I don’t understand.

Georgia’s 2010 football recruiting class, even dissected by the most optimistic of Georgia fans like myself, is very unimpressive.

DREW KANN

Why wasn’t 2010 the big recruiting year for Georgia football that it seemed destined to be?

Just last month, concern was brewing in Gainesville over continued revelations about the sub-par health of Florida head coach Urban Meyer.

Lane Kiffin had just pulled a Benedict Arnold-esque act of treason, when he left Tennessee for the sunshine and fertile recruiting pastures of Southern California.

And a grocery list-worth of “five-star” high school football prospects were still busy sifting through their piles of scholarship offers and recruitment letters, unsure whether they would still look as sharp wearing purple and gold as that LSU recruiter promised they would last weekend.

With the consistent leadership the Bulldogs have had for the last nine seasons from Mark Richt and the recent professional success of Georgia alums, why wouldn’t a talented football player want to play at Georgia?

The answer, I fear, is that in the minds of many recruits, those things no longer matter.

Many, including Mark Richt, have pointed to the uncertainty that surrounded Georgia during the search for a new defensive coordinator.

But when Georgia’s situation is compared to the nightmare that unfolded in the wake of Kiffin’s departure from Tennessee, combined with the fact that by most recruiting experts evaluations, the Vols still outperformed Georgia on Signing Day, that point becomes null and void.

Personally, I don’t think Richt and other Georgia recruiters are telling high school prospects what they want to hear.

Consider this: four of Florida’s last five recruiting classes have finished ranked in Rivals.com’s top-five classes. I don’t have nearly enough fingers to begin to count how many all-state, nationally-ranked football recruits have been a part of each of those classes.

Considering that on average, only around 55 players will even step on the field in any given Division-1 football game, the vast majority of those prized freshmen recruits will spend their first, and maybe even second seasons watching from the sidelines on Saturday’s.

Do you think Urban Meyer mentions this realty to his “five-star” recruits? I’d be willing to bet not.

As national recruiting analyst for Rivals.com Barry Every explained to me, “I’ve been in this business since 1994 or 1995. Kids want to hear what they want to hear, so if there are coaches out there telling them exactly what they want to hear, unfortunately that’s where they have a tendency to go. Unfortunately, I don’t think Coach Richt really bends the truth a whole lot like a lot of other people do in the SEC.”

It’s unfortunate really, but maybe this is what college football recruiting has come to: a little bending of the truth here, a few empty promises there.

Maybe Richt understands that much about recruiting in 2010. Maybe he doesn’t. Or maybe he’s just refusing to play along.

Either way, I’m convinced that if we don’t start playing along, we will get left behind.

— Drew Kann is a sports writer for The Red & Black