New commit
- Thread starter kougkurt
- Start date
Coach talks about eyes in right spot and running to the ball. It looks like he does both
welcome Jackson
welcome Jackson
Sorry to be a Debbie downer. I wish I was more excited, I really do. But this latest string of three commits has one power 5 offer (Oregon St) between the three of them.
We are reaching for a lot of kids this year. Haven't had a class with this many reaches since 2016. I'm sure a couple of them will pan out, but it's clear our assistants haven't been getting it done on the trail.
Offer sheets of various commits:
Player A: None
Player B: SDSU and Idaho St
Player C: BYU, Colorado St, Hawaii, Montana St, SDSU, SJSU, UNLV
Player D: Nevada, Sacramento St
Player E: Air Force, Army, Central Michigan, Colorado St, New Mexico St, Northern Colorado, Wyoming
5/16 without P5 offers other than WSU. Number goes to more than half the class without multiple P5 offers. And this is with Jayden De Laura picking up two P5 offers this past week.
Player A: None
Player B: SDSU and Idaho St
Player C: BYU, Colorado St, Hawaii, Montana St, SDSU, SJSU, UNLV
Player D: Nevada, Sacramento St
Player E: Air Force, Army, Central Michigan, Colorado St, New Mexico St, Northern Colorado, Wyoming
5/16 without P5 offers other than WSU. Number goes to more than half the class without multiple P5 offers. And this is with Jayden De Laura picking up two P5 offers this past week.
If I'm the coach, I call him up and tell him I need him playing both ways. He's a future NFL tight end.
His tape looks like he is fast enough to play safety. Needs to learn footwork, and probably doesn't know a lot about pass coverage. But has the right build to play safety and would potentially be a good nickel or dime guy. He went early to Nevada and it looks like not many were hot on his trail after that. Potentially a good addition if he has the right attitude & motivation.
The 4 players below from the 2017 class were NOT highly rated coming out of High School and appear to be contributing at a fairly high level. Might want to trust the coaches and their ability to assess under the radar talent.
-
Davontavean Martin
0.8080
Travell Harris
0.8005
Dallas Hobbs
0.7930
Willie Taylor
0.7682
The 4 players below from the 2017 class were NOT highly rated coming out of High School and appear to be contributing at a fairly high level. Might want to trust the coaches and their ability to assess under the radar talent.
Davontavean Martin
0.8080
Travell Harris
0.8005
Dallas Hobbs
0.7930
Willie Taylor
0.7682
Nice try but all but one of those players had power 5 offers.
New commit is perfect size for nickel. He def has a knack for blitzing out of nickel spot. Same size as hunter dale pretty much.
I'm not tripping about the offensive linemen commit. Leach has shown that they can develop and build offensive linemen and they don't need stars to do it. They recruit to a style and they build them up and coach them up. I'm confident that any linemen we get will be just fine.
I get the concern about the lack of offers about the other recruits, but you can't judge them until they're in the program. Right now it's the lack of bodies and depth that is causing the defensive issues. We need to keep players in the system and develop them. That's is how you win in Pullman, we might get a 4 star here or there, but we are going to have to go with under the radar kids, less value, kids who play with a chip on their shoulder. That's just the way it is here. Pullman is always gonna be a tough school to recruit to. It doesn't matter what we accomplish, recruiting to Pullman will always have limits on what athletes you can attract.
I get the concern about the lack of offers about the other recruits, but you can't judge them until they're in the program. Right now it's the lack of bodies and depth that is causing the defensive issues. We need to keep players in the system and develop them. That's is how you win in Pullman, we might get a 4 star here or there, but we are going to have to go with under the radar kids, less value, kids who play with a chip on their shoulder. That's just the way it is here. Pullman is always gonna be a tough school to recruit to. It doesn't matter what we accomplish, recruiting to Pullman will always have limits on what athletes you can attract.
I think your basic point still stands: That we can identify and develop "3 star" and even "2 star" (in the case of Taylor and Hobbs) talent. We are going to need to count on that ability and could do better on the defense side.
And I don't take much stock on other mid/lower level p5 school offers and jump up and down just because it's another school in a p5 conference. There's a pretty wide range there.
Yes, Davontavean Martin was offered by Virginia, a P5 school in the ACC who happen to actually be doing reasonably well this year, but at the time he was offered they had a losing record for several seasons. Was I excited we got him because VA also offered? Nope. I do remember liking his tape though.
Last edited:
Tay Martin had offers from Virginia and Wake Forest. He was also a standout basketball player which caused him to fly under the radar to some degree..
