Recruiting, 2014

[firemoose]

Hello Everyone. Just wanted to let you know that I am leaving in an hour or so for a drive to Michigan and back to deliver a truck. I won't be back until tomorrow evening late. If anything breaks along the lines of a commit please feel free to post the info and I'll add to it and update the main page when I get back. I might be slow after a 22 hour drive but I'll work through the search engines as best as I can when I return.

Damn I'll be happy when I'm better and can get a regular job again.

[firemoose]

Hello Everyone. Just wanted to let you know that I am leaving in an hour or so for a drive to Michigan and back to deliver a truck. I won't be back until tomorrow evening late. If anything breaks along the lines of a commit please feel free to post the info and I'll add to it and update the main page when I get back. I might be slow after a 22 hour drive but I'll work through the search engines as best as I can when I return.

Damn I'll be happy when I'm better and can get a regular job again.

Made it back. The drive turned out to be 26 hours and when I got back last night I fell asleep in the chair with my computer on my lap . Safe to say I wasn't feeling real good this morning.

Nothing much happened in football according to twitter. I did make a couple of changes tonight on the 2014 BBall page and I made one change to the Main Football page that I had been planning to make for a couple of days. ATH A J Howard (5′ 11″ 180) of Harris County High School in Hamilton, GA was posted on June 27 and was show by two sites as having committed to Kennesaw State on June 29th so I had him in the Commits Elsewhere section. I've moved him back up to the ATH section. He visited here Monday and is showing offers from App, WKU, Furman, Jacksonville St., Mercer, Presbyterian, and South Dakota St. Kennesaw St. isn't even showing except on Rivals. Player page is up with video.

[firemoose]

Thought everyone might want to see this. Our commit AJ Wells posted this video of him kicking a 50 yard and 60 yard FG at a football camp. I also put it as a link at the bottom for those who need a little bigger picture. Just a little something to brighten your day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-kuob9Zl50

[HkyMtneer]

It has probably been posted here, and maybe I just missed it, but does anyone know if we made any attempt to go after Freedom HS star running back, David Burgess? I know a lot of Burke Co. folks and the numbers he has put up in his career are just crazy, even with a system designed for numbers. It also sounds as if he comes from a good family and has put up some great academic stats as well. I know he turned a lot of heads at the East/West game last week and from the sound of things he is only pretty much heading the D2 route at this point. Is there more to the story, or have I just missed the boat?

[firemoose]

Just wanted to let everybody know that, after taking to Yosef, it appears that we have lost the original Recruiting, 2014 thread. They have been unable to recover it so I have now linked the discussion link on the main page to this thread and I'm going to have 78' remove the temporary title from this thread. Should the original thread get recovered we will rename it just that. It's killing me that we lost so much information that was in that thread (over 22,000 views and I lost over 160 posts myself) but the pages are still up and most of the information is still there. I will try to add some of the info I can remember into the new thread.

[firemoose]

It has probably been posted here, and maybe I just missed it, but does anyone know if we made any attempt to go after Freedom HS star running back, David Burgess? I know a lot of Burke Co. folks and the numbers he has put up in his career are just crazy, even with a system designed for numbers. It also sounds as if he comes from a good family and has put up some great academic stats as well. I know he turned a lot of heads at the East/West game last week and from the sound of things he is only pretty much heading the D2 route at this point. Is there more to the story, or have I just missed the boat?

I know I put something about him in the 2013 thread but I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find it. I know we were only taking two RB's in the 2013 class, when Holloway was still in the mix, and that Burgess and the Robbins kid from South Point weren't as high up the board as Cox and Upshaw. When we got them I think that pretty much shut down the RB recruiting. By the time Holloway left most everyone on the board had already signed. From what I've heard they are standing pat until they see who we pick up this year before they make any more moves. We've got some offers out to some pretty good RB, although two top targets have committed elsewhere. We'll see what happens.

[AppinVA]

Just wanted to let everybody know that, after taking to Yosef, it appears that we have lost the original Recruiting, 2014 thread. They have been unable to recover it so I have now linked the discussion link on the main page to this thread and I'm going to have 78' remove the temporary title from this thread. Should the original thread get recovered we will rename it just that. It's killing me that we lost so much information that was in that thread (over 22,000 views and I lost over 160 posts myself) but the pages are still up and most of the information is still there. I will try to add some of the info I can remember into the new thread.

I hate to hear that, and I do appreciate your doing all this.

[mtnjax]

looks like we got another commit. AJ Howard

[firemoose]

looks like we got another commit. AJ Howard

Yes. It happened while I was away from my computer, of course. I am moving him to the commits section on the main page.

ATH A J Howard (5′ 11″ 180) of Harris County High School in Hamilton, GA has committed to App. His final two were App and WKU. He is being moved to the commits section and there is already a player page up for him with video.

[Saint3333]

Kid looks like a natural safety, good open field tackler.

