LB Coach Search
- Thread starter Brent H.
- Start date
They need a recruiter. A guy that can go to SoCal and get half a dozen kids every year.
I agree they need a good recruiter, but for him to be able to get six quality recruits out of SoCal is expecting a bit much. Every quality program is in there.
We need our fair share of guys that are considering schools like ASU, UA, CU and Utah.
With Cristobal at Oregon and Tucker at Colorado, we're going to be hearing a lot of about "taking an SEC approach to recruiting." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but WSU needs to compete in SoCal. USC won't spend another ten years lost in the wilderness.
If not SoCal....At least someone with strong ties to like TX or OH. I know there are a lot schools there but our brand is growing stronger each year Leach is in Pullman. With former coaches from the B1G on our staff, we shouldn't have a problem with getting in the front doors of some quality HS football athletes in those areas. We all know the presence Leach has in TX, so that shouldn't be a problem at all.
Even if they just picked certain cities. Houston and Chicago.
If theyre not able to land kids from SoCal thats a prob. Branding, relationships, whatever.
Having so many new coaches needing to start over with relationships makes it tough. Some kids youre just not able to make any headway with because theyve been talking with other coaches for so long. Theyve got their list narrowed by their junior year.
It still baffles me how CA JC kids dont see WSU as a strong option.
I think both those areas are great ideas, especially Texas. Texas has a ton of talent, the culture there tends to produce players who would do well in a Leach program (from a discipline/management standpoint), and his name is still well-known, even to current recruits. It's starting to get pretty long in the tooth, so not many kids at this point actually grew up watching Texas Tech with Leach there, but his reputation still is very good.
Also, WSU is known down there as the school with Leach and an exciting offense that is winning a lot of games now (including the Alamo Bowl), not the school in a cow town that isn't as good as UW (as it is, unfortunately and incorrectly, thought of by some in the NW and even to a lesser extent in Cali, maybe even throughout the Pac-12 footprint and west). The further you get from Seattle, the better WSU is thought of.
I know we had a prior focus on Texas that didn't really work out (under Doba, as I recall), but all the ingredients are there for it to work now.
I like this too. We pulled some pretty good players that were very much under the radar as far recruitment goes when Sala'vea was recruiting those areas. Maybe we can find someone with those ties/background that also comes from SoCal.
Just my $0.02.
Wazzu and every other PAC program should not have a problem finding 5-6 kids in Southern Cal if they want to work to get them. Yes, lots of people are recruiting there, at least in theory. In fact, most don't work very hard at it. If you said that we should be able to load up on 4 & 5* kids, then I would disagree. But I just went down the list of the PAC schools as of the LOI date this week and counted a total of 86 kids from SoCal signed by just the PAC schools. That includes both HS and JC. That doesn't count the other P5 conferences or major independents (if one of you is curious and wants to put in the time with the other P5 schools, I'd be interested to know how many of their recruits are from SoCal; for the record, that is anywhere south of Fresno). And if you also added the Mountain West schools to the other P5 conferences & Notre Dame, the number is probably in the 125-150 range. Are all of the MW schools kids we would want? No, but we all see kids on MW squads who turned out to be kids we would have liked to have had. So what is the real available number of SoCal recruits in a given year? It has to be well north of 100. Is it realistic to get 5-6 every year if we have consistent representation here? Or more? Of course it is. The only question is whether we put in a sustained effort. Unfortunately, a recruiter who gets consistently good results in SoCal moves to the top of other school's "poaching list", so that makes a consistent effort doubly hard. But with the winning track record we have, some consistent recruiting coverage and legitimate effort should have no problem with 5-6 kids. Or more.
Wazzu and every other PAC program should not have a problem finding 5-6 kids in Southern Cal if they want to work to get them. Yes, lots of people are recruiting there, at least in theory. In fact, most don't work very hard at it. If you said that we should be able to load up on 4 & 5* kids, then I would disagree. But I just went down the list of the PAC schools as of the LOI date this week and counted a total of 86 kids from SoCal signed by just the PAC schools. That includes both HS and JC. That doesn't count the other P5 conferences or major independents (if one of you is curious and wants to put in the time with the other P5 schools, I'd be interested to know how many of their recruits are from SoCal; for the record, that is anywhere south of Fresno). And if you also added the Mountain West schools to the other P5 conferences & Notre Dame, the number is probably in the 125-150 range. Are all of the MW schools kids we would want? No, but we all see kids on MW squads who turned out to be kids we would have liked to have had. So what is the real available number of SoCal recruits in a given year? It has to be well north of 100. Is it realistic to get 5-6 every year if we have consistent representation here? Or more? Of course it is. The only question is whether we put in a sustained effort. Unfortunately, a recruiter who gets consistently good results in SoCal moves to the top of other school's "poaching list", so that makes a consistent effort doubly hard. But with the winning track record we have, some consistent recruiting coverage and legitimate effort should have no problem with 5-6 kids. Or more.
Kansas State has success with JC kids because they sign soooo many JC kids.
If WSU took 5 NW kids and 20 SoCal kids every year you’d have an enormous amount of success stories to tell. Parents would see an army of kids going north every year and feel better about sending their son. You’d see HS coaches talking up the success of kids at WSU to their teams.
Numbers help.
I think we should take a page out of Asu's decision to hire Antonio Pierce. He was the head man at LB POLY and has been an absolute recruiting boom for ASU. Chris Claiborne at Calabasas (also coached at LB POLY) would work or somebody else who played in the league that has major connection in LA.
Claiborne remains a staunch USC man. His heart would never be into his job at WSU.
