National Signing Day Coverage

[Boss Ross]

Transfers are a way to get bigger and older quickly. I would take as many as I could this year and next. To heck with the ratings.

Sir you are correct. The more transfers GT can get the quicker this turns around. You have to have a jr sr dominant team to win.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

46th nationally and 11th in ACC.
Not impressive, but only considers the HS recruits
GT had 5 transfers who are a good group and fit needs.....
for comparison i looked at other ACC lists. BC and NCSt had 3 and 4 xfers.
most have none -a few have 1 or 2.

2021 Recruit Football Team Rankings

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

Does this mean that we have supplanted Miami as "Portal U"?

 

[GT_EE78]

Does this mean that we have supplanted Miami as "Portal U"?

maybe? but don't theirs usually only transfer out?

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

maybe? but don't theirs usually only transfer out?

To get away from girl friends and the police I would imagine. Miami, being Miami, is always a hotbed of controversy and athletes with their feelings hurt about something or another.

 

[TheTechGuy]

It seems like you’re changing the argument. The initial argument was about people getting excited over transfers versus incoming freshman. Not whether the guys we have coming in are elite.

I can tell you personally, I’m more excited about White and Watson than most of the incoming freshman on the defensive side of the ball (save Edwards). My guess is I’m not alone in that assessment. I think most of us are really excited about Scott and Pendley too because they come in at a position of need with bodies that have been through college S&C and should be ready to contribute right away.

As for Griffin, he is a perfect example, but it doesn’t do what you want it to do and you prove that as you continued to write. He didn’t play much as a freshman, not because he struggled, but because he was a freshman and pass pro was vital and he was behind Mason. This year he just happened to be behind Gibbs who is a potential NFL starter and Mason who will most likely play in the NFL too. Injuries played a role too

I bet there are a lot of teams that would love to have Griffin as their primary back. Almost any other year, we would’ve loved to have a back of his caliber transfer in. I mean look how we reacted when we brought in Skov...

The talent level of the transfers correlates with the expected excitement level of the fanbase; two parts of the same argument.

The argument made by some is that the recruiting class is small and poorly ranked compared to last year’s class, but we should still be excited about the transfers. My point was that Cochran and White seem to be immediate impact players, but the rest will require additional time before they may make an exceptional impact.

Ultimately, we missed on guys that it would have been nice to sign. I’m skeptical that signing Pendley, Harris, Scott, and Watson make up for those misses long term.

Regarding Griffin, you continue to make my point. He played behind Gibbs this year, who is a freshman. Unlike Gibbs, Griffin didn’t make an immediate impact as a freshman. If Griffin transfers - I hope he doesn’t - fans at the school he transfers to would be skeptical that he would make an exceptional impact. Similar to my skepticism of the aforementioned transfers we signed, notwithstanding Cochran and White who saw significant playing time at their prior schools.

 

[Buzztheirazz]

Scott was a true freshman who opted out of the season halfway through, anyway. Pendley played some. These guys are coming home because of the pandemic or coaching changes more so than lack of playing time.

Whoa. Easy with the crazy nutty conjecture. These guys are just guna ride the line and take up a perfectly good schollie. <sarcasm off>

 

[jojatk]

The talent level of the transfers correlates with the expected excitement level of the fanbase; two parts of the same argument.

The argument made by some is that the recruiting class is small and poorly ranked compared to last year’s class, but we should still be excited about the transfers. My point was that Cochran and White seem to be immediate impact players, but the rest will require additional time before they may make an exceptional impact.

Ultimately, we missed on guys that it would have been nice to sign. I’m skeptical that signing Pendley, Harris, Scott, and Watson make up for those misses long term.

Regarding Griffin, you continue to make my point. He played behind Gibbs this year, who is a freshman. Unlike Gibbs, Griffin didn’t make an immediate impact as a freshman. If Griffin transfers - I hope he doesn’t - fans at the school he transfers to would be skeptical that he would make an exceptional impact. Similar to my skepticism of the aforementioned transfers we signed, notwithstanding Cochran and White who saw significant playing time at their prior schools.

The four young transfer:

• I agree that they will probably need additional time before they may make an impact. Sounds a lot like the HS seniors coming in. The difference being that those kids have a year or two of conditioning and college coaching. I'm not suggesting those guys are world beaters but I am as happy about them as if they were incoming freshman directly from HS, no more, no less.

Replacing guys we missed on... I could understand if you were undecided or cautiously optimistic or neutral. Skeptical, which has negative connotations vs neutral connotations, I don't get.