[asutrnr81]

I know this is probably not going to set will with a lot of folks but, I heard Mack Brown say when he first got to ASU and then to UNC that if we recruited NC well and got the best kids we could out of NC and built our base in NC we could win and win big.

What message are we sending the kids in NC when 2 of the 11 commitments are from in state and only 9 of the 83+ offers are to North Carolina Kids?

If I were a NC kid or a parent of a kid from NC I'd at least have to look at that. Plus the coaches in NC look at that too. They can hurt you with the kids and the parents.

I understand the recruiting implications well and having to step up the recruiting intensity....but keeping some of that in state might be a good idea.

[Saint3333]

This post isn't going to sit well with some either. But we haven't maintained strong relationships with NC coaches and high schools the last few years. It is going to take time to build those back to the level they should be.

On the flip side, if a school is looking to bring in the best talent they can from SC, GA, FL, TN, etc. and I'm a NC kid, I don't see that as a negative. I see a program that knows it needs to widen its net to build an FBS program.

Our coaches are working harder than ever before this offseason, kudos to them.

[AppGrad78]

Our desire to recruit out of state -- specifically Georgia, Florida and South Carolina -- has little bearing on our relationships with North Carolina high school coaches. It certainly didn't have an impact when guys like D.J. Smith, Jason Hunter and Marques Murrell, to name a few, were picking a college.

Rather, the two biggest reasons we don't focus more on North Carolina athletes are, a) the overall talent in our state doesn't compare to the talent in the above-mentioned states, and b) North Carolina now has seven FBS-level football programs. Georgia has four, South Carolina two and talent-rich Florida seven. We would be foolish to invest our time in North Carolina when there is more low-hanging fruit elsewhere.

For those who are still skeptical, do yourself a favor and watch any highlights video from a program like Immokalee, Fla., or Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, S.C., or Apopka, Fla., or Sandy Creek, Ga., or Norcross, Ga., or Gaffney, S.C., and compare them to, oh say, Northern Guilford or Matthews Butler or Greensboro Page -- three of our state's finest programs. It's impossible not to notice a difference.

Our coaches will recruit North Carolina because it's the right thing to do. But we won't go overboard with it. And it's unfair to suggest that our previous coaching staff didn't recruit the state because of perceived poor relationships with N.C. high school coaches.

[AppDawg]

I know this is probably not going to set will with a lot of folks but, I heard Mack Brown say when he first got to ASU and then to UNC that if we recruited NC well and got the best kids we could out of NC and built our base in NC we could win and win big.

What message are we sending the kids in NC when 2 of the 11 commitments are from in state and only 9 of the 83+ offers are to North Carolina Kids?.

The proof is in the numbers. While theorhetically, recruiting and winning the state sounds good and Satt says we are going to build those relationships and hopefully get to that point, after the SEC / Big 10 players go out of state the talent pool is very small at the FBS level within NC and even Smaller in SC. The fact is signing a player from GA or FL we have a much higher chance of signing an impact player than if you sign in the state of NC - this statement is purely based on odds alone. 1 out of every approximate 150 players in Ga/FL are FBS quality while 1 out of evey 485 players in NC are FBS "quality".

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/co ... ID=1470883

BY THE NUMBERS

A state-by-state breakdown of Division I FBS signees per participant. Data collected from participation stats distributed by the National Federation of High School Sports and signees as reported by Division I FBS schools and the Rivals.com database.

State Signees Players Ratio
Florida 332 41,127 124
Georgia 184 32,726 178
Utah 36 8,212 229
Hawaii 20 4,875 244
Louisiana 81 20,293 251
Alabama 83 22,715 274
Maryland/D.C. 49 15,639 320
Ohio 145 46,463 321
Oklahoma 35 11,298 323
Virginia 79 25,456 323
Arizona 36 12.237 340
California 251 104,334 416
Pennsylvania 63 26,370 419
New Jersey 56 25,592 457
North Carolina 73 35,338 485
Texas 346 167,477 485
Nevada 14 7,059 505
Tennessee 40 22,994 575
Indiana 38 22,050 581
Illinois 77 47,445 617
Mississippi 34 22,306 657
Missouri 35 23,178 663
Colorado 23 15,595 679
Michigan 62 42,743 690
Arkansas 15 11,440 763
South Carolina 24 18,854 786
Kentucky 17 14,042 826
Washington 26 22,090 850
Delaware 3 3,028 1010
Oregon 13 13,243 1019
Idaho 7 7,217 1031
Connecticut 10 10,602 1061
Wisconsin 24 28,426 1185
New York 27 35,552 1317
Kansas 9 14,246 1583
Massachusetts 10 19,865 1987
Nebraska 5 10,041 2009
West Virginia 3 6,089 2030
New Mexico 3 6,764 2255
Iowa 8 19,519 2440
Wyoming 1 2,680 2680
Rhode Island 1 2,953 2953
Minnesota 7 23,816 3403
South Dakota 1 3,606 3606
Vermont 0 1,172 0
Alaska 0 2,063 0
North Dakota 0 3,201 0
New Hampshire 0 3,530 0
Maine 0 3,721 0
Montana 0 4,691 0
PAST YEARS | CLASS OF 2012 | CLASS OF 2011 | CLASS OF 2010

[Saint3333]

Unfair, not really. No one said they had "poor" relationships. The appropriate phrasing is they didn't have a relationship. They came around when a high school had a player vs. staying in contact each year. That is changing now.

