It's time for Chun to pony up some $$ and Dickert to hire a top notch director of player personnel and recruiting staff. Pay more than 50- 75k a year and get some real quality experienced people w connections organizing our recruiting effort. Hire Brian Watkins from UW or Silas Clapham from CSU. Dickert hiring his buddies Mesa and Schlaeger from Wyo or Rolo hiring his buddy Omura is not gonna get it done. We need top notch guys w contacts and Pac 12 experience who know hs coaches and handlers. We are about to have 10+ openings unfilled next Wed. That is a big deal and gonna hurt our program moving forward.
Wsu football recruiting staff
- Thread starter ShockandAweWSU
- Start date
Its one thing to hire your buddy if they are well qualified and have Power 5 experience. Not ok if you are hiring them because you lack connections and they are all you know.
I told you so. The coaches and the off field staff didn’t do shit for two years.
9 high school kids. 1 from California. Thank God for Bellingham having 2 kids. That was the first signing date. Fuc$ing pathetic.
They didn’t recruit. They didn’t have crap for offers out. They had zero clue where they stood with kids. Chun was caught completely flat footed by NIL.
I know there were issues with Turd. However, the off field guys should be up and down the West Coast and blowing up phones. They had zero idea what the fuc$ they were doing. And the staff that was kept should know better. Dickert should know better. 5 guys sign 2 kids each? And they had 2 years to build relationships? Wtf were they doing? CougEd could put on a WSU polo and get 2 kids to come play ball for a full scholarship. In 1 month.
And now here comes the second signing date. How many kids have they actually had on campus? How many verbals do they have?
You watch, if they don’t sign many kids it will be some sorry song and dance about adding guys this spring and summer.
This was a piss poor effort. And they KNOW it.
A director of recruiting is mostly an administrative position where it helps to have some skills in the film room. No need to break the bank for this position because once a certain threshold has been cleared the position doesn't add much value. The buddy hire thing becomes an issue if your buddy is incompetent, but beyond that it's a low level position.
If they end up w 10 openings and then give out 10 schollies to walk ons I'm gonna be pissed. I'm curious how many on campus recruiting visits we have had. If you are gonna save $$ by going cheap at the HC position then at least splurge on the off field staff and have a bang up recruiting staff. USC has like 10+ off field recruiting staff members who have contacts w hs players all over ( 3 of the staff members are really really hot girls....not a bad idea). Our new player personnel director is following 99 people on Twitter. No contacts. You have to get w the new recruiting times. Social media is a huge part of it nowadays.
Recruiting staff is huge these days. They not only evaluate film, but they help identify and then connect w the recruits before the on field staff get involved. We don't even have a recruiting coordinator. Justin Mesa, our 5'5" assistant recruiting director/old director of transfer recruiting is out on the recruiting trail in SoCal in place of our 10th hired coach two weeks before signing day. Rocky start....
They don’t know what they don’t know. They need to hire away from the SEC or Big Ten. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Bring in people that KNOW what the model looks like.
This is why you hire head coaches that have significant Power 5 experience. They walk in the door and KNOW what it looks like. They know the roles and people needed.
Turd had zero clue. Neither does Dickert. Good guy? Sure. Ready for a Power 5 job where he is the CEO of an organization? No fuc$ing way. He is on the job learning and off to a rough start with this class.
Bad decision. This is what it looks like when you hire a HC that has minimal Power 5 experience and hasn’t worked under a HC that KNOWS what the model looks like.
What kid in SoCal is going to take this guy seriously? He is just a guy in a WSU polo shirt. And this was Dickert’s answer to SoCal??? wow
Moment Jim Maestro said he wasn't joining Cristobal's staff in Miami and needed an off field position for family health reasons Dickert should have had offered him some position. Great recruiter. Manning, Maestro, Wilson had that California pipeline rolling. Brought in so many great players.
Another thing which might be a good idea....maybe have at least one African American on your recruiting staff.
