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'14 CO WR Sam Martin (Verbal to Miami, Ohio)

Not the most uplifting of articles about our recruitment of Martin.

http://www.buffzone.com/buffzonetop...ut-receiver-sam-martin-talks-recruiting-buffs

The issue is it appears our staff just don't think he is BCS worthy. I know there are many of you who think many of our recruits are not BCS worthy and if that is the case why don't we bring in a guy like this to improve our rep in Colorado, etc.

Again, I prefer to trust our staff until proven otherwise regarding their assessment of potential in the Pac and fit with the team.
 
I don't think bringing in a couple of borderline CO kids really fixes our rep. There's always going to be those people that think their kid should get a CU offer. When it doesn't come, they start thinking about whether or not the 90th best player in CA is better than the 5th best CO player. Unfortunately, they don't seem to want to accept it's a simple numbers issue. There's literally twice as many people in LA County than there is in all of Colorado. Then lets add in: San Diego County at 3.2 million, San Bernardino County at 2.1 million, Orange County at 3.1 million, Riverside County at 2.3 million, and lastly Ventura County at a cool 835,000 people. That's just SoCal alone. I'd argue that not only is the 90th ranked player in CA better than the 5th ranked CO player, but the 190th ranked CA player is probably better than the 5th ranked CO player.

I personally like Sam as a prospect. I think he has speed, but it's hard to tell how much of it he has. Unfortunately, going to the camps at CU didn't put him up against many big time prospects, so the staff may still have had an issue with how to evaluate him. I don't know if his family has the finances, but walking on at CU is probably the best route to go for him. Prove himself as better than the kids on the team currently and earn a scholarship.
 
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NotKyleRingo taking the rivals prep board flame war to the local prep. Great.

This spurning the local preps for Texas and California kids is growing way too many legs.

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Sorry if it came across that way, that was not my intention. I wanted to update Sam's recruitment since a lot of the Buffzone posters have asked about him. He's a good kid and I hope he lands somewhere that he's happy. Obviously CU doesn't have to offer every in-state player.
 
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No, I know. You are doing your job. Appreciate you are taking an interest in recruiting. That wasn't meant as a shot.

And Sam more than most others is a legitimate story. Local legacy with heavy interest from previous staff.

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SD Buff said:
NotKyleRingo taking the rivals prep board flame war to the local prep. Great.

This spurning the local preps for Texas and California kids is growing way too many legs.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Going to get worse if we take Jay Mac too imo.
 
Although I do have a question. Did Sam bring up the CA and TX kids? Or was that part of the question . Again, doing your job... But curious on that

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Asked him about that Tweet a few weeks ago and he talked about being frustrated, hence the quotes.
 
Got it. Has to tough on the young man no question.

Rabbit, absolutely correct.

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Tough article to read, and recruiting is a tough business.

Interesting that he brings up the last staff's interest. I know Bobby Kennedy was interested, but it appears that Bobby hasn't offered Sam a ride to Iowa either. Lot of kids get interest and get recruited, but that offer doesn't come thru. It's a game of numbers.

Kid will do well at some level. His film from the Fairview state championship game is a living breathing document. He went up against D1 coverage there. I watched the first half on TV and Sam wasn't getting too open or making plays in that game, but that doesn't mean he was blanketed - their QB was getting very little time to throw and a lot of plays were being blown up.
 
White_Rabbit said:
I don't think bringing in a couple of borderline CO kids really fixes our rep. There's always going to be those people that think their kid should get a CU offer. When it doesn't come, they start thinking about whether or not the 90th best player in CA is better than the 5th best CO player. Unfortunately, they don't seem to want to accept it's a simple numbers issue. There's literally twice as many people in LA County than there is in all of Colorado. Then lets add in: San Diego County at 3.2 million, San Bernardino County at 2.1 million, Orange County at 3.1 million, Riverside County at 2.3 million, and lastly Ventura County at a cool 835,000 people. That's just SoCal alone. I'd argue that not only is the 90th ranked player in CA better than the 5th ranked CO player, but the 190th ranked CA player is probably better than the 5th ranked CO player.

