Archive for the ‘General Recruiting’ Category

So I woke up yesterday morning expecting to thoroughly enjoy National Signing Day. Most recruiting analysts projected Notre Dame as having one of the top classes in the country, its best in well over a decade, with an outside shot at ending the day with the #1 ranked class.

For the most part, that’s what happened. The ND faithful were a little disappointed when Milton Knox deferred to Hometown U and picked UCLA, but other than that it was a great day. A surprise commit from Kapron Lewis-Moore briefly vaulted ND to #1 in several recruiting rankings, but the Irish eventually got in line behind Alabama to be ranked a near-consensus #2 by the likes of Rivals.com, Scout.com, and Tom Lemming.

Note that I said near-consensus.

I had some time to spare, so I made the mistake of watching some of ESPNU’s coverage of National Signing Day.  I didn’t expect a whole lot from this crew. While the other aforementioned recruiting analysts use fairly complex methodology in ranking teams, ESPN pretty much collectively pulls info out of its ass. Their defining criteria in ranking recruits boils down to 1) Did you play in the Under Armour High School All-Star game that we televised? 2) Do you live in the state of Florida?

Knowing this, I was still shocked at ESPN’s final rankings. Alabama and Notre Dame, the near-consensus 1-2 recruiting classes in the country? Try #3 and #9. Even better, at the beginning of the day ESPN had Notre Dame ranked #7 and Alabama #9. How does Bama go from #9 to #3 in the span of about 12 hours while ND gains an elite player and drops two spots? I won’t speculate on ESPN’s venomous hatred of all things Notre Dame, but I will speculate on Alabama. I figure an industrious ESPN intern was surfing the other recruiting websites and said to himself, “Wow, we are staggeringly stupid.”

Tom Luginbill is the National Recruiting Director for ESPN’s Scouts Inc. (not to be confused with Scout.com, the older and more credible recruiting service). It is reasonable to say no one does less homework on the recruiting trail than Luginbill and his lackeys. They indiscriminately start, flame and retract unsubstantiated rumors. They sport wood for any kid in the Sunshine State who runs a 4.4. And they are unabashed Urban Meyer jock sniffers.

Case in point, ESPN singularly projected the Florida Gators as having the #1 recruiting class for 2008 heading into National Signing Day. And by “singularly” I mean every other recruiting service looked at them and said, “Pass me what you’re smoking.” Looking at UF’s depth chart, any armchair recruitnik could identify a stud running back and some elite offensive lineman as absolute musts, plus maybe a few receivers coupled with a Tebow understudy. And yet, when the dust had settled on NSD, Florida had suffered two elite Signing Day decommits, they whiffed on quarterback, they whiffed on running back, other than one touted juco they whiffed on wide receiver, they didn’t get a tight end, and they managed only one good and one mediocre offensive lineman.

What did this unbalanced class yield Florida? As the ESPNU NSD coverage wrapped up Wednesday evening, the Gators were still at #1. To their credit, by Thursday morning morning ESPN had dropped Florida all the way down to #4, sighting the said decommits of elite linebacker and o-line prospects Ramon Buchanan and Ricky Barnum. Curiously however, the ESPNU talking heads neglected to mention these defections during their Wednesday broadcast, even going so far to interview Urban Meyer a full three hours after the decommits were public knowledge and have a circle jerk about his “#1 class” and how it “met all their needs.” (Speaking of the Florida head coach, did he even wait until the ink dried on Omar Hunter’s LOI before reneging on his promise that defensive coordinator Greg Mattison wasn’t going to the NFL? There’s slimey, and then there’s Urban.)

Meanwhile, Notre Dame fans watched as for most of the day ESPN had Kapron Lewis-Moore—a Texas A&M decommit for the better part of a week who faxed his Letter of Intent to Charlie Weis around 9:30 AM EST—as an Aggie commit. And then, to add insult to injury, ESPN dropped Notre Dame from #7 to #9, apparently because they failed to land Milton Knox, who was already committed to UCLA anyway. It wasn’t quite the snub ND and other schools endured a couple months ago when ESPN blatantly downgraded any players who opted for Tom Lemming’s Army All-Star Game over their Under Armour game, but a snub nonetheless.

Look, I realize oftentimes these recruiting rankings are a crapshoot. But when the “leader in sports entertainment” gets into the business of high-stakes college football recruiting, I would expect at least a modicum of intelligence and professionalism. ESPN’s research is shoddy. Their recruiting analysts wear their agendas on their sleeves. They’ve turned their recruiting coverage into a shameless vehicle for the Under Armour All-Star Game. All in all, their product is a steaming pile of tabloid-quality wildebeest dung. Luginbill & Co. have the biggest microphone and the biggest stage, and they are little more than PR guys for high school football south of the Mason-Dixon Line. ESPN’s viewers deserve better. College football coaches, players, and fans deserve better.

