Quotes from Signing Day 2010

Signing Day 2010 has come and gone. As the Georgia Nation moves on to the next big event, spring practice, here is a collection of my favorite quotes from this year's signing day.

Richt at Butts-Mehre

Coach Richt on how great players can come from unexpected places:
“Tra Battle was a walk-on, and he starts in our nickel package as a freshman. We offered Tim Jennings a scholarship the night before Signing Day — he was going to South Carolina State — because we’d seen him in an all-star game and he was the best player on the field.”

Coach Right on moving to the 3-4 defense:
“We're very confident and trying to do the right thing. We're also confident in that a lot of NFL teams and college teams are moving toward this trend, so we're moving to the front end of this trend."

Rodney Garner on why Georgia signed a smaller class:
“We could have gone out and possibly signed other guys and fulfilled that number if we just wanted to meet a quota. But we felt good about the nucleus that we put together, and we felt like at this point we wanted to stay status quo and be able to evaluate to make sure that going into the future, we'll be able to have the personnel in place that's going to fit with the scheme coach (Todd) Grantham wants to run, so I think strategically we made some decisions on where we wanted to stop the number."

Buck Belue on how he felt about the recruiting process as a high school senior:
“Strangers making big promises were never for me. I was scared off by that.”

Bacarri Rambo, via Facebook, on the Da’Rick Rogers decision:
"Bacarri Rambo thinks is messed up how all of UGA high school commitments back out on us but I'm telling you now when I catch you on the field I'm going to knock fire from you."

Rogers can ask Mario Fannin what it feels like to get drilled by Rambo coming across the middle.

Jakar Hamilton’s reaction to Bacarri’s promise of a big hit:
"It's going to happen. Especially if he's going to play right off the bat. I just hope he's ready for it, because there's going to be a lot of people on the hit for him on this team."


Coach Richt on Richard Samuel’s move to linebacker:
"He was anxious to make that move and we’re going to see how that works out."

Samuel can now focus his attention on making tackle instead of avoiding them.

Perry High School head coach talking about Wilcox WR Lonnie Outlaw who signed with Georgia:

"Lonnie Outlaw makes Fred Gibson look like a girl. He’s the most demoralizing player I have ever coached against. We triple-covered him, and he still caught everything. "

Let's Get to Know: Jakar Hamilton

With the start of spring classes in Athens, Georgia officially welcomed two new members of the Bulldog nation. Offensive lineman Kolton Houston and junior college safety Jakar Hamilton enrolled early and will be with the Dawgs when they begin spring practice in March. Houston will be a true freshman and with a veteran line returning in '10, is most likely headed for a redshirt season. Hamilton on the other hand is expected to compete for one of the open safety positions left by the graduation of Bryan Evans and the decision by Reshad Jones to leave early for the NFL.

Hamilton will be starting his SEC career two years later than oiginally planned. Hamilton originally committed to the University of South Carolina as part of the class of 2007 following a stellar career at Strom Thurmond High School (Johnston, SC). During high school, Hamilton played defense and offense, where he was a scoring machine during his junior season in 2005 scoring 20 touchdowns. He led his team to the state championship that year, but missed most of his senior year to injury. Academic issues ultimately led Hamilton away from South Carolina. He spent the following two seasons at Georgia Military College, where he quickly became a Junior College All-American. During his two seasons at GMC, Hamilton totaled 88 tackles and 6 interceptions playing primarily safety.

Jakar comes to Athens after choosing Georgia over Alabama, making his announcement at the Wild Wing Cafe in Augusta. (You can watch the video here.) Hamilton will have two years of eligibility left to display his talents. He is described as a physical safety who excels in run support and is known for making big tackles. The only knock on Hamilton appears to be his coverage skills, so hopefully new DB coach Scott Lakatos can help him improve in that area.

Hamilton wore #10 during his playing days at GMC. Hopefully he can live up to the last Dawg that wore #10 at safety, Thomas Davis.

Go Dawgs!!!