HCDM has an eye for diamonds in the rough

[OrangeAl]

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.

Your handle is IHeartSUFball? I think you have absolutely no future in sales! Oh Lord
SU is a cool place to come to. We get top shelf Basketball players, so why would football players not be interested?

 

[IHeartSUFball]

no, dont get me wrong live in syracuse all my life and a fan of the city. This football team is the most important thing to me beyond my family... BUT a 17 yr old 4 star from florida or texas doesnt want to come to syracuse, ny. That is what I mean.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

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

I have a difficult time buying that, given the complete oh for everything so far on highschool offensive linemen.

I don't have anything against JUCO players, in fact I think bringing in 2 or 3 quality JUCOs every year is a good way to supplement the talent and experience already on the roster. This class though... we're relying heavily on JUCOs.

There's no way that was the initial intent. Plan C I can buy. But always been the intention? I have my doubts.

 

[RMH44]

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

Don't tell Eric Crume.

 

[Aweart23]

I have a difficult time buying that, given the complete oh for everything so far on highschool offensive linemen.

I don't have anything against JUCO players, in fact I think bringing in 2 or 3 quality JUCOs every year is a good way to supplement the talent and experience already on the roster. This class though... we're relying heavily on JUCOs.

There's no way that was the initial intent. Plan C I can buy. But always been the intention? I have my doubts.

We signed three OL last year, three the year before and missed on ONE this year from what I can tell, Shawn Curtis. (the offer to Alex Officer was pulled) so I'm not sure how we wiffed on all these OL that everyone keeps pointing out..

Honestly, I could care less where we find kids to play...JUCO, NJ, TX, Prep, transfer I don't care...the staff has done a great job finding kids...which was the point of the original post

All I know is we are going to our second bowl in three years, and we are two dropped interceptions away from three straight bowls and a possible BCS bowl bid. After the 8 years of crappy football that was put on the field, I for one am thrilled...

 

[RICuse44]

Your handle is IHeartSUFball? I think you have absolutely no future in sales! Oh Lord
SU is a cool place to come to. We get top shelf Basketball players, so why would football players not be interested?

I think the big difference between basketball and football is that for basketball you get 14,000 to watch them play Colgate. On a Tuesday night. With 5 inches of lake effect coming down. For football? We get 40,000. To watch them play #10 Louisville. On a Saturday. When the loud house earns its moniker again for football and the fair weather fans come back I think you will see an uptick in recruiting. Until then? Plan A will remain to identify the best talent early on, preferably high school. Plan B will be to get the second level high school talent identified early on. Plan C will be to get the best talent any where regardless of how many years they have to play. Ex is finding Chris Clark and Davon Walls seemingly out of mid air. Kind of like that Gruden clip where he would say the former D coordinator of the Eagles would drive around on a motorcycle and workout any player who "looked" like a pass rusher any time and any place.

 

[PhatOrange]

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.

Agree they could have planned ahead of time on Pugh - and they likely did because Pugh's replacement is currently on the roster. The staff is/was trying to fill his roster 'spot' with tackle Shawn Curtis who ended up choosing Iowa State. They put a lot of effort into him and they missed. The juco OL are no doubt stop gaps and to bump our overall line numbers but lets not lose sight that we have some young lineman on the roster.

When did the staff learn about Curtis and Mungwa - August?

Not sure why getting kids on board in July matters though. You keep bringing this up. These are usually kids with few or no offers and everybody freaks out about that to. I remember all the hand wringing last year about having to many over the summer.

 

[bnoro]

no, dont get me wrong live in syracuse all my life and a fan of the city. This football team is the most important thing to me beyond my family... BUT a 17 yr old 4 star from florida or texas doesnt want to come to syracuse, ny. That is what I mean.

For real? Is this BRNCUSE?

 

[PhatOrange]

And then things inexplicably stalled.

Things stalled because of our putrid 2-4 start coming off a 4-8 year. How do you sell at that point? There was no buzz, no fans and message board posts calling for heads. Opposing recruiters had everything they needed to dismiss us.

September is that critical time where you're either going to stay in the race with kids or fall out. By October kids have narrowed down their lists. If you're not in that top 5 or 6 schools by then it's hard to get back in the hunt. I see it every single year.

The hot finish meant nothing it was already over by then. We ever start out 3-0 or 5-1 I'll bet season tickets recruiting would be night and day different.

I'll go on record right now and say that 2013 will be a banner recruiting year. We have a ton of offers out to juniors and I'm getting the feeling there is a lot of reciprocal interest. (did not get that feeling this year with kids at all) This is where our strong finish and bowl game will come in to play.

 

[boog7]

I'll go on record right now and say that 2013 will be a banner recruiting year. We have a ton of offers out to juniors and I'm getting the feeling there is a lot of reciprocal interest. (did not get that feeling this year with kids at all) This is where our strong finish and bowl game will come in to play.