After the Omar Hunter and Justin Trattou recruiting stories from the last two seasons, Notre Dame fans are well aware of Urban Meyer’s recruiting tactics. It seems like the recruiting of five star defensive back Patrick Johnson has clued LSU fans into his methods as well.

Johnson, who was set to enroll at LSU this week, has had his ACT score called into question. It seems after scoring a 16 on his ACT the first two times he took it, Johnson got a 22 the third time he took it in October. Apparently someone had that score questioned. And take a guess who Johnson says it was.

From the Times Picayune:

Johnson said Florida, one of his top three choices (along with Florida State) before he settled on LSU, questioned his academic eligibility with the NCAA. ACT officials subsequently reviewed his test results and “flagged” the October score.

“I’m not upset,” Johnson said. “Florida made an issue about the ACT score. They’re cowards. They had to go behind my back. But that’s OK. We play them this year (on Oct. 11 at Florida).”

Wow. I guess Florida’s philosophy is, if you can’t sign a recruit do whatever you can to make sure your rivals doesn’t either. I wonder if Florida would have been as concerned with Johnson’s test score if he had committed to the Gators?

There was a buzz on Notre Dame, Michigan, and Nebraska websites Tuesday when the news broke that Trevor Robinson, one of the elite offensive linemen in the country, planned to visit Michigan and Notre Dame this weekend.   From the Lincoln Journal Star:

“We are going for a drive, and that’s all it is right now,” said Wade Robinson, father of touted Nebraska football recruit Trevor Robinson.

The Robinsons’ plans for a long drive later this week created a stir Tuesday among Husker fans, at least those on Internet message boards and blogs. Unease and even consternation occurred because Trevor Robinson, a 6-foot-6, 305-pound offensive lineman, revealed that he will again visit the campuses of Notre Dame and Michigan.

A senior-to-be at Elkhorn High School, Robinson verbally committed to Nebraska on April 7 after making previous visits to Ann Arbor, Mich., and South Bend, Ind. Robinson remains verbally committed to Nebraska, his father said.

Robinson was one of Notre Dame’s early targets and one of the highest offensive linemen on their board before making his commitment to Nebraska.  Robinson visited Notre Dame at least three times according to the article (although it was a few more than that)  and many felt the Irish were going to be the team to beat at one point.  Robinson went with the hometown Huskers back in April though.

It’s probably a bit too early to get overly excited, but this would be a huge pickup for the Irish if anything were to come of it.  Notre Dame already has commitments from two interior linemen - Braxston Cave and Miike Golic Jr, but adding a third in the form of Robinson is certainly something that the Irish would be willing to accomodate.

In today’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt talked about his month long recruiting trip and mentioned how kids are receptive to his NFL ties.  Wanny, however, conceded that Notre Dame and USC are still the best places for recruits to go if you want to reach the next level.

“Nowadays, it is a different kind of kid, and they all want to know about getting to the next level and they know, outside of maybe USC and Notre Dame, there is nobody out there that can prepare them better for that than me.

Thanks Wanny, it makes it a lot easier to sell kids on getting to the next level when opposing coaches tout your program as one of the top 2 places in the country to go to get there.

In looking for some info on David Posluszny for a blog I plan on posting later tonight, I came across this quote from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about how Posluszny’s brother, All American and Butkus and Bednarik Award winner Paul, was pulling for his brother to pick Notre Dame…

“Everyone was really happy,” David said. “Everyone wanted me to pick Notre Dame. Even Paul was pulling for Notre Dame because it’s such a prestigious school. He said when he was in my position, he would have liked to have had an offer from Notre Dame.”

Notre Dame didn’t offer Paul a scholarship, and David didn’t get an official offer from Penn State. Penn State verbally offered a scholarship to David in September but never followed up on it. Regardless, David said he didn’t give the Nittany Lions serious consideration.

I’m sure Penn State fans will be happy to see that Paul was pulling for Notre Dame and that he wished he had gotten an offer from Notre Dame when he was being recruited.

Speaking of Paul wishing he had an offer from Notre Dame,  whose fault is that he never received an offer from Notre Dame?  I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.  I guess I can see why he wasn’t offered though, he was only a four star recruit who listed Notre Dame as one of his favorites the summer before his senior year and Notre Dame was loaded with talent at linebacker in that class already with Mitchell Thomas (3 stars), Nick Borsetti (2 stars), and Joe Brockington (3 stars) - a group that has started a combined 13 games for the Irish.

