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University of Arizona

BiggsCoug

Hall Of Fame
Feb 5, 2003
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UofA signed 11 of the top 72 players in California. Including the #1 player overall. They walked in and left 15% of the top 72 kids.

How does a team that goes 1-8 in league play, 1-11 overall on the season, do that?

The new arms race isn’t going to be in facilities. It’s going to be with NIL deals and how the athletic department teaches kids to get them. Arizona has people in front of their team coaching them up. Does WSU????
 
Arizona has a lot of NFL guys on that staff. Fisch was an OC for several teams. Their OC is Pete Carroll's kid. Walker, Dougherty and Nansen are all top recruiters. Strong recruiting staff. Plus I've always thought immediate playing time should always be a good recruiting selling point. "hey the bad news is we suck, but the good news is you can start on Day 1."
 
Arizona has a lot of NFL guys on that staff. Fisch was an OC for several teams. Their OC is Pete Carroll's kid. Walker, Dougherty and Nansen are all top recruiters. Strong recruiting staff. Plus I've always thought immediate playing time should always be a good recruiting selling point. "hey the bad news is we suck, but the good news is you can start on Day 1."

They signed the #1 player in California. They won 1 game. That isn’t just good recruiters on staff.
 
Totally agree. You've got to wonder why these recruits would choose a 1-8 Arizona team? What was it? Recruiting, the impact of their coaches, a potential violation, or some sort of NIL deal?
 
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Totally agree. You've got to wonder why these recruits would choose a 1-8 Arizona team? What was it? Recruiting, the impact of their coaches, a potential violation, or some sort of NIL deal?

The #1 recruit in California can call his shot. He can go anywhere in the nation.

He chose a 1-11 team. Why?
 
It's not difficult to figure out that stability + playing time + NIL + portal is going to amount to a lot more success in recruiting than a program deserves.

Arizona has had a HC while so many other programs are in turmoil. Chip has been viewed as on the hot seat all year. Herm has the NCAA hammer ready to drop on him. USC hasn't had a HC for most of the cycle. Karl Dorrell and Kyle Wittingham aren't exactly hungry on the recruiting trail. Stanford can't recruit a lot of kids. Wilcox isn't a dynamo. Jonathan Smith is as vanilla as they come. Cristobal left Oregon. Jimmy Lake was out and Jake Dickert didn't get the keys until two weeks before signing day. There aren't a lot of great situations in the conference.

The OP constantly whines about playing time. Why would a kid want to use eligibility to watch from the sidelines? Then a team that can offer a P5 ride, playing time, and an idea of the system you will be running and the response is to suggest cheating? Playing time is a selling point that works.

Now the portal and NIL are the final factors. If a freshman comes in and has a great true freshman season for a doormat like AZ. They can build value for the eventual portal to a competitive program and cash in on the best NIL deal then.

Say what you will about the state Rodriguez and Sumlin left Arizona's program in. Jedd isn't a bad coach. He wants to succeed. Badly. That hustle is gonna go a long way at this weird time.
 
Here’s one for you…. Arizona signs 11 kids in the top 72 in California….. WSU signs 1 high school player from California. The biggest talent base on the West Coast. They sign 1 kid.

That’s all I have to say about that.
Whenever WSU has a coaching change, which group tends to swarm the new coach with recruiting "advice"?
 
It's not difficult to figure out that stability + playing time + NIL + portal is going to amount to a lot more success in recruiting than a program deserves.

Arizona has had a HC while so many other programs are in turmoil. Chip has been viewed as on the hot seat all year. Herm has the NCAA hammer ready to drop on him. USC hasn't had a HC for most of the cycle. Karl Dorrell and Kyle Wittingham aren't exactly hungry on the recruiting trail. Stanford can't recruit a lot of kids. Wilcox isn't a dynamo. Jonathan Smith is as vanilla as they come. Cristobal left Oregon. Jimmy Lake was out and Jake Dickert didn't get the keys until two weeks before signing day. There aren't a lot of great situations in the conference.

The OP constantly whines about playing time. Why would a kid want to use eligibility to watch from the sidelines? Then a team that can offer a P5 ride, playing time, and an idea of the system you will be running and the response is to suggest cheating? Playing time is a selling point that works.