As will having a few more players getting drafted in this spring's NFL draft, including Nassib possibly going pretty high, piggybacking off Jones last year. This will certainly be bought to the attention of all the 2013 recruits.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

We signed three OL last year, three the year before and missed on ONE this year from what I can tell, Shawn Curtis. (the offer to Alex Officer was pulled) so I'm not sure how we wiffed on all these OL that everyone keeps pointing out..

Honestly, I could care less where we find kids to play...JUCO, NJ, TX, Prep, transfer I don't care...the staff has done a great job finding kids...which was the point of the original post

All I know is we are going to our second bowl in three years, and we are two dropped interceptions away from three straight bowls and a possible BCS bowl bid. After the 8 years of crappy football that was put on the field, I for one am thrilled...

My post did not in any way question the on field results. We've had a good season. The future looks bright. It could look brighter.

The staff has done a great job of finding kids, but I suspect they haven't done a great job closing on a lot of their first choices.

So far this season we don't have any high school level offensive linemen.

The previous season we got 3. I'm not counting Barrett.

The season before that is a little trickier. We picked up 3-5, depending on how you classify Foy (I think he was also a strong possibility on defense) and depending on how much credit you give the staff for picking up Robinson out of Baldwinsville, since he was most likely not a top priority for the staff.

The season before that we picked up two in Hickey and Macky.

Now, yeah, we've supplemented with JUCO talent, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think it's crazy to suggest that signing 10 offensive linemen out of high school over 4 years was the master plan.

 

[SoBristol]

Agree they could have planned ahead of time on Pugh - and they likely did because Pugh's replacement is currently on the roster. The staff is/was trying to fill his roster 'spot' with tackle Shawn Curtis who ended up choosing Iowa State. They put a lot of effort into him and they missed. The juco OL are no doubt stop gaps and to bump our overall line numbers but lets not lose sight that we have some young lineman on the roster.

When did the staff learn about Curtis and Mungwa - August?

Not sure why getting kids on board in July matters though. You keep bringing this up. These are usually kids with few or no offers and everybody freaks out about that to. I remember all the hand wringing last year about having to many over the summer.

Why does it matter how well we do through July? Because it measures where the program is in its recruiting of the better HS prospects in our recruiting region. The prospects who also have offers from our rivals.

When you do well in the early rounds, you can be selective in the final push in December-January. When you have a small group by the end of July, you have a lot of work to do.

You could also look at where we stood with HS prospects in November. Not many visitors; not much happening.

Look, I bleed Orange. I just don't tell myself fairy tales about where we are in the recruiting battles.

 

[IHeartSUFball]

meant say behind my family, not beyond... either way Cuse Football Forever and Always

 

[rosconey]

if we showed glimpse's of this years offense the first 3 years- recruiting would be on a much better footing -imho

i just see future problems when a small class gets filled with jc kids- 3 years down the road when this class would be in the picture- these jc kids will be gone and we end up relying on a bunch of redshirt and true freshman-never a good thing


i dont know but i would think his 4th class would start to show some growth in quality and size-

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

if we showed glimpse's of this years offense the first 3 years- recruiting would be on a much better footing -imho

Didn't have the personnel or depth to run this offense during the first three years.

 

[BlazeOrange]

Did I miss the announcement n Pugh going Pro?

He can't/won't announce until after the season is over. Although I think he'd technically still be eligible if he doesn't sign with an agent, I don't recall any players ever announcing that they'd be leaving early and then playing in their bowl games.

On the OL, I seem to recall early on that either DM or Adkins said they liked to recruit an offensive line as a group to develop and play together. Some may get on the field earlier than others due to injuries/defections/etc., or just beating out players that were already here, but you'll still generally have "playing" and "developing" units on campus during similiar timeframes with each other. Obviously, you want some OL in every class (like most other postions), but I could see having years when you do or don't feature the OL. Plugging holes with Jucos would keep those proportions right in short term. Eventually, they'll need to make up for it with a big (literally) frosh class though.

 

[PhatOrange]

Why does it matter how well we do through July? Because it measures where the program is in its recruiting of the better HS prospects in our recruiting region. The prospects who also have offers from our rivals.

I disagree as I think the kids in the summer have fewer offers and they are typically by lower level programs. If we get an Akron offer kid in July how do you know where the program is? You just think having more bodies in July means we're recruiting better?

Last year we had 16 commitments by the end of July. 3 decommitted in January.

Of the original 16 though, 12 of them mostly only had offers from MAC schools or none at all with a few Vandy's mixed in. I clearly remember people being up in arms about the high numbers and the perceived quality.