Any way you slice it, it all comes back to California. That’s where the West Coast talent base is. You cannot avoid it. You have to be good at recruiting California if you are going to win Pac 12 games.
Wanna mix in some Texans? Fine. If you have 32 scholarships to fill, 22 need to be West Coast kids. If they aren’t, your recruiting was bad, your relationships were bad, your evaluations were bad or some combination of them.
If you go on wsucougars.com and click on the football coaching staff they still have fired coaches listed.
Why? Does this look good to potential recruits?
Chun shouldn’t have to stop his day to tell the person in charge of the website to change them. Neither should Dickert. This is the mickey mouse bullshit that goes on at WSU. Would Nick Saban let this happen? How about the uw? Does their website list the new staff or did they have no idea that this should be changed? This is the attention to detail that happens in programs that are run by people that KNOW what they’re doing. Is it a huge thing? No. Does it show poorly? Yes.
Why? Does this look good to potential recruits?
Chun shouldn’t have to stop his day to tell the person in charge of the website to change them. Neither should Dickert. This is the mickey mouse bullshit that goes on at WSU. Would Nick Saban let this happen? How about the uw? Does their website list the new staff or did they have no idea that this should be changed? This is the attention to detail that happens in programs that are run by people that KNOW what they’re doing. Is it a huge thing? No. Does it show poorly? Yes.
Marco has a pretty strong social media game.
Recruiting is about assistant coaches and the program at large. The prior staff had a bunch of duds on the trail who weren't used to recruiting at this level. Then Chun got his jollies by dangling the HC position over Dickert's head for a month instead of naming him the guy and allowing him to get a jump on recruiting. Ultimately they fired everyone but Cooper. Dickert had little over two weeks to keep the original class they had committed on board, hire a staff, and add a few more pieces before the early signing day.
Dickert did a good job by building a D heavy early class. With the offensive staff gone, it's surprising they hung on to both Wilder and Seth.
The biggest danger in this situation is trying to fill slots and offering everybody with a pulse. They haven't fallen into this trap. Andre Dollar wasn't a bad add and while Smithson didn't have a loaded offer sheet he's got legit speed. Cameron Ward is a great add. So are Hensley and Lee from Nevada. The kid from Virginia will be good if he can stay healthy. Sam Lockett strikes me as someone who finds a way to have a solid two season career. Last but not least, Kendall Williams plays nasty and you can't teach that.
Worried about walk-ons? They have only handed schollies to Janikowski and Victor. I think we can agree both are deserving.
The obvious issue is that we haven't signed enough players. By my count we still have 16 rides before we hit our new scholarship limit (Some kids would still need to leave to make room). I'm guessing we land 9 more by next Wednesday. It's going to be a wild ride.
I agree Dollar was a great pick up. Transfer Portal has been a wonderful thing for our staff. Both good indicators of Ward and Morris when studs pick you over flashier programs.
I'm talking about recruiting staff. Marco Regalado, Justin Mesa, Kramer and now Ray Clark (nickels coach at Idaho). Omura was there. Sammie was there under Rolo, but I've heard he did basically nothing but collect a paycheck.
I'm not sure this is the right strategy or not but we seem to be making the calculation that slower is better in this situation. Study the film of the scraps, find out everything we can about them, put the full court press on the guys you feel are worth the risk. Move on quickly if they aren't serious.
I have been super impressed w assistant coaches Davis and Brophy (who were brought over by Morris from ICWU). They've identified lots of guys from their contacts who then our coaching staff then have pursued.
I just know after signing day the pickings will be slim. Maybe more than a usual non covid year, but the next 9 days are big.
Email Chun about it then.
You would be surprised what a well thought out complaint letter or email can do.
It was worth waiting.
What if he did the half ass job Bob Gregory did at the UW?
Plus he had plans on replacing his inherited staff + the replacements brought in.
After the ASU win it was obvious Dickert was the guy. Beating awful Arizona and UW squads didn't prove anything.
