January 30, 2012, by Chip Towers

Georgia conducted its first successful flip of the recruiting period on Monday as Sheldon Dawson announced his intention to sign with the Bulldogs on Wednesday.

Sheldon Dawson is built in the mode of Brandon Boykin and “did it all” for Ridgeway High in Memphis, according to coach Duron Sutton. (Photo by 247Sports.com)

“I have committed to Georgia,” Dawson, a 5-foot-11, 178-pound athlete from Ridgeway High School in Memphis, Tenn, said Monday night. “I did it about an hour ago.”

Dawson had been committed to play for his hometown team, the University of Memphis, since July of last summer. But he re-opened his recruitment after the school fired head coach Larry Porter. He chose UGA over Ole Miss and he also considered Arkansas and Cincinnati.

“It just felt like a better fit for me,” Dawson said. “It was like a do over for me, a place to start over. I started from scratch and that’s the place I wanted to go.”

Dawson becomes commitment No. 17 for the Bulldogs. Georgia hopes to secure at least five recruits more during the national signing period, which begins Wednesday. Several of those targets are currently committed to other schools, including Cedar Grove offensive lineman Brandon Greene (Alabama), Sandy Creek wide receiver JaQuay Williams (Auburn) and Tucker defensive end Josh Dawson (Vanderbilt). They’re also awaiting word from outside linebacker Josh Harvey-Clemons of Valdosta, offensive lineman Avery Young of Palm Beach Gardens and wide receiver Codarrelle Patterson of Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.

Georgia was one of the first teams in after Porter’s dismissal and Dawson took an official visit to Athens in December. The Bulldogs have pretty much led ever since, despite a late push by Ole Miss and new coach Hugh Freeze.

Dawson’s original commitment to Memphis was considered a major coup for the Tigers. He is the consensus No. 1 prospect in Tennessee. 247Sports.com gives him a four-star rating and considers him the No. 8 cornerback in America while Scout.com also has him has as a four-star and considers him No. 11 in the nation at the position. Rivals.com and ESPN both rate him with three stars.  Dawson had well over 20 offers and almost all were from BCS schools such as Ohio State, Tennessee, Louisville, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and the like.

Georgia’s biggest selling point for Dawson is the opportunity to play both ways. He’s expected to play cornerback or safety for the Bulldogs but has been told he’ll be given the opportunity to return kicks and may also get some snaps on offense. Dawson reportedly has 4.4-second, 40-yard speed and is an almost identical physical match to the recently-departed Brandon Boykin, who won the Hornung Award playing two ways for the Bulldogs.

“Everybody on the team said I remind them of Brandon Boykin,” Dawson said.

“You’ve already seen how they would use him,” Ridgeway coach Duron Sutton said. “You’ve seen the way they use that Boykin kid on offense and defense. I think they feel like he would be a perfect fit for that role.”

Dawson is scheduled to make his formal announcement at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday with teammates at his school.

GEORGIA 2012 COMMITMENTS

1. DT John Atkins (6-4, 300), Thomson
2. P Collin Barber (6-2, 191), Cartersville
3. QB Faton Bauta (6-3, 225), West Palm Beach, Fla.
4. OL Mark Beard (6-4, 290), Coffeyville (Kan.) CC/Adamsville, Ala.
5. ATH Sheldon Dawson (5-11, 178), Memphis, Tenn.
6. DL James Deloach (6-3, 260), Jenkins Co.
7. DE Leonard Floyd (6-4, 215), Dodge Co.
8. RB Todd Gurley (6-1, 195), Tarburo, NC
9. FB Quayvon Hicks (6-2, 245), Pierce Co.
10. OLB Jordan Jenkins (6-3, 245), Harris Co.
11. RB Keith Marshall (5-11, 190), Raleigh, N.C.
12. PK Marshall Morgan (6-3, 195), Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
13. OL Greg Pyke (6-6, 315), Baltimore, Md.
14. TE Ty Smith (6-3, 228), Colquitt Co.
15. DL Jonathan Taylor (6-4, 315), Jenkins Co.
16. OT John Theus (6-6, 292), Jacksonville, Fla.
17. WR Blake Tibbs (6-2, 185), M.L. King

Posted by John Taylor

Ah, the lengths coaches will go to in their efforts to land a top recruit.

Josh Harvey-Clemons is a five-star player in the Class of 2012, rated as the No. 2 “athlete” in the country and the top player in the state of Georgia. Along with Florida, late-surging Florida State and Miami — he’s taking a visit there this Saturday, the final weekend before signing day — Georgia is considered one of the front-runners and would, obviously, love to keep the top-rated player in the state home.

As part of that effort, head coach Mark Richt and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo paid a visit to Harvey-Clemons Wednesday night, taking in a Baptist church service with the linebacker/wide receiver’s family. During the course of that service, Harvey-Clemons’ grandfather and legal guardian Woodrow Clemons, owner of a bail bondsman’s company, received a call that three individuals needed his services in order to get out of jail post-haste.