In 2011 by August we had

Lou Addazio – USF, UCF, Akron
Tyree Smallwood – nuff said
Jaston George – ECU, Richmond, Norfolk
Donnie Simmons – Akron
Jon Fisher – none
Terrel Hunt – none
Cam Lynch – Vandy, Air Force, Akron
Oliver Vigille – USF, FIU, UCF
Sam Rodgers – none

Yet after December we landed:

Durrell Eskridge
Ashton Broyld
Siriki Diabate
Adonis Ameen Moore
Shu Mungwa
Brandon Reddish
Nick Robinson
Ritchy Desire
Kyle Foster

Ivan Foy

 

[tep624]

if we showed glimpse's of this years offense the first 3 years- recruiting would be on a much better footing -imho

i just see future problems when a small class gets filled with jc kids- 3 years down the road when this class would be in the picture- these jc kids will be gone and we end up relying on a bunch of redshirt and true freshman-never a good thing


i dont know but i would think his 4th class would start to show some growth in quality and size-

3 years down the road Mungwa and Curtis would have graduated and D. Ford and Hilliard would be seniors - so it's a moot point. Next year, Mungwa and Ford would have likely been in the 2 deep at safety, Curtis in the 2 deep at OL, and Hilliard in the 2 deep at DE.

You make it sound like the JUCO's are replacing what would otherwise be high school recruits - they aren't. They're replacing people that would have been ready to play and contribute next year. If you exclude the late attrition guys, my guess is we would have taken as many JUCO's this year as any other year.

 

[Aweart23]

The staff has done a great job of finding kids, but I suspect they haven't done a great job closing on a lot of their first choices.

.

I know you are happy with the on field results. I quoted your post about wiffing on OL this year...

Name three HS OL we offered this year, and had serious interest in coming to Syracuse that we wiffed on this year...

Last year OL commits and the date they commited:
Palmer- March
Knapp- June
Emerich- June

The staff finally got ahead of the curve on recruiting (and they said as much). Those kids sound like Plan A kids who the staff identified and closed way early in the process...

Your attributing a lack of numbers to failure. There are other equally plausible reasons

I attribute it to looking for kids who can play at this level and not reaching and offering kids who should be playing at UMass or Delaware...Officer got his offer pulled, we didn't offer the Hopkins kid downstate, and there are more examples..

BTW what do you care about talent????...we are running the right system now so we should win all our games going forward...
Let OPA worry about our talent level...

 

[Orangeyes]

Officer got his offer pulled

Why was that?

 

[Aweart23]

Why was that?

Got me, but money3189 has posted it several times...He's pretty well connected with the Rochester kids.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Name three HS OL we offered this year, and had serious interest in coming to Syracuse that we wiffed on this year...

Your attributing a lack of numbers to failure. There are other equally plausible reasons

I attribute it to looking for kids who can play at this level and not reaching and offering kids who should be playing at UMass or Delaware...Officer got his offer pulled, we didn't offer the Hopkins kid downstate, and there are more examples..

BTW what do you care about talent????...we are running the right system now so we should win all our games going forward...

Three quick things:

I would hope that we felt there were more than three high school linemen that met our standards that at least had some interest in our program. It's a problem if there weren't.

I am attributing lack of numbers to failure. I just have a hard time believing this is how the staff wanted it to go.

We are running the right system, and given the system and talent at hand I feel we can be successful. If we want to make a leap though improved recruiting is probably necessary.

Last year we kept hearing how great a class we should have lined up this season. Looking it over, it's an underwhelming class. Doesn't mean it's a class that puts us in a position where we can't be competitive on the field, but so far it seems on the whole to be less than expected.

 

[javadoc]

I would hope that we felt there were more than three high school linemen that met our standards that at least had some interest in our program. It's a problem if there weren't.

IMO it's a problem, but not one that can be "fixed" per se. Our program's name is still largely dirt. That's all there is to it. Doesn't matter who is coaching here. It's going to take several years of notable success to get the better prospects looking again. Some years we'll do OK, some we won't. We have almost no margin for error, though. Hit a bad stretch of play and we can lose out on most of the good prospects we are looking for. That is the reality when you are fighting tooth and nail just to get kids to take you seriously again.

Editing to add this: I suspect that we may have got the ear of some kids last year, even despite the late season slide, and Marrone told them, "Hang in there, watch how we come out of the gate next year." And they did.

 

[Aweart23]

Three quick things:

I would hope that we felt there were more than three high school linemen that met our standards that at least had some interest in our program. It's a problem if there weren't.

Go look at the offer lists on Scout...ignoring the Mich/OSU/ND/Alabama kids where its an uphill battle and I know you are not suggesting we should be winning those battles yet...

Shawn Curtis, Cam Ruff and two GA kids that we were never really in the conversation for, and Alex Officer ..thats it...

Now we moved onto JUCOs

 

[kingtidge]

IMO it's a problem, but not one that can be "fixed" per se. Our program's name is still largely dirt. That's all there is to it. Doesn't matter who is coaching here. It's going to take several years of notable success to get the better prospects looking again. Some years we'll do OK, some we won't. We have almost no margin for error, though. Hit a bad stretch of play and we can lose out on most of the good prospects we are looking for. That is the reality when you are fighting tooth and nail just to get kids to take you seriously again.

Editing to add this: I suspect that we may have got the ear of some kids last year, even despite the late season slide, and Marrone told them, "Hang in there, watch how we come out of the gate next year." And they did.

Marrone is a good teaching coach (sans special teams).

I think we'll be fine.