Well, this is starting to feel like last year. The top OL prospects seem to commit early and other first round of offers, who do we even have a shot at right now? Lopez? Koehler? Harlow? That's about it. It's really starting to get concerning. Hopefully we'll do better with the second wave, and guys like Huckins, but I'm not too confident right now.
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OL recruiting - a big problem
- Thread starter sackman
- Start date
White_Rabbit
Well-Known Member
Losing Crane sucks. It's amazing how quickly we can go from being the leader for OL to them being committed elsewhere..
I think we need to lose out on a few more OL prospects before we start panicking, but it sure would be nice to get a commit from an OL semi soon.
I think we need to lose out on a few more OL prospects before we start panicking, but it sure would be nice to get a commit from an OL semi soon.
Who's left to lose? I'm not sure we're seriously in contention for any of our early targets. We're on plan b already and that doesn't even look too promising.
May and June should tell us all we need to know. I expect several of our OL targets to make decisions sooner rather than later. I am plenty concerned right now though.
pwbuffan
Active Member
This staff has a terrible record when it comes to OLine recruiting and they need to get it figured out right away.
No **** sherlock, that's exactly what Sacky just said.
White_Rabbit
Well-Known Member
I suppose I'll put it this way: I'm not concerned yet, but I'm concerned that I might very well need to be concerned in the future. Crane was an interior line prospect and I think we're looking a little better in that area than outside at tackle, so that's also why I'm not dusting off my fire Marshall sign.
I think we have no issues getting the numbers this summer, not sure about quality though. The coaches seem to be going off the grid for most of the guys that are likely to end up in Boulder.
This is it in a nutshell.
We can get big bodies in here. We need a breakthrough on a guy who makes people notice, somebody who isn't looked at as needing development but instead is somebody that has high expectations on him from the start.
White_Rabbit
Well-Known Member
Agreed, no Koughs please.
On that note, it seems like a lot of people are questioning some of our latest OL offers. Who might they be referring to?
I think it's more of a collective response. We're the first BCS school in on the majority of this latest round of offers. I'm all for identifying a sleeper here or there, and offers and stars don't always tell the whole story, but it's hard to believe we're the only school to identify 6 or 8 big time OL recruits out of Houston. We just aren't winning any recruiting battles along the OL and it seems we've already moved to plan b again, which is worrisome. That said, there are a couple of those kids who look pretty good and would be nice additions.
Not really sure.
We seem to be in really good shape for at least three players: Dwayne Johnson, Blake Nowland, and Christian Daimler. It seems they are all guys who could commit sooner rather than later. I like them all enough... but that is at least half of an OL class. Some decent players, but cannot be the center pieces of the OL class. That is not good enough to compete in the PAC-12 longterm.
Johnson's the one I'd really like to get out of that group. He may be the only one who can stick at OT long-term.
Would be nice if we could just recruit effectively in all the position groups. If it is not QB, it is DL (Hawk) - now it is OL with Embo. Cmon Embo, you're getting DL, you're getting CB, you're getting lots of good players at lots of positions - there is something obviously wrong with recruiting the OL grouping, and it needs to be addressed.
White_Rabbit
Well-Known Member
I'm going to try to remain positive and say that last year OL wasn't really a priority for the staff. DL and DB were and they nailed it there. This year, LB and OL seem to be the priority, so lets hope they nail it again.
What does worry me that mattrob eluded to is that we need some legit tackles this year. They're harder to come by than interior guys and looking at the list we're probably not likely to land more than one of them.
Wyo Buff
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't get too worried about this. Regarding recruiting, out of all the positions on either side of the ball, OL is really an imperfect science. It is rare for a 16-18 year old to be physically or mentally developed enough to contribute on the OL right away. Even if he is 6'7", 310, it is generally a much differenct 310 than a 21-22 year old. Although I have not done the research, I would speculate that most of Wisconsin's OL over the last 10 years were not 4-5 star high school OL recruits. I also think you could apply this to Nebraska in the 80's and 90's when they were churning out OL in Milt Tenopir's "pipeline." Equally true, however, is the fact that OL development is heavily dependent on continuity in a system and good coaching. I have said for a while that Embree is a system coach. This should help us develop offensive lineman in a "pipeline" type approach. Don't get too worked up folks. We should be able to create Offensive Lineman.
I went back and looked at their recruiting over the last 10 years. To be honest, it is a mixed bag. A handful of 4* players (including NFL players Joe Thomas and Peter Konz), mostly 3* players, and some off-the-radar 2* players. They were competing with other BCS programs for quite a few players though.
I agree that OL is pretty hard to project to the next level and that teams are all looking for different things in linemen, but I think it is also fair to question Marshall's recruiting as well. In his last stint here (albeit very short), he coached under another system coach. AZ posted this list on his site recently, it shows some of the players Marshall helped recruit to CU:
Brian Daniels
Mark Fenton
Edwin Harrison
Kharylake Martin
Gary Moore
Clint O'Neal
Tyler Polumbus
Drew Shrader
Del Scales
Fred Staugh
McKenzie Tillman
Jack Tipton
Clint Werth
Outside of Fenton and Polumbus, really not much there. Keep in mind he inherited Gurode and Rodgers, anchors on that 2001 team.
That may all be true. The fact remains that we've whiffed on nearly all the OL we've recruited over the last two years. You need to land a few of those guys, and we haven't. It's a very disturbing trend. System or not, you need players.
I'm not exactly sure what you are just sayin. We have whiffed on OL recruits from several regions and we've closed on other recruits in those regions. Unless you're suggesting that the staff as a whole isn't putting any priority on OL it's hard not to point the finger at the position coach.