masthead.jpg

switchconcepts.com, U3dpdGNo-a25, DIRECT rubiconproject.com, 14766, RESELLER pubmatic.com, 30666, RESELLER, 5d62403b186f2ace appnexus.com, 1117, RESELLER thetradedesk.com, switchconcepts, RESELLER taboola.com, switchconceptopenrtb, RESELLER bidswitch.com, switchconcepts, RESELLER contextweb.com, 560031, RESELLER amazon-adsystem.com, 3160, RESELLER crimtan.com, switch, RESELLER quantcast.com, switchconcepts , RESELLER rhythmone.com, 1934627955, RESELLER ssphwy.com, switchconcepts, RESELLER emxdgt.com, 59, RESELLER appnexus.com, 1356, RESELLER sovrn.com, 96786, RESELLER, fafdf38b16bf6b2b indexexchange.com, 180008, RESELLER nativeads.com, 52853, RESELLER theagency.com, 1058, RESELLER google.com, pub-3515913239267445, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
June 7, 2016

After I posted the podcast Saturday, and we since we have had our discussions about where Hill and Pugh should play, I started wondering more about the more human parts of college football recruiting.

We all pretty much know the NCAA rules and regulations behind the recruiting process with the official and non-official visits, verbal commitments, dead and quiet periods, Letter Of Intent day(LOI), etc…  But I began to scratch my head and ponder just what a head coach and recruiting staff really look for in recruits.

I have a good friend here in Maryland who is a legendary head coach in Maryland (Baltimore) High School football, Roger Wrenn.  He was in the football coaching profession for 43 years and retired with 14 city championships to his credit.

One thing to understand about Coach Wrenn’s position in high school ball here in Maryland is that Baltimore County football is taken as seriously here as WPIAL football is in PA.  Way above what the PGH City League is like in fact and national reputation.

I’ve talked with Coach Wrenn extensively on the subject of recruiting and he firmly maintains that the ‘best’ college HCs look at raw talent and character combined first.

Raw talent (as opposed to finished talent which might mean the talent ceiling has been met – more on that later) is the key for the first look – meaning that is what gets the staff’s attention.  But he also maintains it means noting if that kid can’t subjugate his ego and become ‘coachable’ and become a team player if he isn’t already.

High school recruits are often the star and center of attention on their teams and in many cases feel ‘separate from’.  That is where their character comes in.  Either the kid has it already and is a true team player or the staff sees a personal abilityfor the player to be able to become a team player once in college and no longer the star.

So based on my prior conversations with Rodger and my previous understanding of the recruiting game, sparse as it is, I did some researching to see what other coaches have to say about it, what they look for in recruits and their approaches to the recruitment process.

I decided to whittle down my research to address five main questions I have about the recruiting process that we are all somewhat familiar with but may not know all that much about.  I also wanted to choose subjects that fit in with our own discussions about Pitt’s current 2016 recruiting class.

I’ll address two of those five questions this morning:

Here goes:

1.  When do college staffs first get seriously interested in potential recruits?

We have talked on here about the fact that Pitt’s Thomas MacVittie may be behind the 8-ball a bit because he didn’t start at QB until his SR year in college. Personally I think that makes a difference in how he was viewed by prospective schools who were deciding whether or not to offer him a scholarship.

On the face of it his offers are sparse – Cincinnati, Toledo,a late offer from LSU and of course Pitt. On the other hand he committed very early on in the process and because he didn’t start before his SR year he may have been overlooked by the bigger schools.  Except, IMO, OSU – they don’t miss anything at all in the state of Ohio, especially if the kid went to Moeller HS.

But the truth is that in this day and age the scouting process start as soon as the kid hits 9th or 10th grade and in most cases ends directly after his junior year in HS.  Yes, that is correct – most recruits’ senior seasons don’t mean much to recruiters.  Now, the recruitment pressure continues up until the morning of LOI Day.  But the scouting has been done and finished before that.

In June of 2014 Athlon magazine’s website had a good article on this titled “High School Senior Seasons Are An Afterthought”.  In it we read this:

“With the explosion of combines, camps and websites like HUDL, which allow prospects to upload their own highlights, college coaches agree: As it concerns top prospects, the senior season is obsolete.

