HCDM has an eye for diamonds in the rough

[kcsu]

Doug and this staff have impressed me with the lengths that they have gone to find hidden gems of talent. Bromley they were all over him after his performance in the all star game. Quinta next year is going to be special. Big John, Walls, Arcieniga, Chris at WR. All great finds all guys who will contribute in a big way. Reminds me a little of the Pats in the NFL. I really like how Doug and the staff are going about building our team. They know that we cannot yet compete for the elite HS talent so they go after the NYC kids who are great atheletes but need time to learn the game and be coached up and supplement that with talent from all over the map. In time as we continue to improve the program i think we will see more HS talent. At this point i love the transfer and Juco hidden gems. Job well done.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Doug is leaving, remember?

 

[Cuseregular]

Doug is leaving, remember?

nah......well not until the Tennessee titans job becomes free.....

 

[Crusty]

While I agree with the main point of your post it would be disingenuous not to say that this class, while not yet a disappointment, is somewhat of a mystery. We started slow, picked up some of the best quality we have in some years and then nothing. Filling in with JUCOs is OK but it is a bit disconcerting that we had a difficult time recruiting HS O linemen. That said, this is such a big improvement over the past.

 

[kcsu]

Doug is leaving, remember?

nah......well not until the Tennessee titans job becomes free.....

Read my post it was a what if post. If you read it you will see that i actually say in the post that Doug is not leaving as i knew that he has signed an extension.

 

[Orangeyes]

Doug and this staff have impressed me with the lengths that they have gone to find hidden gems of talent. Bromley they were all over him after his performance in the all star game. Quinta next year is going to be special. Big John, Walls, Arcieniga, Chris at WR. All great finds all guys who will contribute in a big way. Reminds me a little of the Pats in the NFL. I really like how Doug and the staff are going about building our team. They know that we cannot yet compete for the elite HS talent so they go after the NYC kids who are great atheletes but need time to learn the game and be coached up and supplement that with talent from all over the map. In time as we continue to improve the program i think we will see more HS talent. At this point i love the transfer and Juco hidden gems. Job well done.

Arcieniga? Isn't he still floating around in non-committalville?

 

[RF2044]

While I agree with the main point of your post it would be disingenuous not to say that this class, while not yet a disappointment, is somewhat of a mystery. We started slow, picked up some of the best quality we have in some years and then nothing. Filling in with JUCOs is OK but it is a bit disconcerting that we had a difficult time recruiting HS O linemen. That said, this is such a big improvement over the past.

I agree--this class [in the spring / early summer] was the best collection of early talent we'd amassed in a LONG time. Every one of our commits was rated as a three-star by either Rivals or Scout--very nice foundation. Things seemed to be REALLY rolling when we got the Gus Edwards commitment.

And then things inexplicably stalled. We didn't get our next commitment until 4 months later. We got shut out on high school OL. And we seem to be dipping into the JUCO well more than in the past. Not critical of this approach, but it remains to be seen how these players will perform.

All of that said, I agree 100% with the original poster. Marrone and staff have EXCELLED identifying talent, and also finding talent in unusual places, turning over every rock [i.e., landing the transfers from Hofstra, Bromley, etc.]

 

[kcsu]

I think that he is in the fold

 

[rrlbees]

I agree with that and always felt P was the same way. I am concerned with the enormous focus on JUCO's tho. IMO it means we aren't getting as many HS kids as we thought and wanted. Its one thing to bring in a couple to fill immediate needs but if we complete this class will h mostly JUCOs, not good.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[44PRIDE]

What does the influx of JUCO's say about the state of our recruiting? Is this simply a 1 year anomaly? Or is our inability to recruit HS talent symptomatic of a bigger issue with our coaches?

Personally, I've felt that our staff has been deficient in recruiting. Outside if NYC, we really can't say that we've made inroads anywhere in the country. Sure, we may get a recruit from Florida...or from Ohio...or from NJ, but I expected more by year 4.

With the recent turnover at Rutgers and Pitt, I was extremely surprised that HCDM didn't chase after some recruiting talent from either of these schools.

 

[bnoro]

What does the influx of JUCO's say about the state of our recruiting? Is this simply a 1 year anomaly? Or is our inability to recruit HS talent symptomatic of a bigger issue with our coaches?

Personally, I've felt that our staff has been deficient in recruiting. Outside if NYC, we really can't say that we've made inroads anywhere in the country. Sure, we may get a recruit from Florida...or from Ohio...or from NJ, but I expected more by year 4.