• well we missed on Scott last year and have made up for that miss by snagging him this year. Of course I'm being a bit TIC but in looking at the DT position at USCe this year it is filled with upperclassmen except for the true soph who was also rated the #8 player in the country so I'm not surprised Scott couldn't crack that lineup. I like Scott at least as much as Matthews and more than McCoy. I really would have liked to get Ball but I did like Scott a lot last year so I may be guilty of the excitement of getting him make me feel like we did OK replacing the miss on Ball.
• Watson is a bit of a mystery to me as to why the Texas coaches didn't play him much. I tried to find answers among my UT friends and just perusing the interwebs and the best I could find is that the UT coaches got into a cycle of playing three upperclassmen and never broke out of it and perhaps that frustrated Watson and soured his relationship with the coaches. He had actually flashed indications that he would get playing time so I think he may have played a role for UT next year if he had stayed there. Plus he was significantly higher rated than Lassiter, for example.
• Harris to me fills some athleticism we need to go rush the QB. He doesn't fit the DE spot at Bama at all and they have a lot of LBs and the younger kids who have been in the 2-deep during the year that I saw were 5* and high 4* guys. I'm not expecting him to come in here and be a world beater. But I think he represents a lot of athleticism and ability that we don't have on the roster and he's still something of an unknown. So he does excite me as much as if he was a HS senior (especially since he has 4 years of eligibility).
• Pendley to me easily makes up for the loss of Richey. I'll take a guy who's had a chance to mature physically and actually got in a couple of games before redshirting and who still has 4 years of eligibility over a HS senior. Perhaps Richey blows up in college but I feel like we potentially came out ahead on this one. And I'm going to call out my use of the word potentially because that's all this really is. Potential.

I think us hitting the YOUNG kids in the transfer portal extra hard this year was a combination of a perfect storm of events that may not occur again to produce the same type of result OR may be a wave of the future. Meaning that I'm not sure we used the portal strictly to replace misses but as another avenue to recruit players who could give us 4 years. I can see Patrick Suddes and Collins looking at the fact that this year was going to be a freebie for everyone (so it wouldn't count against eligibility), thinking at the time that it was very likely that kids would get immediate eligibility if they transferred (at the time the 1 free transfer rule was looking more and more like it would pass, and it may still do, but already I it's been announced everyone gets immediate eligibility this year), and probably hearing through their grapevines and little birdies that some local kids we had recruited out of HS or would have liked to recruit out of HS were potentially looking elsewhere and getting evil grins on their faces realizing they might have a unique opportunity. Were they contingency plans against losing kids in HS recruiting? Could be. Though maybe not in all cases. I don't know but I could see both happening. And as I said I completely understand not feeling like these guys will step in and immediately make a huge impact. But I don't think any of the guys they were "replacing" would have, either. So since they have 4 years eligibility and I still think they all have terrific potential I'm pleased with their addition vs HS seniors.

 

[Gtswifty81]

The four young transfer:

• I agree that they will probably need additional time before they may make an impact. Sounds a lot like the HS seniors coming in. The difference being that those kids have a year or two of conditioning and college coaching. I'm not suggesting those guys are world beaters but I am as happy about them as if they were incoming freshman directly from HS, no more, no less.

Replacing guys we missed on... I could understand if you were undecided or cautiously optimistic or neutral. Skeptical, which has negative connotations vs neutral connotations, I don't get.

• well we missed on Scott last year and have made up for that miss by snagging him this year. Of course I'm being a bit TIC but in looking at the DT position at USCe this year it is filled with upperclassmen except for the true soph who was also rated the #8 player in the country so I'm not surprised Scott couldn't crack that lineup. I like Scott at least as much as Matthews and more than McCoy. I really would have liked to get Ball but I did like Scott a lot last year so I may be guilty of the excitement of getting him make me feel like we did OK replacing the miss on Ball.
• Watson is a bit of a mystery to me as to why the Texas coaches didn't play him much. I tried to find answers among my UT friends and just perusing the interwebs and the best I could find is that the UT coaches got into a cycle of playing three upperclassmen and never broke out of it and perhaps that frustrated Watson and soured his relationship with the coaches. He had actually flashed indications that he would get playing time so I think he may have played a role for UT next year if he had stayed there. Plus he was significantly higher rated than Lassiter, for example.
• Harris to me fills some athleticism we need to go rush the QB. He doesn't fit the DE spot at Bama at all and they have a lot of LBs and the younger kids who have been in the 2-deep during the year that I saw were 5* and high 4* guys. I'm not expecting him to come in here and be a world beater. But I think he represents a lot of athleticism and ability that we don't have on the roster and he's still something of an unknown. So he does excite me as much as if he was a HS senior (especially since he has 4 years of eligibility).
• Pendley to me easily makes up for the loss of Richey. I'll take a guy who's had a chance to mature physically and actually got in a couple of games before redshirting and who still has 4 years of eligibility over a HS senior. Perhaps Richey blows up in college but I feel like we potentially came out ahead on this one. And I'm going to call out my use of the word potentially because that's all this really is. Potential.