 Recruiting works at hyper-speed in 2014. Coaches race to get to a prospect first simply to call dibs. The prevalence of unofficial visits and online scouting websites has sped up the cycle. By early May, 33 of Rivals’ Top 100 2015 prospects were committed to a school. 

Bob Shoop, the defensive coordinator at Penn State (at the time), says he and his staff have already watched film of 150 safeties in the Class of 2015 and a “significant” number of local 2016 prospects in the region. These days, coaches can’t afford to wait for senior film; they have to evaluate prospects and determine if they’re good enough much earlier. 

“A significant portion of evaluation is done well prior to the senior year,” Shoop says. “It’s sort of become, ‘let’s get an offer out to this guy, let’s get one out to that guy.’”

That isn’t to say a kid is screwed if his JR year is a slump from his previous play.  Some high school players may not remain on the national radar when that happens, especially if they were probable 2* – marginal 3*when they would be rated.

But local colleges have hired scouts and trusted alumni who have been watching high school games in the area for years and will recommend players based on the two characteristics mentioned above:

As always, there are exceptions. As a junior at Katy High School in Texas, Andy Dalton didn’t even start full-time at quarterback. He split time and wasn’t handed the reins until he was a senior. Now an NFL starting quarterback, Dalton had just two offers in high school: UTEP and TCU, where he ultimately ended up.

“Sometimes people can get overlooked,” says Memphis coach Justin Fuente, who coached Dalton at TCU. “We take a little bit more of an old-school approach to it. We try to slow down just a little bit.”

Well – there it is, Maybe MacVittie is the next Andy Dalton.  What this quote does show is that college recruiting is a game of attrition so to get your school’s foot in the recruit’s door you have to be ready and quick with the offer.

This is why we see so damn many offers out to so many kids.  Again – when I look at the offers Pitt has out to the 2018 senior HS class, two years in the future, I discount most of them because all that a ‘formal’ offer is at that point is a piece of paper in the mail vice a phone call.  Right now we have 44 offers to the ’18 class and three offers out, three years early for the ’19 class – to kids that were 15 or 16 year old high school freshman last season.

2. What do the high school players themselves have to do to be recruited?

Above we talked about the schools targeting young players, those who are so talented at that age the schools feel they have to offer or they’ll miss out on a possible ‘can’t miss’ star player.  I’d think, without looking it up, that these are the kids who the recruiting services are giving the 4* and 5* designations to after their JR years – or even earlier in some cases.

But the vast majority of high school players are not going to get that number of stars next to their name.  The 3* and 2* players are most likely going to have to work their butts off to 1) get recognized as a decent prospect and 2) play well enough (talent) and keep their academics up and noses clean (character) for the schools to take a chance on giving them one of a limited 85 total scholarships.

Bleacher Report did a good piece on this issue back in 2013 that is timely today.

“On the players’ side, it is still early. Offers generally don’t start pouring in until the end of the spring of junior year. Up to that point, it’s about getting exposure through unofficial visits, camps and making sure the schools have your tapes.

Oh, and most importantly, working hard.  People often discount just how hard football players like Jadeveon Clowney work to get to signing day.

These kids do not get nearly enough credit for working hard to position themselves for success. Talent comes naturally, but harnessing that talent, putting in the work in the weight room and getting great play on film takes hard work.

These guys are not given anything, and any player who has been through the process will let you know just how much of “just being a kid” they missed to set themselves up for future success.

Note: We talked a few days ago about MacVittie’s decision to remain in school for his senior year even though he could have graduated early and enrolled in time for the spring practice/scrimmages as RB Chawntez Moss has done.

“Just being a kid” is exactly the reason why most recruits choose not to do so – in essence this is their last gasp at being a somewhat normal teenager doing normal teenage things. However, the fun and social aspects of a senior year in high school aside, some recruits need that extra three months of school, and sometimes summer school or tutoring, to meet the NCAA and university academic requirements.