Harvey-Clemons and Clemons’ daughter, the player’s aunt, are also bail bondsmen and left church to go spring the individuals. Richt initially decided to stay but, after Harvey-Clemons’ aunt forgot her ID in a vehicle at the church, Harvey-Clemons’ uncle Roy Hart told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Coach Richt and Coach Bobo went to jail with my wife to take the ID to them. Coach Richt wanted one more time to talk with Josh before they hit the road. They talked at jail for about 20 or 30 minutes I guess.”

Ever the recruiter, Richt returned to the church following his trip to jail and, as he was saying the obligatory goodbyes, attempted to gauge where his program stood in its pursuit of Harvey-Clemons.

“Coach Richt said ‘Tell me Roy, how do we look with Josh?’” Hart said. “I said ‘Coach, you’re in the running. Nobody really knows except for Josh. He’s not saying much. He hasn’t made up his mind so nobody knows except for him.’ Then Coach Richt asked if Georgia was still looking good and if they still had an opportunity to get him. I assured him that they did.”

While Harvey-Clemons is taking his final official visit to the Hurricanes this weekend, it’s believed his top two choices are the Bulldogs and Gators. Based on the latter’s legal history over the past few years, having a recruit who also doubles as a bail bondsman could come in very, very handy for the Gainesville school.

MOBILE — Former Georgia punter Drew Butler has heard some war stories this week about his father, Kevin Butler, who played 13 seasons in the NFL.

The younger Butler is set to punt and hold on field goals and extra points for the South squad in the 63rd annual Senior Bowl at 4 p.m. Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

“Some guys actually scouted my dad,” Butler said. “Some guys have coached my dad. Coach [Mike] Singletary and coach [Leslie] Frazier on the Minnesota Vikings staff played with him.

“So there are a lot of connections for sure. Some of them feel old because they are scouting me and they scouted my dad. It’s cool. It all kind of comes full circle, and that’s definitely exciting.”

Butler, who played at Peachtree Ridge High, averaged 45.2 yards per punt at Georgia. He’s the second rated punter in the senior class by ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper. California’s Bryan Anger is the top rated punter.

“My dad laid out such a good framework for me to build upon,” Butler said. “Having the opportunities that I had at Georgia and being able to capitalize on them was a huge blessing.”

The Falcons drafted Matt Bosher in the sixth round of the 2011 draft. He was the only punter selected. A lot of NFL teams like to sign punters as free agents. Butler hopes to show teams that he’s worthy of being drafted.

“I think my career, in and of itself, has proven that I’m worth spending a draft pick on,” Butler said. “I’ve been a consistent performer for three years. I’ve proven that I’m able to do whatever a coach has asked me to do: directional kick, kick it high, pin somebody inside the 20 and kick it long to get us out of a jam.

“That’s one of my strengths as a punter. I look at this week as a cherry on top of a good career.”

Morris not sitting type

Washington defensive backs coach Raheem Morris, who recently was fired as Tampa Bay’s head coach, didn’t consider not coaching next season.

“I am a coach,” Morris said. “There is no sitting out in my game. I love and enjoy the grass. I’ll have plenty of time to sit down and rest at the end of this thing. Right now, I’m going to enjoy it.”

Weeden shining

Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden has separated himself as the top quarterback at the Senior Bowl.

San Diego State’s Ryan Lindley and Arizona’s Nick Foles are the other quarterbacks for the South team.

Boise State’s Kellen Moore, Wisconsin’s Russell Wilson and Michigan State’s Kirk Cousins are the North quarterbacks.

Weeden, 28, was a second-round pick of the New York Yankees in 2002. He played professional baseball before starting his football career in 2007 at Oklahoma State.

“Brandon Weeden, I think people are eventually going to try to get past that age thing,” NFL Network analyst Charles Davis said. “I don’t hear the talk about that any more. This kid can play. He’s the best quarterback on the South team by far.”

AUBURN, Alabama — Heisman Trophy, national champion, Pro Bowl quarterback and now NFL Rookie of the Year.

10:10 am January 24, 2012, by D. Orlando Ledbetter

FAIRHOPE, Ala – Georgia cornerback Brandon Boykin had a strong first practice for the South team on Monday.

He drew praise for WashingtonRedskins defensive back coach Raheem Morris (formerly of the Tampa Bay Bucs) after breaking up one pass.

“Nice job Boykin, way to get down hill,” Morris said.

Boykin has interviewed with seven teams already, including the Falcons, Carolina and Philadelphia.

He felt his first day of practice went well.

“I was kind of getting acclimated back in that football shape,” Boykin said. “It was my first time putting the pads on in about a month.”

He had seven to eight interivews already. He’s chatted with the Falcons, Carolina and Philadelphia.

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

Truly great leaders are measured by the lives they reached, the people they motivated and the legacy of their lesson that can extend for years to come, like ripples from a skipped stone across an endless lake.

For Joe Paterno, the impact is incalculable, the people he connected with extending far beyond the players he coached for 62 years at Penn State, the last 46 as head football coach. Paterno always tried to be the giant who walked among the everyman both in the school’s greatest moments and, it turns out, in its worst.

