Georgia Mailbag: Why did Cade Mays suddenly want to transfer? (2024)

Well, not much to talk about this week. Don’t know what anybody could be asking about. But hey, let’s see if anybody comes up with anything:

What is your understanding as to why Cade Mays suddenly wants to leave Georgia (lawsuits and finger related issues aside)?

Trey D.

This was the most common question out of this, because it seemed so unexpected. Not only was Cade Mays seemingly set to start for Georgia in 2020, but he also seemed so happy. He was one of the players the team (i.e., Kirby Smart) chose to speak to the media in New Orleans, and Mays talked about how nice Matt Luke seemed, how excited he was, etc.

Alas, Cade Mays was not so happy, it turned out. At least not happy enough.

It sounds like Georgia was legitimately blindsided by this. Mays also sounded excited to them about the prospect of playing for Luke. So what happened? You could always believe that Mays’ family was pushing him, and that may be. But Cade had to go along with it, too.

My hunch, speaking with a few people over the past 24 hours and thinking it over more, is it was an accumulation of things. Georgia didn’t recruit Mays’ younger brother Cooper very hard — perhaps that soured the Mays family? Cade Mays was also close with Isaiah Wilson, who obviously has turned pro, as well as Solomon Kindley and Andrew Thomas, so did Mays ultimately decide he’d rather go home and play with his brother than be the big brother to all these new guys at Georgia? Mays also moved positions a lot the past two years — playing all five O-line positions — and that was used to celebrate his versatility, but perhaps that actually rubbed him the wrong way. He may have felt he should have been given a starting spot and allowed to grow there. Mays didn’t start in Georgia’s final three games. If you’re connecting the dots, his father’s lawsuit was filed Dec. 5, two days before the SEC championship. So the decision may have been made by then, and unrelated to the departure of Sam Pittman, which happened a couple days later.

And if there was any chance of Cade Mays changing his mind, Pittman leaving may have been the final straw. And while Mays seemed so content when we talked to him in December, we’ve learned that all is not always as it seems.

Was there even a hint that this lawsuit was a possibility? Was there an indication that Mays’ family was unhappy?

Blake G.

Tom Mars, the noted lawyer who repped Justin Fields and other players who sought transfer waivers, is now repping the Mays family. Mars said in a statement to media outlets, including The Athletic, that Cade Mays delivered a letter to Kirby Smart on Tuesday, and then Mars accused UGA of leaking the lawsuit to the media, and called it “a new record low for UGA athletics.”

There’s been no official response yet from UGA on the lawsuit or Mars’ statement. My sense is the top people have been hunkering down and figuring out the right response. The tendency around here is not to engage and to hope things pass and are eventually forgotten. We shall see if that holds in this case. Georgia may want to at least say something.

Mars sounds very confident that Mays will get the waiver to play this season, and based on his own history he has every reason to be confident. (He also works for the NCAA, which is weird in itself, but apparently not considered a conflict of interest.)

This whole story is obviously very bizarre. My stated belief has been that players should get a one-time chance to transfer without sitting out a season. But as long as the rules say that undergraduates have to sit out a year you’re going to continue to see these kinds of things. It may be what ultimately propels the NCAA to change the rule.

Now let’s move on to the big picture for Georgia:

Can you honestly see the remains of (Wednesday) being used by Kirby Smart as a rallying cry that helps galvanize a young offense with either a transfer or young QB, to do just enough to not lose games, much like this year?

Matthew C.

The offense never seemed to click, do you think the amount of players leaving the offense versus defense says more about team unity?

James H.

James H. also asked a more succinct question: “Are we all doomed?” My answer is that under the technical definition of “all”, being all human beings on this Earth, yes eventually we will all die, it’s just a matter of when and what we do with our lives in the meantime. But that’s a bit more existential than James wanted.

Georgia, the football team in 2020, is not doomed. For all these bad headlines over the last month, I still think 10-2 or 11-1 next season is a likely finish. That’s partly due to the schedule — only the trip to Alabama is a game you would automatically call Georgia the underdog — and to the recruiting under Kirby Smart. They’ve lost a lot of dudes, but they’re still going to have a lot of dudes.

