Looks like the Gators have lost two and maybe three of our commits on signing day. Ramon Buchanan LB who was a Miami commit early then changed to Florida has changed back to Miami. Ricky Barnam OL commited to the Gators and signed with Michigan. Also a big rumor that Omar Hunter will not sign with the Gators and may sign with Georgia. I am hoping that last one is not true.
I saw that Omar is scheduled to sign at 1pm, with the Gators. Not faxing in his LOI early caused all the rumours no doubt. Alabama is going to have a monster class they are sitting at 29 guys now with 2 or 3 big names still in play for them. I don't know if any of them are EE's, if they have some of those then the class becomes manageable but if not it's hard to gray shirt that many kids, of course the other possiblity is that they have a bunch of guys who won't be eligibile to enroll.
Jamie Newberg said that Hunter was wavering, but has now signed with the Gators. Supposedly he had heard a rumour that Mattison was leaving UF for the Ravens, I wonder who in Georgia started that rumour!!
Do you think it was Tailback Terry? Actually Hunters LOI is in now. There is a lot of switching going on today and Michigan has benefited from several of them. Alabama, Miami and Notre Dame look like they will finish with the best classes. Miami and Alabama look like they will sign over 30 each. I'm not sure how that works out with the 25 per year limit and I think there's a maximum of 5 early enrollments that can be counted to last years class. Thats a total of 30 so where do the others fit? I think there will be some gray shirts at Miami.
Hunter LOI is in??? That Newburgh post now is deleted about Omar.....Ha all the crazy stuff they put in these kids....
Well the most likely thing besides EE's will be the non-qualifiers. I think Auburn had as many as 10 a year or 2 ago. Sometimes I think that it's stupid for the NCAA to allow this, the B10 has a rule on oversigning but it's a choice they made. On the other hand it does help some kids who get signed and make their grades by the time they graduate. If there was a no signing over 25 rule then some of those kids would qualify late and have to go to JC or a school they didn't really want to go to. So while it seems a bit smarmy to me it does help a few kids so it's not all bad. I think it would be interesting if they eliminated the moving kids from one class to another, and made the rule that if you signed the LOI in 2008 that's the class you count against wheter or not you are an EE or a Gray Shirt.
Pardon me for being so long to get back, I just got back from my 2nd therapy session. Hunter's LOI was in fairly early I believe. The Gators lost the two players I wrote about earlier and added T J Lawerence a WR out of Florida and David Young a OL our of Illinois. Young wasn't that highly rated because of a knee injury. Looks like we will be rated in the top 5 with Rivals and ESPN but not that high in Scout. Young is not on the Scout list for some reason and we are 12th Alabama, Notre Dame and Miami seem to be consensus top 5. Seems there were a lot of signing day switches, Notre Dame got one, Miami at least one, Michigan got three I believe and there were others. All in all I'm very happy with our class.
Which means he will become a star OL in about 3 years, and after a pancake block in a big game, Brent Musberger will tell the great story about how he was a last minute pickup on signing day and was not highly rated because of a knee injury his senior year of HS. :wink:
Yeah Terry I saw that earlier today. Even though I know that some Notre Dame fans don't like Mattison, Gator fans are pretty high on him. We are hoping we don't lose him.
No doubt there is animosity between ND fans and both Meyer and Mattison. But that aside I was surprised to read this, I was pretty serious when I posted that I thought somebody in Georgia planted that rumour. Turns out it wasn't a rumour. I will have to say that it's pretty SOP for coaches who are leaving to stay through NLOI Day so as to not cause recruits to back out if they are going to have a new position coach. Mack Brown hiring Major Applewhite and reassigning Ken Rucker (RB Coach) caused them to lose Darrell Scott to Colorado, he said he was concerned that Major had never coached RB's.