Joe Paterno died Sunday at a State College, Pa., hospital. He was 85.
(AP)

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Paterno died Sunday at a State College, Pa., hospital, suffering in his final days from lung cancer, broken bones and the fallout of a horrific scandal that not only cost him his job, but also his trademark vigor and a portion of his good name. He was 85 years old.

This is a complicated passing. What was once the most consistent and basic of messages – honor, ethics and education – seemingly lived out as close to its ideal as possible was rocked Nov. 5, 2011, when a grand jury indicted Paterno’s former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, of multiple counts of sexual abuse of children.

Many, including Penn State’s Board of Trustees, believed Paterno could have and should have done more to stop Sandusky, especially after allegations of misconduct arose in 2002. Within days Paterno was fired from the program and school to which he’d become synonymous.

Now, a little more than two months later, he’s gone for good, a bitter, brutal ending for an American original.

He was the winningest college football coach of all time, compiling a 409-136-3 record. He won national titles in 1982 and 1986 and recorded four other undefeated seasons, including consecutively in 1968 and 1969.

He was a bridge from a simpler time to the cutthroat business college football has become, somehow serving as both a progressive force (he believed in players’ rights, a playoff system and welcomed advancements in television) and a stubborn traditionalist (the Penn State uniforms remained basic, he never learned how to send a text message and he still used old-school discipline).

[ Yahoo! Sports Radio: Pat Forde on Joe Paterno’s legacy]

In 2007, when a group of his players got into a fight at a party, Paterno determined it would best if the entire team had to clean Beaver Stadium after home games. “I think that we need to prove to people that we’re not a bunch of hoodlums,” he said at the time.

That was Paterno at his best, this singular figure offering simple lessons. He was the rock. He was the constant. He was the conscience. He was JoePa, his nickname suggesting a fatherly quality to not just his players, not just Penn State students who could still find his number listed in the local phone book and not just Nittany Lions football fans.

He was a larger-than-life figure in the small, bucolic town of State College, and if you wanted to draw something good and decent from college football, well, here’s where you always could. Don’t worry, he’d still be there, as unchanged as ever.

He gave millions of dollars back to the school – the library is named after him and his wife, Sue. He raised millions more at speaking engagements across the country. He encouraged vibrant alumni to take incredible pride in their university, unusual for many state schools in the east. Yet he was still this guy out of Brooklyn, with a thick accent and even thicker glasses. He was humble. He was approachable.

[ Related: Joe Paterno’s coaching timeline ]

It seemed, for anyone who wanted to believe, that he provided perspective amid the circus.

“We’re trying to win football games, don’t misunderstand that,” Paterno told Sports Illustrated’s Dan Jenkins in 1968, when he was just 41. “But I don’t want it to ruin our lives if we lose. I don’t want us ever to become the kind of place where an 8-2 season is a tragedy. Look at that day outside. It’s clear, it’s beautiful, the leaves are turning, the land is pretty and it’s quiet. If losing a game made me miserable, I couldn’t enjoy such a day.

“I tell the kids who come here to play, enjoy yourselves. There’s so much besides football. Art, history, literature, politics.”

That this attitude would come from the guy who would win the most games ever was part of the charm, as if Paterno was running a ruse on everyone chasing him all those crisp autumns. He was playing chess, they were getting check-mated.

No, the full truth never squares with these kinds of narratives. No, he wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t without fault or selfishness or vanity or difficult moods. He was close enough though. Sometimes, having someone to believe in is enough.

“You know what happens when you’re No. 1?” Paterno said more than 40 years ago to Jenkins. “Nobody is happy until you’re No. 1 again and that might never happen again.”

It would happen again and again and again, actually.

[Joe Paterno: ‘I just did what I thought was best’ ]

In his final days, that wide-eyed optimist and aw-shucks success story was gone. The Sandusky scandal had sapped what no opponent ever could. He sat earlier this month at his kitchen table with, not coincidentally, Sally Jenkins, the Washington Post columnist and Dan Jenkins’ daughter, for his last public words.

He’d lost his hair from chemotherapy. His breath was heavy. He sipped on a soda. “His voice sounded like wind blowing across a field of winter stalks, rattling the husks,” Sally Jenkins wrote.

He tried to explain how he hadn’t done more to stop Sandusky, how he hadn’t followed up thoroughly, how he hadn’t pressed university administrators for answers.

“I didn’t exactly know how to handle it … I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”

Some saw no need for him to explain himself again: He’d said much the same thing in a 2011 grand jury appearance. For others, there is no suitable explanation, boys were abused, the mistake too grave for excuses.

This will be forever the battle over Joe Paterno’s legacy. A life of soaring impact, of bedrock values, of generations and generations as a symbol of how to live life to its fullest.

[ Photos: Joe Paterno through the years ]

The Sandusky case cracked that for some. Ended it. Not for all, though.

Paterno reached too many, taught too many, inspired too many. And for years and seasons, for decades and generations to come, those that drew from his wisdom will pass it on and on. That will be his most lasting legacy.

No, his worst day can’t be forgotten. Neither can all the beautiful ones that surrounded it.