Not sure how the recruiting services missed on Harris. He had around 30 offers and track speed. Players in this mold rarely don't contribute.
Willie Taylor was a grade risk and had an Ole Miss offer. He was from rural Georgia and this caused him to fly under the radar a bit.
Dallas Hobbes is the classic example of an under the radar guy working out here. Good frame but a late bloomer. He added a bunch of weight since coming here.
My frustration with out recruiting stems from the fact that pretty much all of the players who are trying hard but are talent deficient didn't get much recruiting love out of HS either.
Star ratings have been heavily influenced by whether or not an article written about a kid can get clicks. I'm not worried about them.
But D1 programs evaluate the film of thousands of recruits each year and narrow that list to somewhere in the 150-250 range of kids who get offers. With 65 P5 teams, the hope is that at least several more teams see the guys you are bringing in as capable of playing at this level. The fact is the kids we offer with other P5 offers have, as a group, better careers than the ones we don't.
I put a lot of the blame for this on the assistants. This might be a good off-season to make some changes in the staff, if for no other reason than to get some dynamic recruiters on the staff.
I think Leach looks for cerebral guys first, salesmen second. I also think they could use another talent evaluator. Someone who will find Trufant, David, Paymah, Coleman, etc.
I don t know if cerebral is the right word. he hired one drinking buddy. But i do agree that this year s staff is not up to the last two years of coaches who can recruit.
I agree with your overall point about the assistants not being top notch recruiters. Losing Mastro, Wilson, Coach Joe & Manning over the last few years has taken a toll.
As for looking at offer sheets, you could have made the same comments about our QB commit just 2 weeks ago. I remember Ian Book didn't have much of an offer sheet when he committed to us either.
Valid points. I just get a little burnt out when people talk about "oh they got a p5 offer" without looking at WHO that offer is from. There is a wide range, and there are some p5 coaches who are worse at recruiting and identifying talent than some big sky coaches.
Also it varies by position and school's different needs. If a QB we want gets an offer from Boise, UH, or BYU I'm actually going to pay more attention to that than if they get one from Georgia Tech even though the latter is a p5 school.
But your following statement is probably correct in general: "The fact is the kids we offer with other P5 offers have, as a group, better careers than the ones we don't." I wonder if there are stats on that.
Last edited:
Ill tell you the truth whenever i watch a game with a p5 eam and a midmajor every game there wll be a lb or a de or a dt that im like damn he is better than what weve got
The differrence is they dont have the depth but there are always players that colorado state or central Michigan or ball state have that are p5 players
The differrence is they dont have the depth but there are always players that colorado state or central Michigan or ball state have that are p5 players
Eh...it’s more about retention. There’s enough hogs and skill guys. Need some DLinem
First 3 yes, Willie decided to revert back to his recruiting ranking this year thoughThe 4 players below from the 2017 class were NOT highly rated coming out of High School and appear to be contributing at a fairly high level. Might want to trust the coaches and their ability to assess under the radar talent.
Davontavean Martin
0.8080
Travell Harris
0.8005
Dallas Hobbs
0.7930
Willie Taylor
0.7682
Truth on Willie...I have been railing on his lack of production all year. RSJ is having a much better year and IMO has passed him in the rotation.
After reading an article about Dillard comments regarding Khali Mack lining up across from him last week. I started thinking how the hell does Mack end up at the University of Buffalo. I pulled the following off his Wiki page.
Mack was raised by his parents: high school sweethearts Yolanda, a teacher, and Sandy Mack Sr., a program specialist, in Fort Pierce, Florida. He has two brothers, Sandy, Jr. and LeDarius. His father introduced him to sports at the age of five. Mack took an early liking
to baseball and basketball although he played Pop Warner football.[1][2]
Mack attended Fort Pierce Westwood High School in Fort Pierce. He had played quarterback and was nicknamed "Bombshell Man." However, throwing the ball short was a major struggle for Mack so he became a linebacker. The rest of his athletic career he had been relying on basketball to get him a college scholarship but his plans were dashed by a tear in his patella tendon before his sophomore season. After this injury, his high school football coach, Waides Ashmon, recruited him to the sport, promising Mack and his parents that it would earn him a scholarship.[1]
In his senior year, Mack had 140 tackles, including eight for a loss, and nine sacks. He was named third-team All-State in Florida, as well as first-team All-Area, and helped lead the Panthers to a district championship.[citation needed] Being a newcomer to the sport, he was rated as only a two-star recruit by Rivals.com.[3] He received a scholarship from the State University of New York at Buffalo to play Division I football.[4]
