''I would say our recruiting class is a lot like our year this year. We didn't have the kind of year that I wanted to have, but we still did a lot of good things. We won eight games. That's not good, but ...I'm not going to try to paint a picture that's any different than what it is ... we definitely lost some good players.”

Those words could have been uttered by Georgia coach Mark Richt yesterday on national signing day as Georgia's run of signing top 10 rated recruiting classes ended after eight straight seasons.

They actually were spoken by Jim Donnan on Georgia’s signing day in 2000 when
Donnan lost some in-state recruits to Georgia Tech and top lineman Sean Young to Tennessee.

There were rumors that Donnan was going to N.C. State and that Rodney Garner was going to leave coaching to become a sports agent.

Who did Donnan sign that year? Guys like David Greene, Sean Jones, Musa Smith, Johnathan Sullivan and Will Thompson, who all were starters on Georgia’s 2002 SEC championship team.

In 2001, Richts’ first signing class was ranked 17th by Rivals. Superprep didn’t have Georgia in the top 20. BorderWars.com had Georgia ranked No. 12 in the country.

One that got away was cornerback Ahmad “Batman” Carroll from Douglass High, who chose Arkansas over Georgia.

From that 2001 class, Georgia signed D.J. Shockley, who led the Bulldogs to the 2005 SEC championship, as well as David Pollack, Fred Gibson, Greg Blue, Russ Tanner and Gerald Anderson.

''The goal is to win, but recruiting is very, very subjective,'' Richt said in 2001.