Tonight is the annual football award gala at the University of Georgia. It's a great chance for our student athletes to throw on a tux, grab a date, and get applauded for their hard work this season. It's also a great opportunity for the coaches to do some recruiting without having to worry about game day preparations. But tonight Mark Richt also used the Gala as a chance to announce some great news. That is, that Leonard Floyd, John Theus, Malcolm Mitchell, and Jordan Jenkins have all decided to come back for another season in the Classic City.

To be perfectly fair, I don't think anyone expected Theus or Mitchell to leave early. Theus really needs another year of solid play to build his NFL resume, and Mitchell really needs to stay on the field for a single productive season to calm GMs' jitters about his health. But Floyd was almost even money in some circles to jump to the league. I agree with SB Nation's Dan Kadar, however, that it would have been a terrible decision. Floyd hasn't demonstrated the ability to play the run consistently yet, and he needs to get stronger before NFL personnel folks will be convinced to spend anything other than a 5th to 7th round selection on him. Jenkins had generated some buzz after being more productive this season than last. But he also would likely have been a late day two to day three pick based upon a lack of consistency or really dominant pass rushing skills.

All of these guys however stand to be big contributors for the 'Dawgs in 2015, and could each improve their draft stock considerably by coming back and working under a coaching staff which helped each of them improve relative to 2013. While this is a big recruiting weekend for the Red and Black, these were likely the biggest commitments the staff will receive all week. Until later. . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!