ESPN is grading our offseason based on portal hauls and recruiting stars and I just keep going back to something. You remember the 1997 Outback Bowl when we ran it down the middle on Wisconsin with Robert Edwards and Hines Ward taking snaps? That team did not have a single five-star recruit on the roster. Bobo was a walk-on. Champ Bailey was the only guy anybody outside of Georgia had heard of. And we punched them in the mouth for 60 minutes because those kids had been in the system for three years learning how to block and tackle the right way.
Now we are supposed to get excited about what grade we got for buying players in December? I saw the new TE we landed and sure the kid can run routes but can he seal the edge on a power run in November against LSU? That is what I want to know. Coach Goff used to say you build a program in January through July not through the portal. He was right. We won the 2002 SEC Championship because guys like Boss Bailey and Jon Stinchcomb stayed four years and knew what it meant to wear the G.
NIL killed loyalty and the portal is ruining the sport. You cannot tell me a kid who transfers twice knows how to handle a third and long in a hostile environment the way a fourth year guy does. We will see what happens when the leaves start falling but I am not holding my breath on these offseason rankings meaning a thing.