Now the portal and NIL are the final factors. If a freshman comes in and has a great true freshman season for a doormat like AZ. They can build value for the eventual portal to a competitive program and cash in on the best NIL deal then.

Say what you will about the state Rodriguez and Sumlin left Arizona's program in. Jedd isn't a bad coach. He wants to succeed. Badly. That hustle is gonna go a long way at this weird time.

Im not suggesting cheating you dope. Im suggesting Arizona is ahead of the curve. And your points about all these staffs in turmoil doesn’t mean shit when it comes to a 5 star kid with offers from Cal and Stanford. He has grades. He could go anywhere. Not every staff in America is in turmoil. He is a national level recruit. The P12 turmoil doesn’t matter. He is going to play anywhere he goes. Playing time doesn’t matter to kids like him because he assumes he is gonna start anywhere he goes. I figured you would have known that seeing you think you’re so smart. You’re not.

If hustle landed 5 star kids why don’t they go to more 1-11 programs????
 
McMillan to Arizona was a huge surprise. He was one of those 5-star UO verbals who said bye-bye to the Ducks when Mario left. By the way, Oregon's recruiting ranking went from a sure fire top 10 nationally (they were hoping to crack the top 5) to now ranked #39, all because of a coaching change. I can remember when some kids used to commit to a school, not a coach.

Glad Cougar
 
McMillan to Arizona was a huge surprise. He was one of those 5-star UO verbals who said bye-bye to the Ducks when Mario left. By the way, Oregon's recruiting ranking went from a sure fire top 10 nationally (they were hoping to crack the top 5) to now ranked #39, all because of a coaching change. I can remember when some kids used to commit to a school, not a coach.

Glad Cougar

Those days are over. You can leave the school pretty easily now if you don’t like it there.
 
Without question WSU is going to have to become active in California, but this has been a unique couple of seasons with COVID and the Rolovich turmoil. We just named our head coach a few weeks ago, and many of his key staff have ties outside of Cali. As such, we have several kids from places like TX, OK, and FL.

We’re gonna see very quickly how our staff approaches recruiting, but this year isn’t a reflection of that. We need to field another exciting team in 2022 and outwork the other programs for recruits by building relationships. That’s what Arizona did, it appears, but we’ll see how it translates on the field for them. Their class is littered with kids who switched to them last minute. That screams future transfer portal if the losses pile up again next year and the coaching staff gets canned.
 
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Without question WSU is going to have to become active in California, but this has been a unique couple of seasons with COVID and the Rolovich turmoil. We just named our head coach a few weeks ago, and many of his key staff have ties outside of Cali. As such, we have several kids from places like TX, OK, and FL.

We’re gonna see very quickly how our staff approaches recruiting, but this year isn’t a reflection of that. We need to field another exciting team in 2022 and outwork the other programs for recruits by building relationships. That’s what Arizona did, it appears, but we’ll see how it translates on the field for them. Their class is littered with kids who switched to them last minute. That screams future transfer portal if the losses pile up again next year and the coaching staff gets canned.

With the portal there is no downside. You can always roll on if it isn’t working.

There is value in getting kids onto campus though.

The Texas coaches know what they’re looking at down there. The kids are coming from programs that have developed football cultures. The West Coast isn’t that way.

There is value in knowing high school coaches and having relationships. They have to develop relationships in SoCal. You are avoiding the talent base that fuels the conference if you don’t.
 
If you are a Top-Flight WR & you initially are headed to Oregon & now Arizona I have to wonder if this is a tell about priorities.

Two programs not known for lighting it up through the air & have young unproven QBs as your feeder upcoming.

Odd
 
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McMillan to Arizona was a huge surprise. He was one of those 5-star UO verbals who said bye-bye to the Ducks when Mario left. By the way, Oregon's recruiting ranking went from a sure fire top 10 nationally (they were hoping to crack the top 5) to now ranked #39, all because of a coaching change. I can remember when some kids used to commit to a school, not a coach.

Glad Cougar
Players only committed to a school if they grew up their entire lives being a fan of the school. Otherwise, players have always committed to the coaching staff.

