Georgia Football: JT Daniels addition reveals six-year plan

Georgia football added a former five-star JT Daniels to its QB room this week. It is the latest piece in what is now a six year plan at that position.

The Georgia Bulldogs went into this past off-season knowing that the offensive side of the ball was to undergo massive change and transition. New offensive coordinator, new offensive line coach and new quarterback.

With the addition of J.T. Daniels to the quarterback room this past week, those Bulldogs, and Kirby Smart, tipped their hand at a six-year plan at that position.

Let me start by saying that I firmly believe that Jamie Newman will start the game at quarterback for the Georgia Bulldogs against Virginia on Sept. 7. Nothing is ever certain, well except Prince and Michael Jackson making you dance or Dave Chappelle making you laugh, but nothing is certain in football.

Yet, it is truly the belief of this writer that, if all things are fairly equal, Smart and Todd Monken will go with the 23-year-old 6-foot-3, 230-pound grown man, who also happens to be the only one who played football for an entire season in 2019. And balled out at times. He’ll be your guy, and will have to lose the job.

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My fearless editor @Connormuldowney touched on this here, but I wanted to expound a little. The addition of Daniels starts to complete a picture of a long-term plan for that position at UGA. If things go to plan, and they rarely do, it would look something like the following.

Jamie Newman is your quarterback in 2020, and your backup, presuming Daniels has eligibility and is healthy (two big assumptions), is a guy with an injury history, but NFL-level talent and a year of starting experience.

Daniels becomes your guy in 2021, and you open that season in Charlotte against Clemson with an NFL potential quarterback, throwing to multiple NFL level wide receivers, an NFL level offensive line and NFL level running backs. On paper, that looks formidable.

And here is where the picture becomes clearer than it was just a few days ago. If things actually do play out like that, Daniels will be a one-and-done starter and bolt to get paid. A-la Jacob Eason.

So, going into 2022 you’d have a competition between, presumptuously, one of D’Wan Mathis or Carson Beck, Brock Vandargriff (the 2021 five-star commit), and whatever quarterback is recruited in that 2022 class. I say one of Mathis or Beck — because if things were to play out like this — will likely transfer out after this 2020 season. Too many teams need a good quarterback, and both of those dudes look like they have potential.

That 2022 competition would mean you could have three kids who were ranked top-10 in the entire nation at their position coming out of high school going at it to decide who would lead the team through the 2023 season. Also, ostensibly, setting up his successor, who would have had multiple years running Monken’s new system.

If all of that happens, then what looks like a 2020 offseason of complete and utter turnover and changeup on the offensive side of the ball, settles into place of chaotic continuity and sustained expectations of championships. Which would be impressive.

I spoke, recently, with someone very familiar with the Butts-Mehre building and it was conveyed that there is a “win now” mentality on staff. They really believe this team can win now. How they manage this will determine whether that feeling is justified.

Still, things rarely go exactly to plan. And there are many Georgia Bulldogs fans who still smart at how the quarterback position has been handled the last few years in Athens. This staff will either confirm questions already asked or answer those questions with results. And, again, it is an entirely new staff on that side of the ball, with the exception of running backs coach.

So, it will be on Smart either way. How he marshals this will be one of the defining narratives of his still young head coaching career.

If things do go to plan, though, it seems like a really good one. It seems like it is a plan that could yield conference, and possible, national championships. I seems like the Bulldogs could manage major transition and continue trajectory.

The problem is that things rarely do go to plan. But like five-star quarterbacks, it is better to have one than none. Every time.