I personally like Sam as a prospect. I think he has speed, but it's hard to tell how much of it he has. Unfortunately, going to the camps at CU didn't put him up against many big time prospects, so the staff may still have had an issue with how to evaluate him. I don't know if his family has the finances, but walking on at CU is probably the best route to go for him. Prove himself as better than the kids on the team currently and earn a scholarship.
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nice breakdown and the truth hurts some times. For Texas multiply all above by 5. There are kids here in Colorado that would not make a team in Texas. Yep, believe it or not, some schools down there you have to make the team. You don't just show up and are on the team. There are tryouts and you better be able to play more then one position or hope there are not a bunch of studs fighting for the same position. Lots of schools in Colorado (if not all) you just show up, and your on the team. It is a #'s thing like Rabbit is mentioning.
 
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Starting to get the feeling that the CO prep board is being used by an opponent to further destroy our in-state recruiting. I'm sure a lot of HS kids read those boards if they are hoping to play CFB.

Winning cures everything.
 
BuffUp said:
nice breakdown and the truth hurts some times. For Texas multiply all above by 5. There are kids here in Colorado that would not make a team in Texas. Yep, believe it or not, some schools down there you have to make the team. You don't just show up and are on the team. There are tryouts and you better be able to play more then one position or hope there are not a bunch of studs fighting for the same position. Lots of schools in Colorado (if not all) you just show up, and your on the team. It is a #'s thing like Rabbit is mentioning.
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I also liked Rabbit's analysis. But the other point as you are starting to allude to is the quality of talent and competition. It is not just a numbers thing, as in population numbers. In general the quality of play in Cali and TX at the higher levels is much higher, as is the coaching, training, etc. So I think other than a few schools in Colorado, most of the Colorado kids haven't played in the same quality of leagues, with similar quality of competition, training, etc.

Most of the standout players from Colorado are damn good athletes with a lot of raw, natural ability. This of course gives them good upside once they get Pac 12 caliber coaching and training. But they have to have the minimum raw ability (and more than their TX, Cali counterparts) to make them future BCS contributors.

I don't know if Martin has the minimum raw natural ability to be seen as a BCS caliber player. I have kind of thought he did based on his videos and his performance, but CSU not offering is very concerning to me. Say what you want about CU now and in the past regarding our lack of attention to Colorado athletes, but no way CSU has an anti-Colorado bias. They are a lower tier program and also haven't offered. To me that says more than the lack of offers from other BCS programs.

What I mean is, I am of the opinion we should bring in borderline guys from Colorado to build our Colorado pipeline and have goodwill in the state and also those guys are often super committed to CU when we bring them in and way less likely to lead to attrition. You need some of those guys on the team. But if CSU doesn't offer a local guy, I find it hard to believe we should.
 
It is unfortunate that he comes off as whining. No one has offered him a scholarship from a BCS conference, nor has CSU offered. If he loves the Buffs and has been a huge fan, then he knows what kind of condition we are in and how hard it is to justify offers to any player.

If he really is the 5th best player in Colorado and he thinks he is better than the 90th best in California, and he is a big fan of CU, then walk on and prove it. Instate tuition makes it affordable to walk on. If that is just to much shame to do, then please take a scholarship to Montana. I'm tired of the younger generation thinking they are entitled. Earn it as a walk on and it will all the more be sweeter.
 
Ft.ColBuff-kind of agree. If CSU is not even willing to offer than he is obviously not considered good enough for arguably the 2nd best program in the state (I say arguably b/c a case could be made for Air Force there) than why should he assume he is good enough for the best program in the state.

As you say he if he is passionate about playing for the Buffs, I guarantee he could come as a PWO. I also think he has a good chance to earn a scholly b/c as we all know, we are not deep at receiver and he certainly has skills. I would be rooting for him to earn that scholly as most of us would be. That chip on his should could be a good thing.
 
To put a name and a face to a fringe top 100 player in California, Nelson Spruce is a good example. Similar size to Martin, same position, both had stellar senior seasons, and both probably had similar speed (high 4.5-mid 4.6 range) as high school seniors. The big edge goes to Spruce in athleticism (County Defensive Back of the Year as a senior). Well, Spruce had a few BCS offers and several MWC/WAC offers. Is anyone concerned that CU "took a chance" on him, even though he was not a top 100 player in California (117th by ESPN)?