But James’ point about the offense is also a good one. It’s useful to point out that when it came to NFL decisions, the defense ran the table: All four guys who were candidates to go pro (Monty Rice, Richard LeCounte, Eric Stokes, Malik Herring) are set to return. The offense, by contrast, went 0-for-5.

I wouldn’t be surprised if come this spring, once the smoke has cleared, we’re going to hear things about the culture being better. They won’t call out specific players. And it doesn’t mean any particular player was a bad guy. It may just not have been the right mix. Some guys looking ahead, some guys wanting to do different things, etc.

First, we need to see which quarterback Georgia ends up bringing in. But perhaps the best thing the Georgia offense may have going for it this year is being freed up from high expectations, and a chance for a fresh start with a bunch of new players, and a chance to build up better chemistry. Rather than a few tweaks, this offense may have needed to be almost completely broken down so it could be built back up.

If you could pick one transfer QB, who would it be?

Luke V.

Jamie Newman is very intriguing because he’s a dual-threat quarterback and did well at Wake Forest with less talent than he would have around him at Georgia. There’s a tendency to build up players like Newman when they’re unknown quantities, at least at Georgia, where few people around here have ever seen a Wake Forest game. So you only see the highlights. Anyone saying Newman would be an upgrade over Jake Fromm isn’t being very realistic.

But his numbers are good, and if you put Georgia-level talent around him then I think that gives the offense a chance. What I’ve been told about Newman (listed at 6-foot-3, 219 pounds) is that while he ran a lot at Wake Forest he actually wanted to run less and pass more. That makes him a better fit for Georgia.

There are other possibilities in the transfer portal, but right now the timing lines up with Newman. He was thought to be leaning heavily toward Oregon, but he didn’t commit, which indicated he was waiting on Fromm’s decision. Why go all the way to Oregon when you can make the short drive to Georgia?

Fromm leaving was not ideal for Georgia. He was not part of the problem for the offense. He was going to be part of the solution. But he’s gone now, and if Georgia can bring in a good grad transfer, and then get a five-star commitment for the 2021 class — Brock Vandagriff springs immediately to mind — then you suddenly feel a lot better about the state of the Georgia quarterback room.

So pretty much the Fromm-Fields saga ended as poorly as it could have for UGA:

1. We chose Fromm over Fields.
2. Fields transfers.
3. Fromm regresses (not all his fault but still) and the offense stagnated in 2019.
4. Fields has an amazing 50-TD, Heisman-finalist season making us look foolish for choosing Fromm over Fields.
5. Jake goes pro early, leaving us with no QB depth.

Am I missing anything?

Alexander P.

Yup, you’re missing the part about choosing Fromm over Fields. The longer version is in this column I wrote during the season. The shorter version is that Georgia wanted Fields to stay, but the only way to do that was to promise him the starting job, and there was no way they could do that based on what Fromm had accomplished his first two years. Saying anything else is revisionist history.

When Fields transferred this time last year, few people, if anybody, was saying Georgia should dump Fromm in favor of Fields. Georgia was coming off a season in which its offense was ranked seventh nationally in yards per play and was 14^th in scoring. Fromm ranked ninth in the nation in passing yards per attempt, second in the SEC behind only Tua Tagovailoa. Meanwhile, Fields had looked far from ready to take over — albeit in limited duty — but behind the scenes, there was also nobody telling me that Fields was better than Fromm in practice or scrimmages.

What people were saying was that Fields should be patient and stick around because Fromm might turn pro after next season. Fields didn’t want to wait, or wasn’t sure Fromm would turn pro. He ended up making the right decision for himself. Believe me, Georgia would have loved to hold on to Fields one more year and turn to him now. But in today’s world it’s going to be nearly impossible to stack five-star quarterbacks on top of each other.

What exactly happened with Zach Evans?

Jonathan G.

