have been tough for him to stay.

Would you say there is a difference between a quarterback leaving early opposed to another position, like a running back?

Richt: I will say this, the running back position is one that, everybody knows, if you hold that ball everybody is going to hit you, and everybody is going to try and tackle you. Every time you run the ball you’re probably going to get hit by two or three defenders every single time. So with Knowshon Moreno’s situation, he would have been exposed more than probably any other (player). He probably would’ve been exposed as much, if not more, than Matthew would have been exposed. Again, from what we heard from the NFL people I talked to, most people felt like he (Knowshon) will be a top pick, but things may change, you know, and he may not get drafted there, but the people that I asked, they told me that. My goal when I talk to these guys is to try and tell them the truth, even if the truth is going to hurt. I’ll say: ‘Hey Matt, they think there might be some things that you could get better at, but quite frankly there’s not much out there in that draft right now and you probably will be the first or second quarterback taken in the draft.' So I’m going to tell him what people tell me, and I can spin it the best way for Georgia, but the one thing that we’ve based all of our relationships on at Georgia is trust and honesty. Now there’s other guys on our campus that were thinking about turning pro and I told them what people were telling me about them, and they didn’t like what they heard so much, and felt like maybe they should stay and improve, and that they could make a big jump in their draft-status from one year to the next. I told them that part too, so we tell them all the truth, so they know your credibility is good and they trust what you say.

Who were some of those guys that maybe stayed, are we talking about Reshad Jones and Geno Atkins, guys like that?

Richt: Well Geno was going to stay, period. Geno really never got too interested, he might have been interested, but his mother said, ‘You know what, you’re staying.’ Jeffery Owens had thought about going, even though he got hurt. It just wasn’t going to make sense for him to go to the combine and go through the physicals while he was still rehabbing from an injury, so he realized it was in his best interest to stay.

What’s Owens' status now, how’s he doing in the rehab process?

Richt: He’s doing great, he’s excited, you know? I’m excited because I get to hang around him another year. He’s one of the most pleasant guys in the world, he loves the game, he loves to practice, he loves his teammates - he loves Georgia. If he would’ve had a great senior year and would’ve been healthy, I would’ve been happy to see him move on to the next level. But he got hurt, and even though that was very bad, the good news was that I get to be around the guy.

Out of all your guys, did Corvey Irvin help himself the most from the beginning of the season up until this point?

Richt: Let me tell you, Corvey came in as a junior-college kid and when he came in, he came at the mid-year and that guy was so far from being ready to play SEC football. But in his defense and Georgia Military College's defense, he was coming off an injury. So he was not in the best shape, he was not as strong as he could be, and he was still trying to figure out what to do and how to do it the ‘Georgia way’. But that kid just started working and he got better, and better, and better. This summer our strength coaches said that guy was the greatest leader we had, the hardest worker we had, and then he actually got voted team captain. There aren’t many junior-college kids who come and play two seasons and end-up getting voted – by their peers – to be the captain of the football team. He just worked, got in-shape, played hard, did it the way we asked him to do it and now he’s really being blessed for it.

Ten of the 12 SEC teams are ranked in the top-25 in recruiting for 2009, is that just life in the SEC right there?

Richt: That just the way it goes. You know, we’re all recruiting the same guys; we all get our share, we all at one-time or another might sign a bigger class than another year depending on who’s departing and how long you hold onto the guys you got. That’s just part of life. We always gauge our class by asking, ‘Did we fill the needs we have?’, and we certainly did that, so we’re excited about that. The only positions we didn’t sign were a punter and a kicker, and we’ve got two on scholarship that we believe can do it, so we feel we did a very nice job.

Could we see incoming freshman Marlon Brown have an immediate impact like A.J. Green did last season?

Richt: We’re going to allow him to prove us otherwise. He’s going to get a great opportunity to play, just like when A.J. came in and had nine scholarship receivers ahead of him, he was the tenth. By the time the season ended he was not only the number-one receiver in yardage on the football team, but the number one in the Southeastern Conference. We’re going to give Marlon an opportunity, and all of our guys, we are going to flat-out let the best man play. Last year Ben Jones started as a true freshman, Cordy Glenn, our guards – our center-guards – started as true freshmen, of course A.J. ended-up starting as a true freshman. But we’ve had multiple guys, Stafford of course started as a true freshman, and there’s many, many more that we’ll give them that chance, and if they can do it, then they’ll get it.