Seriously though, do you blame any of them? Why should coaches be able to leave, yet a recruit that was recruited to one system should not be able to change his mind?
 
Players only committed to a school if they grew up their entire lives being a fan of the school. Otherwise, players have always committed to the coaching staff.

Seriously though, do you blame any of them? Why should coaches be able to leave, yet a recruit that was recruited to one system should not be able to change his mind?
Key word in my post, "some" kids used to commit to a school. It was many decades ago, but I was at WSU when we had 4 head coaches in 4 years. Very few players transferred over that 4 year period. But of course, there was no transfer portal back then. Still, it seemed there was more loyalty to a school.

As Biggs said, those days are over.

Glad Cougar
 
Without question WSU is going to have to become active in California, but this has been a unique couple of seasons with COVID and the Rolovich turmoil. We just named our head coach a few weeks ago, and many of his key staff have ties outside of Cali. As such, we have several kids from places like TX, OK, and FL.

We’re gonna see very quickly how our staff approaches recruiting, but this year isn’t a reflection of that. We need to field another exciting team in 2022 and outwork the other programs for recruits by building relationships. That’s what Arizona did, it appears, but we’ll see how it translates on the field for them. Their class is littered with kids who switched to them last minute. That screams future transfer portal if the losses pile up again next year and the coaching staff gets canned.
It's not like Arizona wasn't there the entire time on these kids and then "swooped in" at the last moment. They maintained their relationship throughout the process and finished the job. They have a few players that received 2-3 large offers and a bunch of smalls from schools far away or further evaluated by the Utah States of the country who obviously know how to evaluate. Covid may have been a factor in their decision not to visit or made it too complicated. So, they focus on these guys and land them at LOI time. They're obviously "ahead of the curve" in figuring ways to land their players as Biggs pointed out. It wasn't a fluke and they just didn't get lucky.
 
Key word in my post, "some" kids used to commit to a school. It was many decades ago, but I was at WSU when we had 4 head coaches in 4 years. Very few players transferred over that 4 year period. But of course, there was no transfer portal back then. Still, it seemed there was more loyalty to a school.

As Biggs said, those days are over.

Glad Cougar
Yes, those days are over, and that is a good thing.
 
Key word in my post, "some" kids used to commit to a school. It was many decades ago, but I was at WSU when we had 4 head coaches in 4 years. Very few players transferred over that 4 year period. But of course, there was no transfer portal back then. Still, it seemed there was more loyalty to a school.

As Biggs said, those days are over.

Glad Cougar
Back then WSU was professional in other areas while the rest of the D1 schools were still rocking the amateur status.

No reason to leave cold beer, hot coeds and, shall we say, morally casual attitudes.
 
Im not suggesting cheating you dope. Im suggesting Arizona is ahead of the curve. And your points about all these staffs in turmoil doesn’t mean shit when it comes to a 5 star kid with offers from Cal and Stanford. He has grades. He could go anywhere. Not every staff in America is in turmoil. He is a national level recruit. The P12 turmoil doesn’t matter. He is going to play anywhere he goes. Playing time doesn’t matter to kids like him because he assumes he is gonna start anywhere he goes. I figured you would have known that seeing you think you’re so smart. You’re not.

If hustle landed 5 star kids why don’t they go to more 1-11 programs????
Something to consider .. mike prices recruiting classes seemed to have dropped off when he was preparing for a bowl game . Arizona coach went full out moment his season was over. .plus he could sell playing time . Maybe kids are getting smart and they are saying they could be big fish in small pond or they can wait their turn .

I think part of reason price struggled was the demands of getting ready for a bowl game . Now a days teams seem to have some sort of staff member for almost every player . How many “analysts” does nick saban employ .
 
Key word in my post, "some" kids used to commit to a school. It was many decades ago, but I was at WSU when we had 4 head coaches in 4 years. Very few players transferred over that 4 year period. But of course, there was no transfer portal back then. Still, it seemed there was more loyalty to a school.

As Biggs said, those days are over.

Glad Cougar
It wasn’t school loyalty that kept them there, it was the loss of a year of eligibility. Eliminating the transfer year created free agency in college, and the NIL cemented it.
 
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