Remember that a college cannot have anything to do with a recruit prior to a LOI being signed.  Pitt, and other schools, can’t provide tutoring or – the biggest misconception out there – send the player to a prep school.  Schools just can’t do that.  They can, and do, call schools like The Kiski School  locally or the well-know football factory Milford Academy in upstate NY.  BTW – Kiski is one of my almost-alma mater high schools.

During their junior season, most players are invited to unofficially visit the campus for a game. Basically, players get to see the on-field product and some of the behind-the-scenes things that make a program work.”

Essentially, it is an ordeal.  Once summer time hits, coaches are begging kids to get to their camp. Camp is important from the school’s perspective for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, schools get to really assess the caliber of the athlete. They can get their own heights, weights, 40 times and such. They don’t have to rely on combines, scouting services, the kids themselves or the high schools for that easily manipulated information.

Emphasis mine and this is why I don’t put too much stock in recruit sites evaluations and stars.  The schools use them only to get names of players they don’t already know about.  They can act as a baseline for discussion but I don’t use them much beyond that.

My head coach friend Rodger? He firmly believes the recruiting sites are strictly in the business of making money and will say and write basically what local fans want to hear about the recruits their schools are considering – especially in the recruits are in the same geographic area as the school itself.

That makes sense and I’ll take his experienced word on it.  I talked to a different high school coach who said that he called a recruiting site that had listed one of his players as a 4* – when the kid truthfully wasn’t that good of a player. “Good, but not that good” was how the coach phrased it to me.

The coach wanted some background on how that four star award happened and never got a call-back.  He figured that because the local college had gotten a verbal from the player two years earlier that factored into the site’s decision.

But this is also why we never see a recruit getting his rating downgraded after his senior year if he doesn’t play well.  At least I can’t remember every seeing it happen.

We’ll see a star added to a recruit by a specific site here and there and fans love that, but it pisses subscribers off when you take their kids’ star away.  Do that too many times and it hits the recruiting sites pocketbook.

But here is a really interesting part – what happens when the players themselves start visiting schools?

“Recruiting is a delicate, intense ordeal for both players and coaches.

Kids can break things up by taking the wrong visit, trying to play both sides against the middle or not showing enough interest. Coaches can lose kids by saying the wrong thing to a mom or simply not telling the kid what he needs to hear.

It goes unmentioned, but current players can lose potential student-athletes because of official visits. Poor pairings result in a bad experience for all the parties involved, and while the goal is to get talent, no one wants to play with kids they do not like during the visit. Coaches must understand who the recruit truly is and who on his roster would fit with that youngster’s personality.”

We saw this in living color when PSU and Pitt were competing for LeSean McCoy’s services…From the PSU Black Shoes Diaries:

McCoy was rumored to be Penn State bound all through 2005.  Internet rumor stated during his official visit to Penn State he got in a fight with Michael Robinson which led him to commit to Miami. But either his grades or his SAT scores prevented him from enrolling, so he attended prep school for a year in 2006 to get his grades up.

With Larry Coker on the hot seat all season McCoy reopened his recruiting. He was spotted on the University Park campus several times leading many to believe he was PSU bound. It was rumored he was awaiting his latest SAT scores before announcing his decision, but it was expected he was going to commit before the holidays. As the days and weeks wore on, it was becoming apparent something was going on. Now we know.

Of course that was slanted terribly and just plain wrong – McCoy has a very serious ankle injury in his SR year of high school that would have kept him from playing for Miami right away so Miami pulled the offer. But the rumor about the Robinson fight has been verified and, thanks to Robinson for that, we had McCoy for two years.

2.A. What do the university’s staff and scouts look for in a player?

Great question Reed, thanks for asking!

Here is a very good website that addresses just this issue and delves into what happens when a player wants to be recruited and, in turn, a school wants to recruit a player.  For an example, let’s show what the scouts look for in a BCS (now called FBS) level QB:

Physical Mensurable:

Height: 6’4″ Weight: 220 lbs.

Stats:

40yd: 4.5,  Bench: 260 lbs.,   Squat: 425 lbs.

