Penn State players, will they come to Athens

There has been a lot of speculation about whether UGA would try to bring in some Penn State players, now that the NCAA has basically delivered them the death penalty while still allowing them to play football. I have read/heard that Lane Kiffen flew across the country yesterday to meet with Silas Redd, probably the best player on the PSU roster, a running back that could come in and start for many schools in the country. Redd might be headed to SoCal for a visit this weekend and if so, look for him to be the first of the PSU players to officially leave the school and take advantage of their opportunity granted by the NCAA, free to transfer to any school and be eligible IMMEDIATELY, instead of the normal transfer rule of sitting out a year. Now, back to UGA and who they might be interested in. My first thought is OL, potentially guys from the secondary, and also PSU has a pretty good and reliable PK. Yes, we signed a great kicker in the class of 2012 but a veteran kicker might be someone to take a look at. Also you have to keep in mind, one HUGE advantage UGA has in this process is we just hired John Thomas, a guy that spent the last 20 years working as strength coach at Penn State. So, other than incoming FR players, this guy KNOWS every player in that program and thus can advise our coaches which kid(s) might be the best to go after. Course you have to factor in whether a kid would want to come so far south to play, as just like UGA, Penn State tends to recruit its own state and bordering states primarily. But, as Coach Richt has said, they are at least going to explore the opportunties out there, as we have space to take some kids. Since Coach Richt said he and staff have looked at the PSU two deep depth chart, here is a list of some players I could see us expressing interest in. Now, I have no idea if these kids would be interested nor do I know if the NCAA has placed a restriction on how many players a school can take. I have read that any school could only take 2 max but I am not sure that is accurate at all. It is also true that all players actually have until 2013 to transfer and still play immediately so many people believe that most the Penn State kids will stay and rally around each other for this year-especially the senior players that have invested so much time into that program. That being said, here are the kids I think we might be looking at-

Khairi Fortt-LB, UGA recruited him hard and he was down to UGA/Penn State. He is from Stamford, CT. We have depth at LB for sure but this kid is good enough to go after.
Adrian Amos-CB, this kid is only a soph but has the size at corner we need and we are short there with suspensions. He is from Baltimore, MD.
Matt Stankiewitch-C, David Andrews is a going to be a good player for us but this particular kid would be an upgrade on the OL for this year-this is unlikely to happen as this kid is a SR and is from in state.
Anthony Fera-kid made 14 FG's last year, decent kicker but again is a SR but he is from Texas.

In looking at the Penn State two deep, what is amazing is the experience they have-which to me means I think less players will transfer than most might have thought-out of 44 on the two deep, here is how it breaks down by class-

SR-26
JR-11
Soph-7

So after initially being excited about UGA potentially getting some kids to help us for 2012, I am having more doubt that much of anything will happen. However, if we could grab a couple of defenders for NEXT year, I think certainly that would be beneficial since we stand to lose so many defensive players after this year is over. We are going to sign a big recruiting class for 2013, so again we have numbers on our side whether we add the PSU kids this year or next year.

Players report to camp August 1st (I read today it is actually July 30th so I will have to dig deeper to find out the exact date), first practice is August 2nd. In case you don't have a calendar handy, that is NEXT WEEK, less than a week until the first practice. Football season is just around the corner folks. Now we have to hope that fall camp will be successful on the injury front. With our numbers down as it is, with some suspensions looming, we can ill afford to lose kids to injury during preseason practice. Let's just hope that we can get some hitting/physical work in but not have any serious injuries.

On a personal note, my son's 8 year old team has started football practice already. Wow, is it HOT out there for the boys, and for us that are coaching them. I am not quite sure why they start football so early but let's be honest, July and August in Georgia, it is just plain HOT so unless they push it back to Sept, there is no way to avoid the heat. Happy to report we have had very little issue with the heat, we give them water, we work them hard but the boys have been troopers and there has been very little complaining about the hot weather. I hope everyone has a great weeekend and as always, GO DOGS!