Georgia’s concern behind, or what’s not behind, its top two quarterbacks

Georgia has two talented scholarship quarterbacks on its 2017 roster.

But behind Jacob Eason and Jake Fromm are walk-ons. Beyond that, there are no commitments at the position in the recruiting classes of 2018 and 2019.

Not a whole lot of top-tier quarterbacks drag their recruitments out. Nine of the top 10 quarterbacks in 2018, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings, have already given their verbal commitments. Three of the top four — No. 1 Trevor Lawrence (Clemson), No. 3 Justin Fields (Penn State) and No. 4 Emory Jones (Ohio State) — are in-state prospects who have chosen to leave the state of Georgia.

The Bulldogs would like to land two scholarship-level quarterbacks in this year’s class. Thus far, they have zero.

It has left the Bulldogs in a precarious spot when it comes to the future of the position after Eason and Fromm.

“They are actively recruiting hard,” 247Sports.com recruiting analyst Rusty Mansell said. “It doesn’t take a lot to see that they’ve put out a lot of new offers. It’s a double-edged sword. They got two really good quarterbacks. But you only got two and some walk-ons. It’s gotta be concerning to Georgia.”

Given that both Eason and Fromm are pro-style quarterbacks, Mansell said Georgia will probably recruit dual-threat quarterbacks in this year’s class. One potential pitch would be that Georgia doesn’t have a dual-threat quarterback on its roster and could use players of that playing style to mix things up.

One dual-threat quarterback Georgia recently offered is Central Gwinnett’s Jarren Williams, who announced his decommitment from Kentucky. But Georgia’s offer might have been a tad too late for this fast-rising three-star prospect.

“I haven’t gotten the chance to build relationships with those guys, so I would have to have conversations with the coaches,” Williams told The Telegraph last week. “I haven’t had the chance to visit campus, either, so right now, (Georgia) is not really (in contention).”

Mansell said the chance of Georgia landing Williams is slim, with Kentucky, Florida and Florida State being the ones to watch with his recruitment.

More than likely, the 2018 recruiting class will feature two sleeper-type quarterbacks who have the ability to run. With Georgia unable to secure a known top talent, evaluating the position will be crucial at its summer camp this summer.

“They’re going to have to make a lot of evaluations on rising seniors,” Mansell said. “They’re probably going to have a lot of quarterbacks on campus in early June.”

The other problem Georgia will have at quarterback is that, at this time, none of the elite-level quarterbacks in the 2019 class are in-state.

That means after deciding on a couple of sleeper-level quarterbacks in 2018, Georgia will be forced to recruit nationally for an upper-echelon quarterback the year after.

And if Georgia is to land a top-10 2019 quarterback, it will be forced to span the entire country. Eight of the top-10 2019 quarterbacks are located outside of the Southeast, with three in Texas (No. 2 Grant Gunnell, No. 6 Roschon Johnson, No. 7 Grant Tisdale), two in California (No. 1 JT Daniels, No. 8 Hank Bachmeier), one in Arizona (No. 3 Spencer Rattler), one in Oregon (No. 4 Michael Johnson Jr.) and one in Iowa (No. 9 Max Duggan). Two top-10 quarterbacks, No. 5 Bo Nix and No. 10 Taulia Tagovailoa, are located in Alabama. But Nix is the son of former Auburn quarterback Patrick Nix and Tagovailoa’s brother Tua Tagovailoa is on the Alabama football team.

Georgia, however, hasn’t historically had a problem plucking players from other states. Matthew Stafford grew up in Texas, Aaron Murray was raised in Florida, and Eason’s home state is Washington.

In the short term, with Eason and Fromm on the roster, Georgia will be fine at quarterback. But the Bulldogs are in need of finding a few prospects in the coming classes who can keep the offense rolling after both of those players end their collegiate careers.

“They got their work cut out for them with this,” Mansell said.

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Georgia’s concern behind, or what’s not behind, its top two quarterbacks."