Coach Keys:

Must be polished.

Pro-Style QBs or Passing Spread QBs should be able to throw the Deep Out, Comeback, Dig, and Seam Route with no loft.

Should be able to throw ball through goalpost from opposite 40 yard line.

Proficient ability to throw receivers open and execute the back shoulder throw.

Dual-Threat QBs may be raw as passers but should show as the best pure athlete on the field in every game and possess elite size/speed combinations.

Has to have demonstrated QB ability multiple years at an All-State level or High All Area/District at a minimum.

Should have recognition from national recruiting media and log performances on the camp and combine circuit.

Remember that is an itemized punch list for a scout to use in finding prototype big-time QB when sifting through the many, many high school QBs there are out there. But there is a ton of room for interpretation here.

For instance – what in hell does “Must be polished” mean in this list of requirements? Should the kid be able to set a proper formal dinner table for six including a shrimp fork, three wine glasses and a finger bowl?  Of course not, unless Yale is looking at you – then you’ll probably end up as a Wiffenpoof and live with a ‘partner’ after your college career is finished.

We know that phrase pertains to football but just how does one wear that cloak of polishment? (New word, really!)  Does it mean cool under pressure – well, if so a SR in HS is most probably more mature and able to be that than a SO.  And if you have a good OL in front of you it is much easier to remain calm in the pocket then when a LB is sitting on your face every other play.  But then again we have read that a SR season is an ‘afterthought’…?

That’s subjective as can be… and really is kind of unnecessary to list IMO.

Has to have demonstrated QB ability multiple years at an All-State level or High All Area/District at a minimum.  This makes sense in that if the premise that a player’s senior season is an ‘afterthought’ then he had better have a decent resume before that.  I suppose most high school QBs who are recruited into FBS schools have been multiple year starters, but then again we know there are exceptions.

Of course we here at Pitt hope that caveat doesn’t apply in MacVittie’s case.  What happened with him is that because of his ‘tangibles’ (also listed above) Pitt took a good look at him, got him into camp and offered based on a projection that he’ll pick up the college game as he goes through his underclass years.

Now, be able throw the ball through the goal posts from the opposite 40 yard line (70 yards away).  I remember when the Ravens drafted QB Kyle Boller with their 1st pick of the NFL draft years ago – the then Ravens coach, Brian Billick, was an ex-NFL OC and loved the strong armed kids who could go deep.

He even went so far as to make a press release video of Boller doing the above on one knee!!  OMG!!

The problem with Boller was that he couldn’t remember the plays very well, or what he was doing out there at times and completely failed in the pros.  He had a strong arm and a bucket head.

So what happens next for the Ravens? Billick bites the bullet and acquires noodle armed Trent Dilfer who had a football computer in his cranium and they win the super bowl.

Dual-threat QBs must be the best pure athlete on the field… Well then, Pitt need not be looking for this as long as Whitehead takes the field for us. Sorry, load of crap.  Let’s drop the drama and say he must be equally good at both aspects, passing and running, and be able to beat the defense either way.

And finally the most realistic – Should have recognition from national recruiting media and log performances on the camp and combine circuit.

Notice it say “recognition” and not 4* or 5*s.  The fact here is that the national recruiting media is so damn large these days the kids that are completely overlooked are few and far between.  This goes back to what we have said on here before in that schools will use services to identify prospects but will do the evaluations – hence the second part of that sentence – on their own.

I have heard many times that offers have been issued based on the staff seeing a film of a player only but that is pretty rare and usually happens after the majority of the recruiting class is filled out anyway.  What happens more often is that the staff sees a film then calls the players and asks him to take a visit or come to a camp so they can see him in person – then the decision to offer or not is made.

Sometimes that happens on the spot and sometimes it’s a ‘We’ll call you later.” type of deal.

The bottom line of college football recruiting is that it isn’t a scientific process nor is it smoke and mirrors.  It is really a combination of both with some just plain gambling throw in.  We Pitt fans know that we have had 4* and 5* kids not pan out and falter – either on the field of play or because of other issues.

It is those other issues that are the hardest to quantify.

