Georgia is on the verge of losing a five-star quarterback, the biggest name and jewel of its recruiting class. And the reaction here is … meh?
Maybe a flip attitude about Dylan Raiola bailing on Georgia will, down the line, prove laughable. Maybe Raiola will end up being a great quarterback whose absence dearly costs the Bulldogs. Maybe this will become part of a worrisome trend, the month the would-be Georgia dynasty turned, on and then off the field.
But right now it seems like a bigger recruiting story than it is a Georgia story.
Of course Georgia wants to keep Raiola. That’s why Kirby Smart, Mike Bobo and this staff pursued him so heavily in the first place, even when they already had and liked another quarterback in the class. That’s why as of this writing the staff is still working to keep him, per sources close to the program, with the knowledge that Raiola visiting Nebraska this weekend, with signing day next week, does not bode well. Losing any big-time prospect, especially a quarterback, would sting. But it’s hard to think of this as a major, program-changing event.
Not when Georgia just won two national championships with a former walk-on at quarterback.
Not when the same program just had another unbeaten regular season with a former four-star recruit, who ranked No. 250 overall in the 2020 class.
And not when, since Smart became head coach, he has seen four other five-star quarterbacks — Jacob Eason, Justin Fields, JT Daniels and Brock Vandagriff — transfer after being beat out by Jake Fromm, Fromm again, Stetson Bennett and Carson Beck, none of whom were consensus five-stars. Fromm was the closest.
Georgia is a program that keeps trying to win with the elite quarterback recruit, then keeps winding up with the underdog, then keeps winning anyway.
In the past two years, Georgia has had eight players go in the first round of the NFL Draft. None of them were quarterbacks. It has had 25 players drafted overall, with Bennett the only quarterback, in the fourth round. The position is critical but not the one the program revolves around. It’s a key cog, no doubt, which is why Beck returning for next season would be so important. Because the way Beck played this year, and the way Bennett played the previous two years, was so important, after they developed, and as they used the ample talent around them.
One might argue — because some are — that Raiola, or a great quarterback prospect like him, could take the offense to another level. Like, say, top five nationally in passing offense? Well, that was Georgia this year. Or top 10 in scoring and total offense? Well, that was Georgia in each of the past three years.
If Georgia can do all that with Bennett and Beck, it can do it with Ryan Puglisi, the other quarterback commit in the 2024 class.
Yes, we’re still a long ways from that actually happening. The first priority for Georgia is holding on to Beck for 2024, then turning the reins over to Gunner Stockton, Puglisi or whoever is added eventually via the portal or traditional recruiting. Maybe that still ends up being Raiola, if Georgia can pull off a last-ditch effort to keep him. If not, it’s setting up Puglisi or Stockton to be the next underdog story at quarterback.
Puglisi, a four-star from Connecticut, committed to Georgia in October 2022, and when Georgia pursued and landed Raiola eight months later many figured Puglisi’s decommitment would follow. But he stuck to it, and here we are.
The biggest beneficiary of the last week of news may be Stockton, the top-50 overall recruit in the 2022 class who served as the third-string quarterback the past two years, figures to be No. 2 in 2024 and could end up being the next Beck: the quarterback who sticks around, learns and develops. Georgia doing that with two consecutive starters at a time when every quarterback seems to be a transfer would be a sentimental nod to a seemingly bygone era.
Raiola is very good. But this flip, if it happens, would hurt Georgia less than it would help Nebraska. In fact, one could argue it would be better for college football.
Nebraska is the once-powerful program, still with a rabid fan base, that pinned so many of its hopes on getting Raiola. Getting him back wouldn’t automatically vault the Cornhuskers back into Big Ten contention, but it would bring more excitement and relevance. Whatever you think of Deion Sanders and how his first season at Colorado ended, he made that program relevant again, and the more that happens at different programs around the country, the better it is for the sport.
That doesn’t mean Georgia should just stand aside and let it happen. Smart didn’t get to three national championship games with an “oh well” mentality. The inability to hold on to elite quarterbacks has been frustrating for Georgia fans.
But the program of Bennett, Beck and Fromm can with a straight and honest face say: Eh, it’ll be OK.
(Photo: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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