With the recent turnover at Rutgers and Pitt, I was extremely surprised that HCDM didn't chase after some recruiting talent from either of these schools.

I think if you didn't have all the change within the team this year you wouldn't have seen this outside of a few guys. MLB was going to be an issue no matter what. We could recruit a frosh to play that position but we'd rather have a guy ready to plug in as we go to the ACC. The OLine was not going to be bad, and then you had Curtis ruled out forever, and Pugh going pro. So two OL needed. Safety wasn't a problem until Shu and Dontez left, and DMC showed more at RB than S, so now we needed two safeties. DE was fine when we thought we had Hilliard coming in, but obviously that's not happening so we need a DE. If this class was going to be 10-12 kids as initially anticipated, I don't think we would have seen so many JUCOs.

 

[Cuseman78]

I think if you didn't have all the change within the team this year you wouldn't have seen this outside of a few guys. MLB was going to be an issue no matter what. We could recruit a frosh to play that position but we'd rather have a guy ready to plug in as we go to the ACC. The OLine was not going to be bad, and then you had Curtis ruled out forever, and Pugh going pro. So two OL needed. Safety wasn't a problem until Shu and Dontez left, and DMC showed more at RB than S, so now we needed two safeties. DE was fine when we thought we had Hilliard coming in, but obviously that's not happening so we need a DE. If this class was going to be 10-12 kids as initially anticipated, I don't think we would have seen so many JUCOs.

I think this is spot on. I think we were originally looking at a much smaller class, numbers wise, and we basically filled 8-10 of them before the season even started, basically wrapping up a good deal of the recruiting. Unfortunately, since then we've had the losses of Mungwa and Ford, along with Curtis and Pugh, and who knows if there will be any others. I think thats why we've seen so many JUCOs late.

Generally, I have no problem with JUCOs and Marrone has done a nice job bringing them in to fill needs. However, I certainly don't want them comprising 50% of our class, which looks like will be the case this year. I have a feeling this will be a one-off, aberration type year.

 

[mlbball99]

I'd say Shamarko was a diamond in the rough? Lemon also? 2 guys HCDM molded into NFL prospects

 

[SoBristol]

I think this is spot on. I think we were originally looking at a much smaller class, numbers wise, and we basically filled 8-10 of them before the season even started, basically wrapping up a good deal of the recruiting. Unfortunately, since then we've had the losses of Mungwa and Ford, along with Curtis and Pugh, and who knows if there will be any others. I think thats why we've seen so many JUCOs late.

Generally, I have no problem with JUCOs and Marrone has done a nice job bringing them in to fill needs. However, I certainly don't want them comprising 50% of our class, which looks like will be the case this year. I have a feeling this will be a one-off, aberration type year.

I wonder about some of this.

Under any loaves and fishes calculation, the staff could project 20-21 spots available for this class. It was definite that 15 spots were open; Pugh was highly predictable as he was all-league last year; staff knew about Curtis and Mungwa early on; attrition of 4 or 5 is a base normal for us (and likely for any similar program).

We made a ton of early offers -- and our targets chose to go elsewhere. We like the early core of this class (the two QBs, a TE legacy, Edwards, the two LBs, a juco DT). By the end of July, our rivals had better numbers, touched their needs in most units, and easily matched the quality.

Within our 6 hour driving radius, where are we making in-roads against rivals? We have one PA kid; no one from Ohio, no one from NJ; a couple from the MD-DC region.

We can give the staff credit for filling in with transfers and JUCOs through this late push. It could work out. But somewhere in there is a statement of where our program stands.

 

[rosconey]

marrone cant recruit high school kids because su isnt a destination under him- so he has to settle on any kid who just wants to keep playing-

the lack of any real stars wanting to play for him after 5 recruiting class's says a whole lot and nothing good-

the lack of redshirts will comeback and haunt him-

 

[GoSU96]

I think if you didn't have all the change within the team this year you wouldn't have seen this outside of a few guys. MLB was going to be an issue no matter what. We could recruit a frosh to play that position but we'd rather have a guy ready to plug in as we go to the ACC. The OLine was not going to be bad, and then you had Curtis ruled out forever, and Pugh going pro. So two OL needed. Safety wasn't a problem until Shu and Dontez left, and DMC showed more at RB than S, so now we needed two safeties. DE was fine when we thought we had Hilliard coming in, but obviously that's not happening so we need a DE. If this class was going to be 10-12 kids as initially anticipated, I don't think we would have seen so many JUCOs.

