Ten questions for UGA's signing day

The fax machine will be spitting out paper bright and early on Wednesday morning at the Butts-Mehre Building. National Signing Day is an unofficial holiday for fans. But for team staff members, it has to be as stressful as any of the year: Besides waiting on signing-day announcements, they never quite count a player in the fold until that letter-of-intent rolls across the fax.

Head coach Mark Richt also gets the pleasure of meeting with the media for the first time in nearly a month. So the issues affecting the program go just beyond recruits – but they will mainly deal with recruits.

That in mind, here are some of the questions that may or may not be answered on Wednesday:

1. Where will Isaiah Crowell go? The Columbus tailback isn’t the only unannounced guy out there, but he’s the major one. His recruiting situation reminds me of Marcus Lattimore’s, as I write in this piece. And columnist Bill Shanks wonders if Crowell is the next Jasper Sanks or Herschel Walker.

The Ledger-Enquirer will have live streaming of Crowell's announcement.

2. What about the other uncommitted recruits? We won’t know about John Jenkins until Saturday. Jeoffrey Pagan, Antonio Richardson and Kent Turene are anybody’s guess at this point.

3. What will come out of the blue? Last year Georgia got late-breaking news of the bad kind, with lost commitments. This year, based on the trends, it could go the other way. I don’t know of anyone specifically, but a week ago who knew Pagan was in the mix for Georgia.

One guy who won’t sign Wednesday but is still signing with Georgia: Justin Scott-Wesley, who – as Rusty Mansell of Georgia247sports.com reported last week – is not sending in his LOI until Thursday. Scott-Wesley wants to wait for family members to be able to attend his signing ceremony.

4. Could Branden Smith see more time at receiver? The departures of A.J. Green and Logan Gray, and the additions of Damian Swann and Nick Marshall, might open things up for Smith, who saw some action on offense the past two years. Would Smith be more valuable at receiver or corner?

This could also be affected by …

5. Is Malcolm Mitchell a cornerback or receiver? Mitchell has said that Georgia coaches have told him they’d like to use him on offense. We’ll see if Richt and/or Mike Bobo commit to anything on Wednesday.

6. Who is the next offensive line coach? It would be a shock to have Richt actually announce something on Wednesday. But perhaps he’ll be able to shed some light on how close they are to a hire, and what kind of coach he has in mind.

7, Will Jay Rome play right away? Rome may be the nation’s top tight end prospect, but the Bulldogs already have Orson Charles, Aron White and Bruce Figgins. We’ll see if Richt bites on the redshirting question.

8. How does the LB/DE situation shake out now? Since we last spoke to Richt or Todd Grantham, Marcus Dowtin has announced his transfer, Justin Houston went pro, and on Wednesday a slew of guys will sign – most notably Ray Drew but also Ramik Wilson, Sterling Bailey, Amarlo Herrera and possibly Turene.

9. Will Christian LeMay push Aaron Murray? It might seem silly, considering how great a freshman year Murray had. But LeMay is pretty good. It at least will be interesting to see if Richt telegraphs his intentions with LeMay, i.e. whether they will try to redshirt him, or prepare him to be the man in case something happens to Murray.

10. Does Richt consider this a great recruiting class, or the greatest recruiting class? I'm channeling my inner Stephen Colbert here. Seriously, it’ll be interesting to see whether Richt’s comments are measured as usual – or whether he embraces this class as something special, trying to ramp up the momentum the program sorely needs.