The situation has been very murky, with nobody really going on the record, but from what others have reported, let’s put together this timetable and surmise what happened:

During the early signing period, reports came out of nowhere that Evans, who had seemingly fallen off Georgia’s radar, was not only back on it but probably headed to Georgia. In fact, as 247Sports, Rivals and other sites would later report, it was said that Evans had secretly signed with Georgia but would delay his announcement until after the new year, just as fellow five-stars Kelee Ringo and Darnell Washington did.

But the day after the signing period ended, it emerged that Evans was suspended for his team’s state championship game after an incident with his coach. That was not the first suspension this year for Evans. Two weeks later to the day, when Evans was supposed to make his announcement at an all-star game, he delayed the announcement. And after a few days of speculation, 247Sports reported that Evans had signed with Georgia but Georgia had subsequently let him out of his letter-of-intent.

Did Evans ask Georgia to release him? Perhaps. Or did Georgia, dealing with all those undisclosed absences in the run-up to the Sugar Bowl, decide that the cell phone incident was the last straw and that it was time to move on from Evans? I’ll let you decide.

Meanwhile, hey, it’s basketball season!

Seth, on Georgia BB, is Anthony Edwards a transformational player? I’ve been to every home game, went to Memphis and watched the other games and he’s very good but doesn’t seem to take a game over. He did the second half against Michigan State but is the dominance there? What am I missing?

Doug P.

You touch on something, and I don’t mean this to be critical of Edwards, only an observation. Edwards is a great player, and Georgia is lucky to have him, but I do wonder if the character traits that made Edwards stay home may be the same that prevent him from being that transformational player who takes over games. Edwards spurned the bluebloods (like Kentucky) because he didn’t need the spotlight. I’ve talked to him several times and he really comes off as down to earth, not having any airs about him.

That translates to the court sometimes, when he can be too passive. Some of it is also what defenses do to defend Edwards. Sometimes it can also be from the bench. Tom Crean tried to steal a little extra rest time for Edwards in the second half against Kentucky, and the Wildcats pulled ahead for good. But it still wasn’t too far ahead for Georgia to come back.

Maybe Edwards is still feeling his way through this. There’s plenty of time left in this season, and Georgia is at least in position to be a bubble team. Edwards doesn’t need to take every shot. But so far this season Edwards has taken 24.5 percent of Georgia’s shots, and 28.9 percent of the 3-pointers. When Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — another shooting guard with a deferential personality — was SEC Player of the Year in 2013, he took 27.5 percent of Georgia’s shots, and 43 percent of the 3-pointers.

Realistically, what does Georgia need to do in SEC play to make the tournament? What should the expectations be in year 2 of Tom Crean (presumably the only year with the Ant-Man)?

Justin H.

The realistic expectation should be to make the NCAAs, which the program hasn’t done since 2015. And being in that arena on Tuesday night, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that season: You had Kentucky in there with an electric atmosphere, and again there were celebrities in attendance — Quavo, Trae Young and I sat on press row near ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski — and again Georgia had the Wildcats on the ropes.

But again Georgia couldn’t close the deal. Five years ago, Georgia had a 9-point lead with six minutes left when Aaron Harrison spurred Kentucky’s comeback with a 3-pointer from the corner with 8:00 left. That same spot was where Kentucky got another critical 3, this time from Immanuel Quickley, this time putting the Wildcats ahead for good.

The differences this time are that it was later in the season, Kentucky was a better team, and that Georgia team was basically already in the NCAAs. This year’s team has a lot more work to do, but it’s in decent position: The win at Memphis will help — it won’t be a top 10 win, because Memphis is already dropping in the computer and human rankings — but it will still be a road win over a probable NCAA tournament team. Georgia also doesn’t have any bad losses yet. (Thank goodness for the close calls against SMU and Chaminade.)

The SEC isn’t very strong this year, which will make it easier to get wins, but harder to use conference play to bolster the computer numbers. After the Kentucky game, Georgia is ranked No. 68 in the Kenpom rankings, and in the latest NET rankings — which were pre-Kentucky — Georgia was No. 36. That’s at least in position for the bubble. My guess is Georgia at minimum needs to go 9-9 in SEC play, and then it will depend on who the wins and who the losses are against.

What are your thoughts on Smart calling out players for reading their press clippings?