Notre Dame’s offensive line recruiting took its first blow of the season Saturday when news broke that Trevor Robinson committed to home state Nebraska over Notre Dame and Michigan.

HuskerExtra.com reports:

Robinson, a 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive lineman from Elkhorn High School, has given Nebraska coaches his verbal commitment to accept their scholarship offer. Notre Dame and Michigan also were on his final list of choices.

“The big thing is, Nebraska’s close to home,” Robinson said Saturday. “There’s nothing I can do football-wise at those other places that I can’t do at Nebraska.”

Statements like show Notre Dame didn’t do anything wrong to lose Robinson, but rather, he just wanted to stay close to home. Getting kids out of states like Nebraska where there is such is faithful following for the local school is always tough and Robinson is just further evidenced.

Still, this stings a bit since Notre Dame looked in good shape here and Robinson is really a big time talent and could be a five star guy when all is said and done. Nebraska got themselves a heck of an offensive lineman.

The silver lining here is that Robinson got his commitment out of the way early so Notre Dame has plenty of time to pursue other offensive linemen to join Braxston Cave and Mike Golic Jr. in this class.

Signing day was not even a week ago and Rivals has released it’s first Top 250 list of the year.  I scanned through the list and have listed all of the prospects who have shown any interest in Notre Dame and separated it by position.  I left each prospect in the position Rivals has them listed for now even though a prospect like Will Hill may play defense on the college level.  This is a very early list, but it will be interesting to see how many of these prospects end up signing with Notre Dame next February.
Quarterback (5)

• Domonick Britt - 6-5/175 -(Trotwood, Ohio - Madison)
• Dayne Crist - 6-5/221 - (Sherman Oaks California - Notre Dame)
• Will Hill - 6-3/200 - (Jersey City, New Jersey - St. Peter’s Prep)
• Landry Jones - 6-4/205 - (Artesia, New Mexico - Artesia)
• Terrelle Pryor - 6-6/220 - (Jeannette, Pennsylvania - Jeannette)

Running Back (8)

• Ryan Bass - 5-11/195 - (Corona, California - Centennial)
• Brandon Davis - 5-9/190 - (Suwanee, Georgia - Peachtree Ridge)
• Jason Ford - 5-11/210 - (Belleville, Illinois - Belleville Althoff)
• Jonas Gray - 5-9/206 - (Detroit, Michigan - Country Day)
• Harrison Jeffers - 5-9/195 -(Lawton, Oklahoma - Eisenhower)
• Milton Knox - 5-8/195 - (Lake Balboa California Birmingham)
• Richard Watson - 6-1/220 - (Tallahassee, Florida - FAMU High)
• Rashad White - 5-10/157 - (Teaneck, New Jersey - Teaneck)

Wide Receiver (10)

• Jonathan Baldwin - 6-6/215 - (Aliquippa, Pennsylvania Aliquippa)
• Kerry Boykins - 6-1/200 - (Chesapeake, Virginia - Oscar Smith)
• D.J. Coles - 6-4/198 - (Goochland, Virginia - Goochland)
• Michael Floyd - 6-3/195 - (St. Paul, Minnesota - Cretin-Derham Hall)
• Brandon Green - 6-0/185 - (Chicago, Illinois - Robeson)
• Julio Jones - 6-3/202 - (Foley, Alabama - Foley)
• Dejuan Miller - 6-5/200 - (Metuchen, New Jersey - Metuchen)
• Supo Sanni - 6-3/190 - (Homewood, Illinois - Homewood-Floosmoor)
• Darryl Stonum - 6-2/180 - (Sugarland, Texas - Fort Bend Dulles)
• Kenny Tate - 6-3/190 - (Hyattsville, Maryland - DeMatha)

Tight End (5)

• Blake Ayles - 6-4/235 - (Orange,California - Orange Lutheran)
• Austin Holt - 6-5/218 - (South Jordan, Utah - Bingham)
• Brandon Moore - 6-6/230 - (Trotwood, Ohio - Madison)
• Kyle Rudolph - 6-7/220 - (Cincinnati, Ohio - Elder)
• Jake Stoneburner - 6-5/220 - (Dublin, Ohio - Coffman)

Offensive Line (12)

