By: Jeff Doke

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

On early signing day this year, the University of Georgia once again racked up some serious commitments.

The Dawgs are currently the #3 recruiting class for the year, behind Texas A&M and Alabama.

The majority of the top signees were on the defensive side of the ball – including the much-heralded Marvin Jones, Jr. – but arguably the top prospect was five-star in-state QB Gunner Stockton.

Normally, a top-rated signal-caller signing with your school would be cause for hope, if not outright celebration. For Georgia fans in the Kirby Smart era, it’s cause for measured concern.

The University of Georgia has had five 5-star quarterback commits in their locker room since Kirby Smart took over between the hedges in in December of 2015; Jacob Eason, Justin Fields, JT Daniels, Brock Vandagriff, and the previously mentioned Stockton.

For someone not familiar with UGA football, this statistic looks amazing. One would think that the offense over the last six seasons would have been stellar. While the Dawgs have put up decent offensive numbers – and have improved every year over the last three – they haven’t been coming from those highly-touted players.

To a large number of UGA fans, therein lies the greatest concern they have with Coach Smart.

The story of Jake Fromm is well known in Georgia lore. He took over for the injured Eason in 2017 and never looked back, taking the Dawgs to the National Championship Game.

Eason would transfer after that season. In 2018, Fromm held off the advances of Fields (and the cries from Dawg Nation to give Fields more snaps), contributing significantly to the latter’s transfer to Ohio State.

One four-star dispensing of two five-stars. One must wonder if history is repeating itself and must worry if it can repeat itself again in the future.

JT Daniels was supposed to be the starter this year. Coach Smart said it multiple times in the offseason, and the fact that Daniels was healthy had many mentioning him in early Heisman talk.

Alas, he didn’t stay healthy, and his status as starter was brief. Stetson Bennett’s performance has been well-documented for both good and bad throughout the year, and the fact that with Daniels and Vandagriff on the sidelines leads many to question Coach Smart’s decision process when it comes to his field generals.

Regardless of what happens in the Michigan matchup in the Orange Bowl and beyond, Coach Smart will have some big decisions to make for 2022.

With the arrival of Stockton, Daniels and Bennett still having a year of eligibility left, and Vandagriff and Carson Beck still on scholarship, the Georgia Quarterback room will be a crowded one.

With the NCAA installing a one-time limit on the transfer portal, and Bennett’s well-documented love of all things red & black, you would expect “The Mailman” and JT to still be around next year unless they decide to test the waters in the NFL draft.

Honestly, I don’t see either of them doing so after this season. Do Beck and Vandagriff hang around? Hard to say.

Don’t get me wrong; I love what Kirby Smart has done for football at UGA. I love what Stetson Bennett has done this year, save for the SEC Championship, obviously. The fact that our quarterback situation is an embarrassment of riches is a problem that 99.44% of all CFB programs would love to have.

Kirby Smart knows how to recruit quarterbacks. He has shown it multiple times in his tenure in the Classic City and continues to show it with the rising 2022 class of recruits.

To me, the big question that I really don’t want to ask is “why?”

And it’s a question I’m fine with not having the answer to.