I think us hitting the YOUNG kids in the transfer portal extra hard this year was a combination of a perfect storm of events that may not occur again to produce the same type of result OR may be a wave of the future. Meaning that I'm not sure we used the portal strictly to replace misses but as another avenue to recruit players who could give us 4 years. I can see Patrick Suddes and Collins looking at the fact that this year was going to be a freebie for everyone (so it wouldn't count against eligibility), thinking at the time that it was very likely that kids would get immediate eligibility if they transferred (at the time the 1 free transfer rule was looking more and more like it would pass, and it may still do, but already I it's been announced everyone gets immediate eligibility this year), and probably hearing through their grapevines and little birdies that some local kids we had recruited out of HS or would have liked to recruit out of HS were potentially looking elsewhere and getting evil grins on their faces realizing they might have a unique opportunity. Were they contingency plans against losing kids in HS recruiting? Could be. Though maybe not in all cases. I don't know but I could see both happening. And as I said I completely understand not feeling like these guys will step in and immediately make a huge impact. But I don't think any of the guys they were "replacing" would have, either. So since they have 4 years eligibility and I still think they all have terrific potential I'm pleased with their addition vs HS seniors.

The discussion of transfers and recruits is always interesting. I’m not used to seeing so many freshman transfers as I’m seeing this year. I personally am really excited to see Watson. It seemed like several people at UT felt like he should have been playing more minutes. Harris not cracking Alabama’s lineup doesn’t mean he can’t be a really good player for Tech. Honestly, Tech had too many freshman having to play and it showed. Scott being a true freshman with a shortened spring has barely been in college football and is essentially a recruit. Pendley to me fills a void from the 2019 class which we needed at OL.

We had a few misses with Lassiter, Mathews, and Ball but I don’t feel any worse about our transfers. I’m sure tech could have brought in four 5.5s and our rivals rank would be 24 right now, but I think the odds of finding production are better with these transfers.

 

[takethepoints]

Everything about this post is the same tired, rehashed argument from the Johnson years that recruiting rankings don't matter because they aren't a perfect science. The argument was bunk then and it remains so now.

Also, yeah, guys like White and Cochran transferred because they couldn't see the field. You nailed that take.

Otherwise, to act like players transferred because they couldn't see the field is an argument that would hold water if they were transferring down a level after their junior year or something. That's not what has happened with any of our recruits. All 4 of our recruits I haven't already mentioned were either freshman or true freshmen this year and for the most part freshman aren't expected to play much. They also all happen to be from georgia. To ascribe a motivation of they couldn't see the field for being the reason they transferred back to their home state during a pandemic to a relatively new staff isn't just silly, it really lends me to believe you have an ulterior motive to the argument.

And stinger's entire argument isn't exactly subtle in it's motivation. It mischaracterized the arguments surrounding our current class in order to try and draw a parallel between it and an often criticized aspect of the previous staff first by ignoring about a quarter of our additions and then down playing the significance of them, although that second part is more your contribution which is beyond weird that a fan of GT would try to down play talent additions. Oh. Wait.

Oh, Jeebus.

1. There was no transfer regime like this when Paul was coach so there is no reason to compare the present to his time at Tech.

2. Tthe reason why the players transferred is almost certainly because they didn't think they would see the field at their first choice. Why does anyone think that going back home would make a difference? Does this mean that they won't at Tech? Re-read the post - slowly this time - and see if you can find even a hint that I thought that.

3. I'm real, real sorry that I don't take recruiting rankings for anything but the click-bait they are. So sue me. I go by the results on the field. As many people have pointed out, throughout the entire history of football, that is the only thing that counts. And, as I said, we'll see about that.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I agree. It’s only one thing that counts.

 

[Jacketman99]

Collins is using the portal to fill holes in the roster. It is evident we need help along the lines. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what we or anyone else thinks about the recruiting class or transfers. All that matters is what happens on the field. I look for the transfers in some cases to be immediate starters or at least provide quality depth and become potential starters down the road. Not all will pan out just like not all high school recruits will pan out. Either way I am happy to have any young man that signs up to represent Tech and will be cheering them on each Saturday.