Not just the wins but off the field stuff.
If UW wasn't led by an idiot Waldenite, it might have been more of a test.
Lake's shortcomings came through under pressure - the academic prowess comment (especially coming from an EWU grad from north Spokane), trying to downplay "striking the player kerfuffle" (he partly denied striking the kid and thereby made the molehill bigger)
Let's say the Sun Bowl crap but worse happened before the Apple Cup?
And by being announced publicly sooner, he would have had to make a few staff decisions public earlier than perhaps he wanted also.
Chun may have pretty much promised him the gig privately provided he didn't screw up badly.
There's about 10-12 known targets and Dickert talking about 32. They're either short 10 or there's a lot we don't know. 9 days to go. Shock is spot on about giving 10 walk-ons scholarships.
After the early signing period it was slim pickins for players the Cougs typically would have been in on. You can lay blame at Rolo's feet, but what good does that do at this point. The staff is obviously looking for talented kids who haven't garnered much attention from P5 programs; that is the strategy most notably in TX because that is where the current staff has deep ties. They landed four good players from the Transfer portal but we missed out on the two stud RB's from Stanford which hurt. I doubt we make much more noise in the TP this year. We need a dozen kids on campus next weekend and the DG's in sundresses.
This shouldn't take a letter to apprise him of the situation. His staff should also understand the importance of these details.
This thread has covered a lot of territory. I just want to bring up one point that I didn't notice earlier.
This is a really weird year from a recruiting perspective. So many things that just a few years ago would have been almost beyond comprehension. Take your pick as to which more important, and which is less. The combination is unprecedented, though.
There are what? Moving target, but a week or two ago I read that there were still 1,400-ish D1 portal kids without a chair to sit in when the music stops. Evaluation on this group is continuous, because there have been new faces every week for the past 2 months.
HS kids? After a season with less than normal visibility, attention on HS has been really diffused by all the portal kids. There have to be a lot more under the radar kids than usual, if for no other reason because the flood of portal kids has demanded so much attention.
JC kids? Possibly even more impact on their recruiting than the HS kids.
Long story short, there are still a lot of kids out there. Far more than usual. Under previously normal circumstances, the Feb 2 date would have had much more significance than it has this year. Many, many teams will still be sorting through the flood of portal kids....as well as doing the traditional HS and JC evaluations...for another month or two.
We have had a big staff turnover. Normally that would have been a huge deal as we approach Feb 2. This time, though, they clearly are continuing to evaluate rather than panic and offer scholies to fill the slots. That makes sense, because this year (more than any other in the history of recruiting) there is no hard deadline, there are more kids available than will get D1 scholies, and it is better to take a little more time than to respond in a knee jerk manner.
I think the "new" recruiting schedule (at least this year) is perpetual, and only loosely connected to arbitrary deadlines. How long that situation lasts depends to a great extent on how the currently unacceptable portal situation is modified. I expect some modifications before next year, but exactly what they will be I can't predict.
This is a really weird year from a recruiting perspective. So many things that just a few years ago would have been almost beyond comprehension. Take your pick as to which more important, and which is less. The combination is unprecedented, though.
There are what? Moving target, but a week or two ago I read that there were still 1,400-ish D1 portal kids without a chair to sit in when the music stops. Evaluation on this group is continuous, because there have been new faces every week for the past 2 months.
HS kids? After a season with less than normal visibility, attention on HS has been really diffused by all the portal kids. There have to be a lot more under the radar kids than usual, if for no other reason because the flood of portal kids has demanded so much attention.
JC kids? Possibly even more impact on their recruiting than the HS kids.
Long story short, there are still a lot of kids out there. Far more than usual. Under previously normal circumstances, the Feb 2 date would have had much more significance than it has this year. Many, many teams will still be sorting through the flood of portal kids....as well as doing the traditional HS and JC evaluations...for another month or two.