I'm sure you know HS coaches in your line of work, ask around, see if they've noted a difference. I have.

[firemoose]

I know this is probably not going to set will with a lot of folks but, I heard Mack Brown say when he first got to ASU and then to UNC that if we recruited NC well and got the best kids we could out of NC and built our base in NC we could win and win big.

What message are we sending the kids in NC when 2 of the 11 commitments are from in state and only 9 of the 83+ offers are to North Carolina Kids?

If I were a NC kid or a parent of a kid from NC I'd at least have to look at that. Plus the coaches in NC look at that too. They can hurt you with the kids and the parents.

I understand the recruiting implications well and having to step up the recruiting intensity....but keeping some of that in state might be a good idea.

I just wanted to clear up a couple of things. When you look at this you have to also include the commits elsewhere since they were also offers. Reported offers, which includes commits, offers, and committed elsewhere are at approximately 173 (there's always a few that you're not sure about). 26 of those players are from NC. You can also make the case to add three additional as three of our JUCO offers came from NC schools before going the JUCO route. In researching those players each had interest or offers from App before going JUCO. These numbers do bring the ratio a little closer and I know that 1-6.5 isn't a great ratio in your home state but, as pointed out above, FBS competition is NC is a lot higher for FBS caliber players than in most other states we recruit.

I know, from conversations with the staff, that we are planning on working NC harder in the coming years but I don't expect us to slow down in our other areas either. We have developed good relationships in both GA and FL and both of those states are talent rich. And, as seen this year, we are expanding west. Our move up will only increase our exposure further west and allow us the opportunity to pick up a couple of players that we wouldn't have had a chance at while in the SoCon.

The main point is that we have to let this FBS move develop for a couple of years before we take a real look at the numbers. We all know there is a huge difference in FCS and FBS recruiting and we need to allow players and coaches from all the states we recruit to get the move up firmly planted in their heads in order to see how this affects who and where we recruit.

[mtnjax]

there was a good article a couple of months back on the main Rivals page at Yahoo Sports talking about the talent in NC, saying that we have a lot of good talent. The problem, is that the in-state schools aren't keeping that talent at home. If all of the top talent in NC is going out of state, then generally the top in-state schools are taking what is left of the best remaining talent, which helps make sense of us going to SC, GA, FL etc. because there is a deeper talent pool in those places.

examples i can think of. the 2 RBs at UGA, both from NC and now Elijah Hood, going to Notre Dame

[GoApps70]

The USA Jaguars picked up commitment number 11 today. Offensive lineman, Garrett McGinn, 6' 6", 255 pounds of Tallahassee, FL committed today at his high school. He chose the Jaguars over FIU, East Carolina, Appy State, MTSU and others.

Hated to hear this awhile ago on the SBC CSNbbs. Really want some big mobile linemen.

[firemoose]

The USA Jaguars picked up commitment number 11 today. Offensive lineman, Garrett McGinn, 6' 6", 255 pounds of Tallahassee, FL committed today at his high school. He chose the Jaguars over FIU, East Carolina, Appy State, MTSU and others.

Hated to hear this awhile ago on the SBC CSNbbs. Really want some big mobile linemen.

It wasn't a big surprise as we weren't in his top three. We still have a few OL offers out there and I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple more go out as players drop off the big board. We've picked up two pretty moble guys so far in this class, both of whom seem very committed, unlike a couple of our other commits at different positions. I believe we will pick up at least one more of the offers we've currently have out plus we have a couple of both side linemen offers that list us in their top 3. We'll see how it plays out.

[asutrnr81]

This post isn't going to sit well with some either. But we haven't maintained strong relationships with NC coaches and high schools the last few years. It is going to take time to build those back to the level they should be.

On the flip side, if a school is looking to bring in the best talent they can from SC, GA, FL, TN, etc. and I'm a NC kid, I don't see that as a negative. I see a program that knows it needs to widen its net to build an FBS program.

Our coaches are working harder than ever before this offseason, kudos to them.

Agreed. It will take some time and now at least we know who is recruiting the different areas and there is contact...but those relationships have to be rebuilt...as you stated in a later post.

I like what we are doing.....and Fire makes a great point of committed and signed elsewhere....I did not think to count those! I should have!