Sam in Colorado Springs.

For those unaware, Sam is talking about this comment Smart made after the Sugar Bowl: “There’s a disease that creeps in at Georgia where kids believe they are better than they are and they read their own press clippings.”

This is a point that Smart has been on for years, and I don’t think is particularly related to this year’s team. (But this year’s team also apparently didn’t dissuade him from the view). A little inside baseball here: When I was at my former employer, we used to do these “Next Generation” stories where we went and spent time with players after they signed with Georgia. Get to know them as people, get to know their families or inner circle. Write a nice, in-depth story. Well, the Georgia staff began discouraging players from agreeing to do those stories. We even had some players schedule interviews and then cancel, or just ghost us. Why? The feedback we got was that Smart was worried this would continue to feed the egos of these signees.

Now my counter-argument would be that the recruiting process itself feeds the ego, and a nice story about the player as a person, which seeks to humanize them and share their background, is mutually beneficial. But Smart is very concerned about managing that part of it, and evidently thinks that the amount of media attention in this state — Atlanta being one of the largest markets in the country — can have a deleterious impact.

I do think Smart knows this is all a double-edged sword: There’s great media attention because there’s great interest from the fan base, and great passion. The media is trying to feed that interest, and Smart is trying to protect his program. This will constantly be a push-pull.

Given Mays leaving and Broderick Jones likely staying. Could we see 2-3 true freshman on the OL with Jones, (Tate) Ratledge, (Chad) and Lindberg?

Ryan M.

I still don’t think it’s likely. At least not true freshmen. But I could see redshirt freshmen very much being in the mix: Warren McClendon, Xavier Truss and Clay Webb (pending his off-field issue). Between those guys, Trey Hill at center, Jamaree Salyer at one of the tackle spots, perhaps Ben Cleveland, and other veterans (such as Justin Shaffer), I don’t think they’ll have to resort to multiple true freshmen. They may not even have to start any.

I thought Quay Walker was going to be a dude at UGA. Anything you can speak to about his situation? Injury? Coaches like playing older players? Just hasn’t been better than the other guys at the position?

Clinton B.

Walker still could end up being the dude. He was one of the players who missed the Sugar Bowl for the ol’ undisclosed reason. Prior to that, he appeared in every game, and while he wasn’t a starter at inside linebacker he saw enough action to have 23 tackles, 9 quarterback hurries and 2.5 sacks.

The inside linebacker rotation next year offers Walker a chance to play. Tae Crowder is the only one leaving, and you’d expect Nakobe Dean to slide into that spot alongside Monty Rice. But Walker could be right behind them, along with Channing Tindall, Trezmen Marshall and Rian Davis. And Otis Reese being in the transfer portal probably means that Reese won’t move down to inside linebacker.

Do you have any insight that Sam Pittman was angling for the HC job and assembling potential staff during November after Chad Morris was let go maybe affecting his performance here.? Second, I’d love to hear more from our staff. Will Kirby ever allow more access to staff? Lastly, how was the food in New Orleans? Best meal you had there?

Rob H.

No, I doubt Pittman going for the Arkansas job had anything to do with the performance of the O-line, which wasn’t too shabby anyway. These coaches are pretty good about managing their time and compartmentalizing. Smart got the Georgia job while preparing Alabama’s defense for the 2015 SEC championship and the defense did just fine.

I’m with you on access to coaches (and players and other staff members in general), but it is what it is, I don’t see Smart changing his policy.

Picking the best place to eat in New Orleans is like picking the best Georgia running back: You can’t go wrong. But for the second straight year my choice was GW Fins, where the entrees are strong (especially seafood) but the way they prepare it, and the sides. Great level of detail. They also give you complimentary rolls that must be made with the best butter in the world.

Anyway, I had the drum there, and it was great, then I went fishing a few days later and caught my own drum, which we froze and drove back to Athens. It was delicious. But still not as good as GW Fins, who I have now given a free, drawn-out advertisem*nt, and I will keep going unless my editor steps in to tell me to stop.

Stop.

OK. Sorry.

(Top photo of Cade Mays: John Korduner / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)