• Mike Adams - 6-7/305 - ( Dublin, Ohio - Coffman)
• Michael Brewster - 6-6/280 -(Orlando, Florida - Edgewater)
• Daniel Campbell - 6-6/320 - (Aldine, Texas - Aldine)
• Vaughn Dotsy - 6-3/340 - (Ventura California - St. Bonaventure)
• Art Forst - 6-8/288 - (Manasquan, New Jersey - Manasquan)
• A.J. Harmon - 6-4/308 - (Louisville, Georgia - Jefferson County)
• Bryce Givens - 6-6/250 - (Denver, Colorado - J.K. Mullen)
• Kyle Long - 6-7/280 - (Charlottesville, Virginia - St. Anne’s-Belfield)
• Lucas Nix - 6-6/285 - (Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania - Thomas Jefferson)
• Dann O’Neill - 6-7/290 - (Grand Haven, Michigan)
• Trevor Robinson - 6-5/300 - (Elkhorn, Nebraska - Elkhorn)
• Zebrie Sanders - 6-6/260 - (Clayton, Ohio - Northmont)

Defensive End (7)

• Darius Fleming - 6-3/226 - (Chicago, Illinois - Chicago St. Rita)
• Tyler Hoover - 6-7/244 - (Novi, Michigan)
• Jamaar Jarrett - 6-5/235 - (San Marcos, California - Mission Hills)
• Ethan Johnson - 6-4/253 - (Portland, Oregon - Lincoln)
• Kapron Lewis-Moore - 6-4/220 - (Weatherford, Texas - Weatherford)
• Everette Thompson - 6-5/245 (Burien, Washington - Kennedy)
• Nathan Williams - DE 6-4/240 - (Washington Court House, Ohio - Miami Trace)

Defensive Tackle (5)

• Sean Cwynar - 6-4/280 - (Woodstock, Illinois - Marian Central Catholic)
• Tony Gillespie - 6-1/298 - (Jenks, Oklahoma)
• Stacey McGee - 6-5/280 - (Muskogee, Oklahoma)
• Dave Ulinski - 6-6/300 - (Louisville, Kentucky - DuPont Manual)
• Hafis Williams - 6-3/265 - (Elizabeth, New Jersey - Elizabeth)

Linebacker (11)

• Brandon Beachum - 6-1/220 - (Youngstown, Ohio - Cardinal Mooney)
• Nigel Bradham -6-2/220 - (Crawfordville, Florida - Wakulla)
• Steven Filer - 6-3/220 - (Chicago, Illinois - Chicago Mount Carmel)
• Shayne Hale - 6-3/218 - (Monroeville, Pennsylvania - Gateway)
• Jon Major - 6-4/220 - (Parker, Colorado - Ponderosa)
• Anthony McDonald - 6-3/220 - (Sherman Oaks, California - Notre Dame)
• Nate Palmer - 6-3/220 - (Chicago, Illinois - Chicago Simeon)
• David Posluszny - 6-0/206 - (Aliquippa, Pennsylvania Hopewell)
• Bradly Roussel - 5-11/215 - (Baton Rouge, Louisiana - Redemptorist)
• Vincent Williams - 6-0/206 - (Davenport, Florida - Ridge)
• Marcus Witherspoon - 6-2/215 - (Absecon, New Jersey - Holy Spirit)

Defensive Back (4)

• Johnny Adams - 6-0/180 (Akron, Ohio - Buchtel)
• Jarred Holley - 6-0/180 - (Easton, Pennsylvania - Easton)
• Nolan Brewster - 6-1/195 - (Denver, Colorado - J.K. Mullen)
• Brandon Leslie - 6-0/185 - (Fresno,California - Edison)

Athletes (3)

• A.J. Alexander - 5-10/163 - (Altoona, Pennsylvania - Altoona)
• Averin Collier - 5-11/195 - (Churchville, New York - Churchville-Chili)
• Ryan Williams - 5-10/192 - (Manassas, Virginia - Stonewall Jackson)

If I missed anyone, let me know and I will add them.

With the rash of decommitments this year, especially the two felt by Notre Dame fans today, it’s gotten a lot of people talking about an early signing period much like college basketball has.  A number of schools, not just Notre Dame, got burned by late decommitments which really hurt their recruiting classes after they had stopped recruiting a particular position.

Since this is a Notre Dame blog, I’m going to the Irish as my example.  Notre Dame had three big decommitments over the last two weeks.  First Justin Trattou bolted for Florida then Greg Little for UNC and Chris Little for Georgia today.  The fact that these three individuals did not want to come to Notre Dame does not bother me nearly as much as the fact that Notre Dame could have used the scholarships they were saving for these three elsewhere and/or spent their recruiting efforts on other players.

