Sugar Bowl: Garner talks recruiting

ATLANTA – Rodney Garner spoke with the media before one of Georgia’s Sugar Bowl practices.

How much time before the practices did you get to think about next year – how dire is the defensive line situation going to be for you?

Rodney Garner: I think about it quite often. Obviously with the amount of guys that we are losing on the front seven, we know that we have to get that addressed pretty quickly. We need some guys in the program to step up, and mature, and become the players that we thought they would be. We also need to be able to sign some guys that can come in and make some contributions to us early next year.

Do you have a gut feeling on Quentin (Moses leaving school)?

No. I think he just wants to see what they say and make and evaluation. He’s a pretty sharp guy, and he got a good family support system, so I don’t think he’ll make a half-informed decision.

A lot of schools getting their recruiting done before their bowl games – why do you see that trend?

I don’t know. It’s something that’s been going on up North for different reasons, for long time. Its something we’ve not experienced in the South – I think they like for it to on a little longer and to be wined and dined. I think now with all the pressure and the Internet and all of the attention that they received, I think they just get beat down and get tired of it. You’ve got four or five recruiting services calling these kids every night and it gets old – I really think it does. Its not the coaches wearing the kids out it’s the other people.

What are the areas that you need to finish up with – the positions?

We’d like to get a couple more defensive linemen – an inside guy and an end. We’d like to get a running back, a receiver, a linebacker and a defensive back – a little bit of everything.

How important is a running back – I mean y’all in the situation where three guys are in the same class and are pretty established; that has to be a pretty tough spot for y’all to recruit.

It’s a tough spot, but we really would like to sign a running back because we didn’t sign a back last season and if you go two years without signing anyone then you’ve got yourself in a tough situation. Hopefully we will be able to attract one, but we don’t just want to sign “a guy”; that’s the thing that we are trying to avoid. We are trying to avoid taking a guy just to take one. Then you start getting overloaded at a position.

This class has been in the bad for a while, and that seems to take away from the excitement, but you’ve got to feel pretty good about what you’ve got.

I don’t know if it’s all in the bag – I think there are some guys that committed to us early, but still a commitment is not binding. A lot of times that can just start the recruiting process.

How many more commitments do you think you’ll have?

Maybe eight tops. Eight as a top number Six or eight – somewhere around there.