EDIT: Also reading the comments makes my head hurt. Martin, Spruce, and McCulloch are similar WRs? Based on what?
 
Duff Man said:
To put a name and a face to a fringe top 100 player in California, Nelson Spruce is a good example. Similar size to Martin, same position, both had stellar senior seasons, and both probably had similar speed (high 4.5-mid 4.6 range) as high school seniors. The big edge goes to Spruce in athleticism (County Defensive Back of the Year as a senior). Well, Spruce had a few BCS offers and several MWC/WAC offers. Is anyone concerned that CU "took a chance" on him, even though he was not a top 100 player in California (117th by ESPN)?
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Interesting comparison. Spruce didn't show up on any Rivals rankings for the state so as you say he was outside of top 100.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Nelson-Spruce-114975

But also as you say he had a bunch of offers-12 listed on Rivals-including Northwestern and Washington State as well as CSU and Air Force. The latter 2 are interesting b/c that is my concern with Martin-that he hasn't gotten local offers from lower tier D1 schools in the state, at least not yet.

So I guess you are maybe left with this question: Does a kid like Spruce get more offers, even from the top 3 Colorado programs because he is from California or because being a 100+ best player in Cali means he really is much better than a top 5 Colorado athlete? Put another way, if Spruce had played in Colorado instead of Cali would have still gotten as many offers inside and outside of Colorado?

Of course part of the answer to that is we can't know b/c he would have had different competition and coaching, developed at a different rate, and of course which coaches in the West have relationships with which schools…?

I am sure there is some bias towards players from Cali and TX but in the end I would hope that coaches recruit based on talent, potential, program fit as opposed to which state they come from (within reason as we obviously need to focus on the Pac 12 footprint and TX).
 
Two comments that come to mind are a) that IMO Spruce is way underrated, and b) that the young man from Fairview should jump on the Montana State offer, Bozeman being a very nice place with cheap direct flights to and from Denver, with a good coaching staff in place. My two pennies.
 
Sam is a good kid and I doubt that he likes the way that article came off. Looks to me that someone wanted to make that point and create a story of the prep board fuss. I seriously doubt he wants to bring attention to himself on this issue and be the poster boy for this debate.

Regardless, there are a handful of very good players from Fairview and Silver Creek that are on the bubble. That bubble may be P5 vs Mid-Major vs FCS vs D2. Some will outperform and some will underperform that initial forecast. Football goes from fun to a job in College and part of the trick is estimating how "into it" they will be, and how bad they want it.

Nobody should believe that player evaluation is black and white. How many Undrafted Free Agents are starting in the NFL? There's a pretty big margin for error and I think Sam has a lot of the things needed, but that there's just a question perhaps. CU's current staff has been interested in this kid, as was Bobby Kennedy. CU appears to have gone in another direction. Clearly we need speedy WR's asap. I don't think Dunston or Bobo can fly.
 
I understand that Sam is frustrated. But it sure doesn't look classy to gripe to the press. And CSU didn't offer and yet CU appears to be the bad guy, kind of. If I'm head coach Mike McIntyre, I might be inclined to skip a person like Martin who throws me and my program in a negative light. The best thing that Martin could have done from a PR point of view is stay positive, say positive, and look like a someone with some maturity.

I do wish him the best. He isn't the first Colorado kid who hoped for a Buff offer and he will not be the last (not even this year alone).
 
Duff Man said:
To put a name and a face to a fringe top 100 player in California, Nelson Spruce is a good example. Similar size to Martin, same position, both had stellar senior seasons, and both probably had similar speed (high 4.5-mid 4.6 range) as high school seniors. The big edge goes to Spruce in athleticism (County Defensive Back of the Year as a senior). Well, Spruce had a few BCS offers and several MWC/WAC offers. Is anyone concerned that CU "took a chance" on him, even though he was not a top 100 player in California (117th by ESPN)?

EDIT: Also reading the comments makes my head hurt. Martin, Spruce, and McCulloch are similar WRs? Based on what?
Click to expand...

I know! I know! Pick me!
 
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