In a nutshell.

 

[GoSU96]

marrone cant recruit high school kids because su isnt a destination under him- so he has to settle on any kid who just wants to keep playing-

the lack of any real stars wanting to play for him after 5 recruiting class's says a whole lot and nothing good-

the lack of redshirts will comeback and haunt him-

He redshirted most of this last class.

What happened, somebody lift a rock?

 

[Rocco]

marrone cant recruit high school kids because su isnt a destination under him- so he has to settle on any kid who just wants to keep playing-

the lack of any real stars wanting to play for him after 5 recruiting class's says a whole lot and nothing good-

the lack of redshirts will comeback and haunt him-

What?

 

[SoBristol]

In a nutshell.

There are always rationalizations (expected only 12!!! in this class
; needed a MLB anyway; lost safeties; Hilliard dropped out of Milford).

Why these silly estimates that our class was always expected to be tiny? You can easily count 15 who were known to be leaving. When have we ever not had 4 or 5 kids leave the program?

We pretty much whiffed on LBs in the 2012 class, which is why we need help there. We entirely missed on OL this year. We settled on DEs in 2012 who didn't qualify. You'd have to believe the staff was on top of these things, well before fans were aware (Pugh's intent; Mungwa; Curtis; Hilliard; Barnwell; even Ford).

 

[GoSU96]

And maybe it's always been the intention to fill the early departures and holes in the roster with Juco's.

 

[Crusty]

marrone cant recruit high school kids because su isnt a destination under him- so he has to settle on any kid who just wants to keep playing-

the lack of any real stars wanting to play for him after 5 recruiting class's says a whole lot and nothing good-

the lack of redshirts will comeback and haunt him-

Flag on this post.

Ben Lewis - MD
Josh Manley - GA
George Morris - GA
Joshua Parris - GA
Ron Thompson - MI
James Washington - FL
Julian Whigham - FL
Lou Addazio - FL
Adonis Ameem-Moore - CO
Eric Crume - MI
Kristofer Curtis - GA
Ritchy Desir (aka Ritchy Rene) -FL
Durell Eskridge - FL
Kyle Foster - MI
Jaston George - VA
Keenan Hale - TN
Cameron Lynch - GA
Shu Mungwa - NJ
Sam Rodgers - PA
Rog Trudo - PA
Oliver Vidille - FL

Redshirts
I count at least 14 redshirt freshmen form class of 2011.

 

[jasjr]

I think if you didn't have all the change within the team this year you wouldn't have seen this outside of a few guys. MLB was going to be an issue no matter what. We could recruit a frosh to play that position but we'd rather have a guy ready to plug in as we go to the ACC. The OLine was not going to be bad, and then you had Curtis ruled out forever, and Pugh going pro. So two OL needed. Safety wasn't a problem until Shu and Dontez left, and DMC showed more at RB than S, so now we needed two safeties. DE was fine when we thought we had Hilliard coming in, but obviously that's not happening so we need a DE. If this class was going to be 10-12 kids as initially anticipated, I don't think we would have seen so many JUCOs.

Did I miss the announcement n Pugh going Pro?

 

[Crusty]

One thing to consider is that as we get better our recruiting standards have to get higher. This means that we are going to have tougher competition for these kids. In the past we settled for a lot of 2 star type kids that we evaluated higher or felt we could coach up. I think we are simply shooting higher and we are going to go through a period where we will miss more often. Just a thought.

 

[IHeartSUFball]

end of last year, beginning of this year killed a year of getting "top" talent... now lets remeber this is syracuse, ny and not a lot of higher level recruits want to come to this city. Now with 2-3 years of solid acc play we will have higher rated HS kids come here, its only a matter of time. I do like having 5-6 jucos a year to give the class speed and size right away. I stil believe in coaching, and I love our coach. We wont get 5 or even a lot of 4 stars, but we finally are settling on a system that I deem will be effective for many years.

 

[Orangeyes]

One thing to consider is that as we get better our recruiting standards have to get higher. This means that we are going to have tougher competition for these kids. In the past we settled for a lot of 2 star type kids that we evaluated higher or felt we could coach up. I think we are simply shooting higher and we are going to go through a period where we will miss more often. Just a thought.

I know of a 3 star DT who we rejected because he wasn't over 6-4