Another coach told me that he once had a solid and talented recruit who had a choice between the University of Maryland, which is right in the kid’s backyard and an offer from Nebraska in the Midwest.  The coach strongly advised him to take the local offer because he knew the recruit was from a strong and supportive family and that he was a Mama’s Boy in the sense that he was antsy when he was away from the family on camp trips, attending combines, etc.

However, the boy’s father, absent for much of the player’s young life, told the kid to go to the bigger school that put more players in the pros.  In essence looking at dollar signs rather than a good and happy college experience for his kid. (Stop me if you have heard this before Mr. Foster).

You can guess the outcome.  The kid last one year, transfers to a D2 school because at that point he’s old news and so on and so on.  It happens all the time.

The question marks could be staying at home when they should go away from influences, leaving a girlfriend behind, the harder to handle academic level in college, partying with upperclassmen and a whole new group of football hanger-ons.

And most often if a player can’t navigate the minefield of college ball and fails to succeed (and by that I mean have a four year run in college without personal problems) it is the inability to abide by the rules and requirements set down by the university and coaching staff  or… just simply not being the center of attention any longer.

There are so many factors involved other than the fact that the player has a strong or not arm or what the player’s 40 time is or what he can bench press.

A great example of these external factors at work was Pitt’s recruitment of Mark Myers. Here was a great kid from a great family and had all the measurable you’d want in a QB.  Played on an Ohio championship team and just really looked the part of the prototype QB a school wants.

Rivals.com loved the kid and rated him at 4*s, #11 nationally and in their top 300 players.  Great get huh?  The problem was – and this is how very subjective recruiting services are – the other sites had him as 3*s and 32nd, 44th and 103rd of that year’s QBs.

He was going to be Wannstedt’s QB of the future.  But life got in the way and Mark Myers became disillusioned by the lack of playing time and the required role of the QB under Todd Graham.

But more importantly Myers didn’t find the level of fun at a D1 school in Pitt like he had in HS.  His academics slipped and he finally pulled out to go to John Carroll – where he was closer to home and recovered the joy in the game he had lost at Pitt.  He flourished.

No recruiting site or scout is going to be able to predict that from watching the kid play a few games in high school and no staff is going to see that unfold because ‘Having fun’ isn’t one of the things on the QB position’s checklist above.

EDIT Note: I started writing this on Sunday morning… We’ll have the Part 2 of this article either tomorrow morning or I’ll finish it up on Thursday.  Oh, and Devin Street’s little brother just verbalized to Pitt.  Yea Us!





We’ll see how good MacVittie and Ffrench are as they both fit in the category of being ignored by the major players after their junior years.
James Conner also fit in this category and he signed with Pitt in the summer before his senior year as a DE.

Fact is that the Bamas, OSUs, etc are going to corral the blue chippers after their junior years. (Also Notre Dame as we Pitt fans should well be aware as they just got commits by 4 of the top underclassmen recruits in Pgh area)

Pitt will never get these types especially with 20,000 empty yellow seats at Heinz. They must continue to scratch and claw, and maybe get some castoffs from major programs (Watts and Camp last year).

But even moreso, they need to recognize potential of recruits who are about to break through …. Ffrench and MacVittie certainly appears to be great examples here based on their productive senior years — we’ll see.

Comment by wbb 06.07.16 @ 7:19 am

One more thing … I read a couple of years ago that Kyle Boller and Jamarcus Russell tested out as the two strongest arms ever at the NFL combine .. both were 1st rounders and NFL busts

Comment by wbb 06.07.16 @ 7:32 am

Reed you have broken your writer’s block. Let’s see – WiffenPOOFS, shrimp salad forks, a linebacker ON your face (Central tea-bagging?), MARY Myers and the Barnes-like “polishment” which you railed against the other day. Seriously, recruiting has “advanced’ so much in the last 30 years that most failures to pan out seem to revolve around character on and off the field.
Camps get you access to players and the ability to know the recruit under a little pressure but remember Anthony Morelli tore up the 7 on 7 camps and was dumber than a box of rocks.
Another great thought provoking article – now get back to writing your book. Though I only write non-fiction – outline, outline, outline.