We have had a big staff turnover. Normally that would have been a huge deal as we approach Feb 2. This time, though, they clearly are continuing to evaluate rather than panic and offer scholies to fill the slots. That makes sense, because this year (more than any other in the history of recruiting) there is no hard deadline, there are more kids available than will get D1 scholies, and it is better to take a little more time than to respond in a knee jerk manner.
I think the "new" recruiting schedule (at least this year) is perpetual, and only loosely connected to arbitrary deadlines. How long that situation lasts depends to a great extent on how the currently unacceptable portal situation is modified. I expect some modifications before next year, but exactly what they will be I can't predict.
Lost in all this is Covid and how it affected recruiting at a school that already struggles at recruiting.
Cal vs Texas in recruiting. Who on the staff can split the difference and start landing Cal players? McGuire? If they do get a bunch of studs, then so be it. But largely ignoring Cal when we play in Cal? Arizona coaches worked in Cal for years and easily ripped everybody off. How many need to be focused on Cal alone? Minimum 3 if a majority of the rest are evaluating Texas?
FL, GA, LA produce highest percentage of FBS football players
Many of the states in the Southeast produce FBS football players at a higher rate than the rest of the country. Six states with at least one SEC team rank in the Top 10 nationally.
www.saturdaydownsouth.com
Wouldn't it make sense for the Pac 12 to set up a true scouting service like the NFL has Blesto. Professional scouts watching film, evaluating and then ranking these players from western states and Hawaii? In stead they have themselves and their contacts. If a team wanted the info then they pay for it. Given the staff had very little time to rank and recruit, I'd just rip off San Diego St, Utah St, San Jose St, Nevada etc and watch everyone they offered like they did with the Texas schools and who they offered from Texas. Skim the best who have limited offers for whatever reason. There's going to be some pros popping up from those schools in 3-4 years. Incoming Ward is already being talked about as a top 20 Heisman candidate.
Utah St and San Diego St have a great list. I'd just approach their commits and offers and just say hey, if your dream is to play in the Pac 12 come visit this coming weekend before signing day. The nice thing about offering a Cali, Ariz, Ore or WA kid is those kids have grown up desiring to play in the Pac 12 their entire lives. Those Texas kids don't care nearly as much about being a Pac 12 kid. They are Big 12 and SEC all the way.
RB, TE, OL, DT, S are huge huge needs for us right now. We not only need hs kids, but we must land a few portal kids, or some immediate impact JUCO kids.
Cal vs Texas in recruiting. Who on the staff can split the difference and start landing Cal players? McGuire? If they do get a bunch of studs, then so be it. But largely ignoring Cal when we play in Cal? Arizona coaches worked in Cal for years and easily ripped everybody off. How many need to be focused on Cal alone? Minimum 3 if a majority of the rest are evaluating Texas?
FL, GA, LA produce highest percentage of FBS football players
Many of the states in the Southeast produce FBS football players at a higher rate than the rest of the country. Six states with at least one SEC team rank in the Top 10 nationally.www.saturdaydownsouth.com
The entire staff needs to be in SoCal. For their own personal development, relationships with players that don’t choose WSU but later enter the portal and all the coaches that have influence.
You cannot afford to be a Pac 12 coach and when it comes time to find a new job have 0 experience in Southern California. That would be a huge professional disaster.
We could see a day when schools have their own scouting department. Not only for high school kids, but also evaluating kids on other teams like the NFL does. In case someone hits the portal you will want to know what they have done.
Paying more money for good and abundant prospect evaluations makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Still getting emails from Oklahoma because they knew how to sell Rose Bowl tickets in December 2002 and Sterk's staff didn't.
Sterk added that 3,000 to 5,000 Cougars fans bought tickets from Oklahoma instead after the Sooners satisfied their season ticket holders and put the remaining tickets up for public sale. Fans chose guaranteed Oklahoma tickets over the risk of being shut out in the Washington State ticket system, which is what happened when the Cougars went to the 1998 Rose Bowl.