Some people will say its the fault of the coaching staff for stopping the recruiting at say wide receiver when the Irish had Duval Kamara, Greg Little, and Golden Tate “committed,” but what message does it send to your recruits if you keep after other receivers when you tell them you don’t need any more?  The Notre Dame staff made a commitment to these kids that they were done at receiver so they stopped recruiting wide outs out of respect for them.

Same goes with Justin Trattou.  The Irish locked up Trattou and Kerry Neal very early and as a result felt comfortable targeting just a few select defensive ends - Martez Wilson, Ben Martin, Everson Griffen - figuring they would land at least one of them.  If they struck out, they still felt they had two strong ends in this class.  As a result a guy like Jason Peters got slow played and said the reason Notre Dame was never in the mix was because he didn’t build a relationship with the ND staff.

All of this is making the topic of an early signing period very popular across message boards this evening.  Weis even mentioned it numerous times today in the press conference and on a few of the television and radio appearances he made.

Weis acknowledged the fact that there’s a lot of logistical stumbling blocks in the way of this so here are some really off the cuff thoughts from me on the subject.

Free agency in the NBA is already a little like college recruiting.  Their is a “courtship” period where players can make visits with teams to see where they want to play, but there is a waiting period before they can sign any contracts.  Granted, that “courtship” period is merely a few weeks, but none the less its a bit similar to recruiting.

Why not take that mold and apply it to college football recruiting?  Let recruits take their official visits over the summer and set a date for September 1 for when they can officially start signing Letters Of Intent.  Once they are ready to select a school, there would be no “commitments.”  Rather, when they were ready to select a school, they would simply sign the letter of intent.

Instead of having two signing periods, just have one that starts a lot earlier because even with an early signing day and a late one, there will still be decommitments.  Say an early signing day is set for September 1 and the NCAA gives recruits a one or two week period to sign a LOI in this period.  That would still leave roughly four and a half months for recruits to “commit” and then decommit on the latter signing day.

Giving a recruit the ability to sign a LOI any time after September 1, however, would make them think a lot longer and harder about making their decision if they knew the decision they were making was actually binding and final.  It would also allow for a lot more honesty in the recruiting game between coaches and recruits.  There would be no more, “I’m still committed to you, but I’m just looking a school X this weekend,” and conversely, coaches could easily point to the number of signed LOI’s they have at a particular position and tell a recruit just how many more spots they have.

Of course there would be negatives to a system like this such as coaching changes affecting kids who have already signed LOI’s, but provisions could be made for such occasions where a signed recruit would have X number of days to cancel their LOI if they a position coach, coordinator, or entire staff was let go.

All of this is very argumentative and like I said, these are just some off the cuff remarks that I’ve had while dissecting all that went down today and this recruiting year.

Your Thoughts?

Last week Florida poached Justin Trattou from Notre Dame’s commitment list.  This week it looks like USC may be trying to visit Mike Ragone according to LA Daily Neews writer Scott Wolf:

USC coach Pete Carroll is scheduled to visit with Marvin Austin, the No. 1-ranked defensive tackle in the country, today. But we also hear Carroll might visit tight end Mike Ragone, who committed to Notre Dame almost nine months ago.

The Trojans do not have a tight end commitment this year and according to their prospect list on Scout.com, they only have  Eric Brooks (#57 tight end), Trey Henderson (#64 tight end), and Mikhail Marinovich (Not Ranked) left on the board.

Last week’s defection by Trattou certainly surprised me, but I could at least understand it because of his concerns over how he would be used in the 3-4.  Ragone switching, however, would completely shock me because of how well tight ends have  performed in Charlie Weis’s offense.  That success has led to Notre Dame landing the #2 ranked tight end last year in Konrad Reuland and the #2 ranked tight end this year in Ragone.

Jason Peters came back from LSU this past weekend and committed to Georgia Tech after leaving Baton Rouge unsure of whether or not he would have an offer.  Rumors circulated over the weekend that Peters still intended to commit to LSU even if he had to gray shirt in 2007, but according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Just hours after Georgia Tech was disappointed to learn it won’t get one of the final two recruits the Yellow Jackets sought, coach Chan Gailey learned that he’ll get another as Baton Rouge (La.) defensive end Jason Peters committed to Tech.

Peters visited LSU over the weekend, and also visited Nebraska and national champion Florida.

Peters hasn’t been seriously considering Notre Dame for weeks and never officially visited Notre Dame, but he may have been Notre Dame’s last hope at defensive tackle this year.

After Notre Dame stopped recruiting Joseph Barksdale, they made a strong push for Peters, but projected him at defensive tackle rather than end.  Despite a real lack of depth along the defensive line, however, the Irish were unable to even persuade Peters to visit.