I have set up a thread on Twitter for people to ask me any questions they might have. I’ll put the longer answers here. 

1. Which recruit would you say you’ve had the most impact in landing? 

I’m going to go way back and say DJ Shockley. That was the pre-social media era, but I was able to get personal and professional email addresses for several of his friends and family members. I sent them several long emails outlining why Shockley should go to UGA and diagramming plays that would utilize his unique talents. I even made an audio clip of me doing a hypothetical Larry Munson call where Shockley would throw a game-winning TD pass to Terrence Edwards to give us a win over Florida. Now, it should be noted that none of them responded (apart from one who just said “Who the hell are you?”), but I’ve got to think those emails played a major role when he eventually selected UGA after leaning heavily to FSU for so long. 

2. If you took over the UGA program as its head coach, and could pick any defensive coordinator in the world, who would you pick? Would you go with your current DC or an established assistant like Mel Tucker? Also, would you go ahead and offer a scholarship to the DT with the Rat Tail ?

This is easy. With all due respect to Tucker, who does a fantastic job as UGA’s DC, I would have to go with my youth football team’s DC. Although he reads and writes at a seventh-grade level, his attention to detail and strategic brilliance are unmatched. He is also the emotional leader of our team and gets the players fired up by headbutting a telephone pole before every game, even though it once resulted in a trip to the hospital and 16 stitches. I would also need UGA to play ball and make an exception to the outdated rule that a college football coach must have a college degree.

The DT with the Rat Tail would immediately become my #1 recruiting target, as I’ve never come across anyone who combines size, speed, intensity, and ruthlessness quite like him. We’re talking about a kid who body-slammed a librarian and (allegedly) superglued another kid’s hands to his head. And he literally would drink gasoline straight from the pump if my DC instructed him to do so. In other words, he pretty much embodies every value I hold dear as a youth football coach. But I would need the admissions office to look the other way. He can read a little, but cannot write anything other than his name, and he struggles with basic math (sometimes he plays offense, and you can’t just say we’re going “on two,” you have to say we’re going on “down, set, hut, hut” so he understands). It’s hard to imagine him qualifying unless we can work some magic with his transcript and get the Piccolo Player to take the SAT/ACT for him.