In your time recruiting, who is the one guy that got away and turned out to be as good as you thought he was going to be, and you really wished you had a chance to coach him up?

Richt: One guy that said that he would come to Florida State, if he was the only one at his position, was Danny Wuerffel. We told Danny that we wanted to sign two (quarterbacks) that year, of course we signed Danny Kanell and he had a great career and played some pro ball too. So it wasn’t like Danny (Kanell) wasn’t a good one, but Wuerffel turned out to be a good one too.

Photo Credit: SEC Sports Media

One More Year: Several Seniors Apply For Extra Year

Next Level Scouting, Inc. is reporting that several seniors are considering their options of returning back to college for an extra year because of past medical issues or red-shirt years that could be granted to them by the NCAA.

Some of the featured names on that list include Miami defensive end Eric Moncur, Texas wide receiver Jordan Shipley, Georgia defensive tackle Jeff Owens, California offensive lineman Michael Tepper, UCLA quarterback Patrick Cowan and Troy defensive end Kenny Mainor.

Most have already filed the necessary paper work to begin the process of having NCAA officials review their requests with the hope of receiving final answers before the end of the calendar year.

Photo Credit: SEC Sports Media

Injuries Sideline Key Players

OHIO STATE RB BEANIE WELLS HEARS POP
An eerie silence descended on Ohio Stadium when Ohio State's Heisman Trophy prospect Chris "Beanie" Wells went down with a foot injury in the third quarter of the second-ranked Buckeyes' 43-0 victory over Youngstown State on Saturday. "First and foremost, you really can't replace Beanie," wide receiver Brian Robiskie said. The star tailback was hurt in the third quarter after taking a handoff from Todd Boeckman on first and goal at the Youngstown State 2. His feet slipped underneath him as he planted to make a cut, with the ball rolling free as he hit the turf. Wells was helped off the field, and later returned to the bench in the fourth quarter wearing a boot on his right foot. "I may have rolled it or planted wrong a play or two before," Wells said through Ohio State spokeswoman Shelly Poe. "Something just didn't feel right. Then I think I felt a pop. But the X-rays are OK, so we'll see how it feels in a day or two." Before the injury, Wells ran for 111 yards, including a 43-yard touchdown run. Boeckman tossed two touchdown passes and freshman quarterback phenom Terrelle Pryor looked solid in his college debut.

GEORGIA DT OWENS LIKELY OUT FOR SEASON
Georgia suffered a potentially serious injury, losing starting defensive tackle Jeff Owens to a right knee injury in the opening quarter. He did not return. Owens' status will be determined by tests, including an MRI, but Richt said it could be a season-ending. "I doubt he'll be playing anytime soon," Richt said. "It was sad and I went in there and saw him at halftime." Owens has not had a redshirt season, so he could return in 2009 if he has to miss the rest of the year. "He'll probably be stronger next year and he'll be in better condition if in fact he has to go through that type of rehab," Richt said. Owens, a senior, started all 13 games last season and had 27 tackles. The loss of Owens cut into Georgia's depth on its defensive front. Backup Kade Weston was held out of the game with a sprained knee.

MISSOURI WR MACLIN SUFFERS ANKLE INJURY
Jeremy Maclin, who finished with 234 all-purpose yards, lost his balance while running a pattern away from the play. He covered his face with a towel while being carted off the field from the Missouri sideline. He returned to the sidelines on crutches and still in uniform, his foot wrapped in ice, but the team said X-rays showed no damage. "It's a scary moment when an impact player like that goes down," said quarterback Chase Daniel, 26-for-45 for 323 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. "He'll be out practicing Tuesday. He's fine." Maclin had a 99-yard kickoff return and 45-yard punt return before leaving in the fourth quarter with a sprained left ankle in No. 6 Missouri's 52-42 victory over No. 20 Illinois on Saturday night.

Photo Credit: SEC Sports Media