 

[orientalnc]

I don't really care what the recruiting services include in their ratings. These guys joining our program with four years of eligibility are Freshmen in my mind. Some are redshirt Freshmen in the traditional sense because they have four years to get four. Don't we have a couple with five to get four? It's unusual for a Freshman or Sophomore to be in the regular rotation in the OL, so we have plenty of time to develop these big guys.

Another thing. Transfers are now a part of the normal recruiting process in college football. If the services are not going to factor them in, then their ratings and rankings will become less meaningful. And there will be less reason to pay for them.

 

[takethepoints]

Again, I would generally agree, but not this year. I think many of these kids want to get back closer to home. CoViD19 has probably wreaked havoc on these kids. Many realize that being so far from family isn't something they want.

Hadn't thought of that and I should have. You could be right.

 

[WreckinGT]

I don't really care what the recruiting services include in their ratings. These guys joining our program with four years of eligibility are Freshmen in my mind. Some are redshirt Freshmen in the traditional sense because they have four years to get four. Don't we have a couple with five to get four? It's unusual for a Freshman or Sophomore to be in the regular rotation in the OL, so we have plenty of time to develop these big guys.

Another thing. Transfers are now a part of the normal recruiting process in college football. If the services are not going to factor them in, then their ratings and rankings will become less meaningful. And there will be less reason to pay for them.

Of the top 10 teams in recruiting so far there is only one incoming transfer (Bowman to Florida). The top 20 teams only have 6 incoming transfers total. We have 5 by ourselves. I'm not sure this is as big of an issue as we are making it out to be. We just have an abnormally large number of transfers for this year. Hopefully that isn't something we do every year.

 

[mtodd30]

Don’t necessarily think that’s the long term strategy. But like other people have said, I think we’re in a position to benefit from these transfers that are more likely to happen now.

 

[orientalnc]

Of the top 10 teams in recruiting so far there is only one incoming transfer (Bowman to Florida). The top 20 teams only have 6 incoming transfers total. We have 5 by ourselves. I'm not sure this is as big of an issue as we are making it out to be. We just have an abnormally large number of transfers for this year. Hopefully that isn't something we do every year.

Just curious. What is your data source?

 

[jojatk]

Of the top 10 teams in recruiting so far there is only one incoming transfer (Bowman to Florida). The top 20 teams only have 6 incoming transfers total. We have 5 by ourselves. I'm not sure this is as big of an issue as we are making it out to be. We just have an abnormally large number of transfers for this year. Hopefully that isn't something we do every year.

I look at the 6 transfers (If Cochran is coming, if not then it's 5 and the last point below only applies to White) in two groups.

• 4 kids who come in with 4 years of eligibility... I feel like some of this is unique to this year but might become something we look at in other years where we need to fill spots with talented kids who we already know something about. I think most of us will agree that a significant piece of CGC's recruiting strategy is to make the entire experience more enticing. He's banking on the energy and the enthusiasm of ATL and what the kids will see when they come visit to help sell the program. Of course this year that became nearly impossible. So we turned to a source that is probably going to produce more kids with 4 years left than any other year because this year didn't take up any eligibility, not even a redshirt, and that's the transfer portal. Three of the kids are ones we know our coaches either recruited or wanted to recruit in Harris, Watson, and Scott. So they already knew the vibe here. Pendley may not fit this description quite as well but being local he probably knows about what it's like on campus from people he knows and I'm sure he's seen the campus before even if just driving by it. We may never hit the portal in this way so hard again in this way to bring in younger guys... or it might become something we do more often when we hear kids we recruited and really wanted are unhappy and want to come home. I think with this group you are looking at them as kids you still need to develop rather than immediate superstars (except in very rare circumstances), just like many recruits right out of HS
• White and Cochran... these are pretty normal and I wouldn't expect to see more than 1 or 2 when an experienced, talented kid becomes available at a spot we need an infusion of talent and experience through the years. These are kids you expect to be difference makers right away in an area of need.

Does that sound reasonable? I think the first category may be something we keep looking to for kids who can come here and give us 3-4 years of eligibility that we think highly of and are either kids we recruited heavily or are local kids we would have liked.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Of the top 10 teams in recruiting so far there is only one incoming transfer (Bowman to Florida). The top 20 teams only have 6 incoming transfers total. We have 5 by ourselves. I'm not sure this is as big of an issue as we are making it out to be. We just have an abnormally large number of transfers for this year. Hopefully that isn't something we do every year.

Could be we have more room. Not sure about roster sizes for next year when it comes to the NCAA.

 

[WreckinGT]

Just curious. What is your data source?

The individual team pages on 247. They list the signees and the transfers.

 

[orientalnc]

The individual team pages on 247. They list the signees and the transfers.

Thanks.