One encouraging trend in recruiting
Not sure if Lolohea was a B guy or just a guy who decided late, but he lists offers from half the conference. Kirkland had 6 other Pac12 offers. Gaye lists offers from 5 other Pac schools plus Ole Miss. Tryon had 3 other Pac offers, Norgaard had 2, and White TE and Haener bring up the rear with one (if you believe UCLA wanted Haener at the end).
Setting aside punter because who cares, that's only four guys who had less than 6 Pac offers, and Tryon is very exciting to me at least out of that group. That only leaves two kinda meh guys (Norgaard and Otten) and one WTF guy (Haener).
Compare that to last year when we were KJ Young's only Pac offer, Chincredibles only Pac offer, DGB's only Pac offer, Nick Harris's only Pac offer (though I really like those last two), and Fuller's only Pac offer (though he had 3 Big 10 offers and an ACC offer so he's kind of a different category) . Kizer had 2 other Pac offers and Pleasant had 3 other Pac offers (for some reason I thought he was more in demand than that).
So to compare, this year we got three guys with less than four Pac offers (again, excluding punters), last we got five of those (excluding Fuller who had four other equivalent offers). Average other Pac offers for those bottom 3 guys this year was 1.3. Average other Pac offers for the bottom five last year was 0.4.
TL; DR - the bottom 20-25% of the class is much more in demand this year than last year despite the fact they're all listed as three stars.
Of course, most of that progress is really just upgrading from Pease to Bush. Still, hopefully Bush is around for awhile.
Comments
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Totally agree, I think that's a big development for us honestly. And the thing about our plan B guys is that they are all just rare guys (Gaye, Tryon, Kirkland, and Norgaard). If we are going to miss on the elite guys (which will happen) it's nice to fall back to guys that have characteristics like those guys.
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I prefer versatile athletes like Taylor Hindy (he can also longsnap) and Antavius Sims (always need an emergency QB).CokeGreaterThanPepsi said:Totally agree, I think that's a big development for us honestly. And the thing about our plan B guys is that they are all just rare guys (Gaye, Tryon, Kirkland, and Norgaard). If we are going to miss on the elite guys (which will happen) it's nice to fall back to guys that have characteristics like those guys.
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Cory (English) Fuavai is going to be a star!RoadDawg55 said:
I prefer versatile athletes like Taylor Hindy (he can also longsnap) and Antavius Sims (always need an emergency QB).CokeGreaterThanPepsi said:Totally agree, I think that's a big development for us honestly. And the thing about our plan B guys is that they are all just rare guys (Gaye, Tryon, Kirkland, and Norgaard). If we are going to miss on the elite guys (which will happen) it's nice to fall back to guys that have characteristics like those guys.
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"fallback" or "plan b" guys that have great potential but need development ... is a great thing to see.
much better than space filler/longshots ...
6'5" - 6'6" guys who are 240-260, raw - but with "rare" qualities can be coached up.
You can't make Nick Harris 6'5" but they recognized the potential/qualities. If he was 6'5" he would be an NFL first round pick.
Another quality winning year and the following year too will see the staggered recruiting effect and we'll be hitting the stride for up front high-end 4-5* talent.
we'll have the luxury of taking a few "gambles" after a full talented class is in the fold.
good times -
First round pick or top 5 pick like James Atoe?animate said:"fallback" or "plan b" guys that have great potential but need development ... is a great thing to see.
much better than space filler/longshots ...
6'5" - 6'6" guys who are 240-260, raw - but with "rare" qualities can be coached up.
You can't make Nick Harris 6'5" but they recognized the potential/qualities. If he was 6'5" he would be an NFL first round pick.
Another quality winning year and the following year too will see the staggered recruiting effect and we'll be hitting the stride for up front high-end 4-5* talent.
we'll have the luxury of taking a few "gambles" after a full talented class is in the fold.
good times -
I cry everytime i think about James Atoe.
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This staff knows how to recruit and develop talent, that's for god damn sure. Offensive and defensive lines will continue to improve.
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The last 2 classes have reminded me a lot of Chip Kelly classes in terms of having a wide range of high quality prospects and very little filler.
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What stands out the most to me is a guy like Salvon Ahmed in this class ... just looking at his film you would think it is hard to keep him off the field. But then you look around at the depth chart and see that the road to playing time isn't easy:
Myles Gaskin
Lavon Coleman
Sean McGrew - state player of the year in California in the class of 2017
Jamon Dotson - upper class player with experience
Kamari Pleasant
For Ahmed to play, he's got to EARN his way into the rotation. That's a HUGE positive.
If you look around at the roster, that's where we're going to be at RB, WR, DL, LB, and DB. We just need to get the QB, TE (more Hunter Bryant types), and OL positions to that level. To have those levels of depth get you to the point where when you have injuries it's literally just next man up. We're getting close. -
Moral victories aren't okay during the season, but fine in recruiting.