Comment by rkb 06.07.16 @ 8:54 am

Great work Reed. I sum it up like this, recruiting is not an exact science. Way too many variables.

The pundits are only oddsmakers and so some guys beat the odds in both directions. A can’t miss guy can miss, and a long shot sometimes makes the shot.

Statistics work very well in the aggregate however, and that’s why we all want more 4 and 5 star guys.

Much harder to get lucky with guys like Antonio Brown, a low pick who becomes the best in the business.

Hard to find those diamonds in the rough. Guys like Aaron Donald who don’t have the tangibles, in his case size, who can overcome and become superstars.

Comment by gc 06.07.16 @ 8:57 am

Reed – Good stuff, very interesting, thanks for putting that together!

All other things being equal, everybody wants their QB prospect to have the ideal size to see over the OL, and of course plenty of arm strength. However, one key attribute that I think is much harder to assess, and may be part of the reason QB’s are frequently over or under-rated, is decision making. I suspect it can be really difficult to assess a qb’s decision making ability at the HS level, with varying levels of competition and quality surrounding them. And furthermore, I’m not sure this is an area where kids improve a lot from HS to the college level, so if a kid struggles with decision making in HS, he may only improve modestly in college, no matter how much playbook studying he does, especially in a pro style offense. Anyway, that’s just my opinion, but this is where I’d want scouts to focus.

Comment by 1618mt 06.07.16 @ 9:08 am

It also seems the hardest to predict which guys will mature in their junior and senior years at the line positions. Which guys will work hard enough and which guys just develop physically as they become men. Which guys get better every year, and which guys plateau. The other thing which can’t be predicted is injury. The Steelers all-star center has missed more games than anyone I can remember.

In football injuries are a huge part of the game. It is rare to see a team win a championship with a third string QB, especially one that is benched the next year.

Who can predict durability?

Comment by gc 06.07.16 @ 9:10 am

Good article Reed. HCPN knows what he wants.

Comment by Frank MD 06.07.16 @ 9:24 am

Wow Reed … You so eloquently present how insane the college football game/ process has become. No longer a “game” but a human processing factory for the NFL. with no signs of returning to those good ole days. Young boys n young men chasing dreams and business men chasing the dollar..

On a recruiting note I have a couple of concerns.. The lack of quality OL bodies and losing several Central Catholic bluechippers to the Irish .. but that could be a ” Catholic thing” which I wouldn’t understand.

Comment by BigB 06.07.16 @ 10:47 am

Nice job Reed.

Comment by bj 06.07.16 @ 10:47 am

Hey – this is only half of the full piece… the 2nd half should be as informative if not more.

Comment by Reed 06.07.16 @ 10:58 am

And, of course, there are old high school girl friends to totally screw up a kid who might otherwise be a great college player.

H2P

Comment by pmdH2P 06.07.16 @ 11:07 am

One interesting tidbit, of which I was unaware: the “obsolescence” of the senior year performance. I wonder if schools like Pitt, which don’t get the obvious 4* and 5*s, do indeed evaluate the senior year performance. Could that be part of the reason why HCPN takes so far into the recruiting year to complete his recruiting class?

Comment by Savannah Panther 06.07.16 @ 11:34 am

Thanks Reed, nice reading for the down time. Nice reading for anytime.

Seems a lot of comments I see from recruits after they announce, is a “connection” with a coach or coaches.

Obvious, but I’m sure some kids come in and know within 10 minutes that this school is where I want to go.

It does seem like we have the type of coaches that do connect a bit, so hopefully a good sign moving forward with recruiting.

By the way guys, in a couple days, it’s going to be down to 3 months till 9-10!!

Time, the avenger.

Comment by Dan 06.07.16 @ 11:46 am

Excellent stuff Reed.

Yes, things have changed since the old Days. No secrets anymore on Players.

With the exception of Linemen and Quarterbacks, it really boils down to one thing for High School Players to be in demand.

The ability to RUN. That is the Great Separator.

