BUCK BUCK BUCK ... all anybody wants to talk about is BUCK BUCK BUCK ... and there's good reason for it as it's a current weak spot with respect to our overall recruiting package. You'd have to be an idiot to not concede that we're far from elite in that area of our roster. Having a problem is one thing ...
WHAT you're going to do to
SOLVE the problem is another. And honestly, it's the question that matters.
Today, we've seen both
@CokeGreaterThanPepsi and
@Dennis_DeYoung basically throw up over a recent offer to a BUCK prospect in Georgia. The odds that he ends up at UW are slim at best. That's not the point to me. It all comes back to the
WHAT and
HOW we're going to address the problem.
Coker and Dennis largely have 3 main themes in recruiting:
1) If UW wants to be an
ELITE program, they need to recruit
ELITE players
- There's the often cited measure of having 40+ 4-star or better players on a roster if you want to be a national championship contender
2) The concept of
EXPECTED VALUE in recruiting in that players located in your geographic area are more likely to be future commits
- A driving reason behind the messaging around being FIRST in building the relationship with the high-end prospects in the areas 2-3 years down the line (i.e. current Freshmen and Sophomores)
3) The concept of Fast Strategy vs Slow Strategy and its implications on recruiting and how the program is sold to those prospects
For the sake of conversation, I'm going to conclude that UW is well positioned going forward with strong recruiting that matches the desire for
ELITE talent and strong commitment to our geographic strengths at the QB, RB, WR, TE and DB positions.
At the DL position, if we were having this conversation at this point last year, we'd call this a massive weakness. However, in the last year, Malloe has put significant resources into building out a Poly pipeline (leveraging Vita Vea) that will have lasting impacts for us going forward. The reason for this is that in-state, the DL position isn't a particular area of strength. In California, we've typically struggled mightily for the
ELITE prospects. What we have succeeded in getting are some under the radar guys like Gaines or players with question marks like Vea, Qualls, etc. The other issue is that DL strength typically sits in Poly players or players coming out of the Southern region of the country. Expecting massive success in the SEC region is definitely unlikely. That leaves only one option remaining. And let's be clear, not being strong on the DL is the surest way to disqualify yourself from being able to compete against ELITE teams. In fact, when you look at P12 teams playing against SEC and other ELITE teams, the area where P12 teams have their biggest challenges are on the lines. Kudos to Malloe as what he has done is turn a weakness from UW into what looks like may be a definite strength going forward.
The LB position is an area where saying Bob Gregory has largely underperformed is an understatement. His 3 best LB recruits last year consist of 2 Poly's and a player with ties to the school given that his cousin was also recruited and Uncle a professor at the school. The Poly commitments are far more attributable to Malloe than Gregory. What/Where are his targets for 2019? The bare minimum for the position is guys that look like Victor and Kaho. A Bierria type is a 3rd LB. A guy like BBK isn't an option against any team that plays power (perhaps against a spread team). If I'm Chris Petersen, this is a
MASSIVE area of focus going forward.
Before getting to BUCK, the state of OL recruiting is a great lead in to the challenges that we're facing at BUCK. OL recruiting is technically easier for UW because the State of Washington typically produces a good number of OL on a fairly consistent basis. The challenge though is of those OL recruits produced in-state, how many of those guys qualify at the national level as being
ELITE vs guys that are largely P12 players with at best upside to be competitive against
ELITE players? A guy like Trey Adams is an easy no-brainer type of recruit. A player like Henry Roberts or Jake Eldrenkamp is a different story. On the West Coast, and specifically California, we've largely failed at going after those
ELITE guys as they either go to USC, maybe UCLA, or to more national programs like Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc. Getting a verbal from Kalepo early is huge for us and the challenge will be making sure we retain it. Hatchett is a national level recruit and keeping him home is vital. But at the heart of the matter though is are we better off swinging for guys like Roberts/Eldrenkamp or throwing a wider net and getting guys like Mele/Curne? It's not an easy question and will require a delicate balance from Huff. If we trend more local, do we complain that we're not getting enough
ELITE players knowing that we have huge risk from Stanford? If we swing wider and end up missing on some of the in-state guys how bad of shape are we in? Inherent in all of that is that to the extent that we extend offers to in-state players like Roberts/Eldrenkamp too early, the likelihood of those offers being accepted early is high and then even having the opportunity to go after the Mele and Curne types becomes constrained.
BUCK is a massive problem for a number of reasons. First, we don't produce a lot of talent in the State of Washington. Joe Tryon has a lot of upside to him but his offer sheet falls more in the category of upper tier P12 player versus being an
ELITE player on the national level. Second, given the importance of the position (probably 2nd on the field to QB in terms of ability to individually alter the course of the game), it's in high demand and the competition for the
ELITE players is fierce. Third, there are not a lot of
ELITE players at the position despite what may show up in the recruiting rankings as the true difference makers are few and far between. Fourth, those that are on the West Coast are almost assuredly going to choose USC and UCLA before UW if they stay in the P12 and likely choose the national players still before UW. Finally, it's the definition of a Fast Strategy position and the coach that we have recruiting the position is the definition of Slow Strategy. So what do we do here? Getting Jimmy Lake more involved in BUCK recruiting is paramount to try to merge the gap between Fast and Slow Strategy. But the reality is that it's going to take time to make those inroads. So what are we prepared to accept in the short-term? If we're going to insist on
ELITE, then we're casting a wide net and throwing offers out to Texas and SEC Country hoping that we can get some interest knowing that we're going to strike out almost every single time. If we choose a more realistic approach of targeting the 2nd tier initially and relying on development then we're not going to be getting the
ELITE guys. Instead, we're going to be getting guys that look a lot more like Ryan Bowman. And perhaps this brings up a bigger question of is it a requirement that we have an
ELITE BUCK to compete and win a National Championship?
The underlying problems as I see them are as follows:
1) If we go after guys early that are 2nd tier caliber players, you run the risk of them taking the verbal early. Coker today talked about how he'd rather have Millen over Morris at this point. We're not pulling verbals ... that's just not going to happen. So if we recruit early, we may get a guy that down the road we'd rather upgrade from. But it's impossible for us to hold a standard of asking verbals to not look elsewhere if we are looking elsewhere and being willing to pull the rug on them in the 11th hour. This obviously has the most immediate impact to any player in-state.
2) Upgrading our recruiting may require us to take incremental steps and in so doing it may require us to punt on going after
ELITE players and focus more on the players that we can land. This is specifically true at BUCK but to a lesser extent potentially on the OL. Are we willing to ensure quantity at the risk of giving up some quality or chase quality at the risk of either quantity and/or down the road quality if we miss on our initial round(s) of targets?
This whole thing is like a giant logic puzzle where you're constantly faced with a number of options that require choices and compromises. The main questions to me going forward are:
1) How can we raise the bar in BUCK recruiting and put K in a position to be successful
2) What trade offs are we willing to make?
3) What are must have's vs like to have's?
4) What are our priorities?
5) Is our recruiting messaging/branding on point and consistent?
