Jordan Love, the talented defensive back for the Georgia Bulldogs, has decided to cut his playing career at Georgia, and the first question any one ever wants to ask is 'why'?
However, given Love's experience in Athens thus far (i.e. his arrest, injury battles, relegation to the scout team, sporadic starting opportunities, and position on the depth chart), you might rethink that question altogether.
When Love signed in 2009, the secondary was looking shaky at best. Senior leader, Asher Allen was exiting, and Willie Martinez (Georgia's former defensive coordinator) was catching a great deal of flack for the way he chose to run his defense—particularly his decision to execute a soft zone in the secondary.
For those who don't know what that is, here's the cliff notes version as I understand it, it relies on speed and recovery skills in a defensive back as they are usually playing off the receivers. There is no emphasis on man coverage at all and if a back is caught out of position, it's a coverage that can easily go for big yardage.
That said, much of the personnel recruited at that time seemed built around one priority—speed—while everything else fell second to that. Love fit that mold.
However, once Martinez was fired at the end of the 2009 season, it was clear that Georgia would be heading in a different direction, defensively, with Todd Grantham and I'm not altogether sure that Love's particular skill set was suited for the physicality or aggressiveness of the 3-4. While his speed was a great asset for special teams or in specific packages where five or six defensive backs were used, he wasn't likely to be the first choice in man-to-man situations because he wasn't as developed in that area as [Branden] Boykin, [Damian] Swann, or [Sanders] Commings.
Now, none of this is to say that he didn't have the ability to perform ably at the job if given the chance, but rather his chance of doing it better than those mentioned above were questionable enough that he wasn't likely to be given the first shot.
Love probably began to see this as well and likely wasn't interested in sitting three deep on the depth chart over the next couple seasons while other guys stepped into starting roles.
Think about it, Damian Swann can only get better after one-year in the system and, even with Branden Boykin graduating, Georgia has some exciting talent coming up in 2012 with Nick Marshall, Chris Sanders, Devin Bowman, and Corey Moore all sure to make a more significant contribution in year two.
Where would Love fit in, other than as a warm body on the depth chart?
Bottom line, Love wasn't likely to see any more significant snaps than he did this season and he decided it would be best to try his luck elsewhere simply. I don't think there's anything more to it than that.
Just my humble opinion.