Comment by PittofDreams 06.07.16 @ 12:01 pm

However, with Matt Canada… the ability to RUN is also the difference maker with Quarterbacks.

Comment by PittofDreams 06.07.16 @ 12:02 pm

And by the way, James Conner was lured to Pitt with the promise of getting the chance to play Runningback.

In the eyes of the anti Chryst/Rudolph Crowd… this is one thing you should recognize them as having done right.

Too right Boyo – Weakside Defensive End

Comment by PittofDreams 06.07.16 @ 12:05 pm

This is a great article

Comment by Atlanta Panther 06.07.16 @ 1:18 pm

Read… and learn

link to post-gazette.com

Comment by PittofDreams 06.07.16 @ 2:02 pm

Excellent article filled with things I never knew.It does seem our present coaching staff navigates this system well which is the Important thing for Pitt fans.Interesting story about McCoyand his brush with PS.Often wondered how he got to Pitt because Paterno used to own Harrisburg area.

Comment by Pitt60 06.07.16 @ 2:57 pm

Anyone who likes college football recruiting should read ” Meat Market “. It follows a year of recruiting with Ed Ogeron when he was a head coach.

Comment by Panther Jim 06.07.16 @ 4:10 pm

Okay…can someone explain this dilemma to me. I don’t understand the rationale of offering so many kids at one position. If you, as a coach, offer 10 wide outs for two slots and one of them opts to commit, but you really wanted player X and Y to commit…how does that play out? And then, from the players side, if you are one of a dozen O lineman for example, that have been offered, and you know the school is only going to take four, what advantage is there to waiting?…besides of course hoping your dream school ultimately may offer.

Comment by Largo 06.07.16 @ 4:29 pm

Largo – I’m going to address some of that in tomorrow’s Part 2.

However it all depends on the school. For example for as long as I can remember Pitt was very upfront about the offers they had out to players of the same position and would tell the WR (in your example)”We are looking at 10 kids and are going to take three. If you aren’t one of the first three who verbal we’ll call you and advise you to look elsewhere.

That’s Pitt.

Now here is what OSU does…

They accept a kids verbal then they purposely recruit over him without letting him know. Then the ask the kid to take a greyshirt (no scholarship until January of the following year after the season is over) when a scholarship will open up for him because OSU has a ton of players who quit going to school the second the last game’s whistle blows.

“Plus Ohio State is actively recruiting other running backs in addition to Sibley, who has been committed to the Buckeyes since April 2015. If Sibley were to grayshirt, he wouldn’t count against Ohio State’s scholarship number in 2017, but he also would have to take a year off from football.

That’s not Sibley’s plan.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” Sibley said. “I’ve been committed for over a year now, so it hit me as a surprise. Everything happens for a reason, so I just kinda took it and did what I could.”

Ohio State is hardly the first college program to ask a recruit to grayshirt. It happens often, and all over the place. But that doesn’t mean Sibley or any other player in this situation has to comply with the request.

So Sibley in some ways is back at the beginning, still committed to Ohio State but looking for other options if grayshirting is truly the only way he can play in Columbus.

Michigan State is on that list, as are Penn State, Indiana, Pitt, Missouri and Virginia — in no particular order”.

Comment by Reed 06.07.16 @ 4:56 pm

Thanks Reed. I remember the kid from Florida earlier this year that Harbaugh told right before LOI day that they wanted him to walk-on. What a blow for a kid that was committed to Michigan for who knows how long. HCPN and his staff jumped on this case and now he’s a Panther. One would think centers of influence for these kids like their HS coaches, parents, etc. would tell them to about these programs that are notorious for pulling scholarships.

Comment by Largo 06.07.16 @ 6:08 pm

‘be careful’…about these programs…

Comment by Largo 06.07.16 @ 6:09 pm

link to youtube.com

Video of the new turf field at Pitt’s practice facility from Pitt LiveWire…

Comment by NickC 06.07.16 @ 8:45 pm

FWIW (and off topic) …. Barry Roerssen and St John’s split ways

Comment by wbb 06.08.16 @ 6:02 am

Powered by WordPress © PittBlather.com

Site Meter