Apparently the Irish think Ron Zook's recruiting success is more than luck or hard work..... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=2764040
I think he's cheating. I think he made an offer to Benn that Benn couldn't refuse and that will be hard to track down. I also agree he's a hard worker and all that, but there are a lot of hard working coaches out there recruiting and not getting the results he is getting. Remember he has no body of work to rely on to get these recruits, the 2 years he was at UF were amongst he worst 2 years in recent UF history and he's won 4 games in 2 years at Illinois. Oh yeah add in that Illinois has had numerous run in's with the NCAA and cheating and I'd say theres a good chance they are cheating right now. Kind of like OU, you have to figure they are cheating, they get caught so often, that you know they are doing it all the time.
No. If you read the article, apparently the Illini think that the Irish have been bad mouthing them. So to sum up the article, the author thinks that Illinois thinks than ND thinks that Zook cheats. I think. Now JL Smith on the other hand.....
Smith is one loose cannon to be sure. I personally think Zook does not cheat but wouldn't be surprised if in his sleepless....mealess zeal he didn't trip up and do something beyond the rules out of carelessness and/or fatigue. I am certain he did not cheat at Fla because that would have been the surest...fastest way out of town on the Express train. When Billy Donovan started his program at Fla in the late 90s it was almost a constant whine from coaches around the country who thought he was up to something no good. This could be the case with Zook and probably is.... The only difference is that 8-4 with a stupid bowl loss and a few fantastic wins sprinkled in along with mind-numbing losses is about all anyone will ever hope to get from the Zooker. Maybe Zook will load the cupboard at Il....get fired....and then Holtz will come off the shelf for one last try....
One more thing on Zook that explains it all for him... Vs. Ole Miss in Gainesville in 2003 the Rebs ranked 113th in the nation in pass defense yet were decent against the run. The week before the game Ole Miss was torched for 500 yards passing by TT. During game prep for OM Zook announced the Gators were going to eschew the talents of Chris Leak by establishing the run for some off-the-wall crazy reasoning. Well.....UF never got untracked offensively.....kept the game way too close and then gave momentum to the rebs in the second half and of course couldn't pass when it was apparent they had to pass to move the ball. It was Zook's lowest game as UF coach and is good evidence of his inability to ever do great things at Illinois other than what I said above.
Gotta love how the college football recruiting "pot" has been stirred .... in the midwest. Zook has folks calling him a cheater because Illinois signed a "highly rated" class of HS football players. Then, the Big-10/11 commish issues a laughable commentary as to why conference schools are unable to achieve the recruiting class ratings of the SEC. This will be interesting to watch. :wink:
Then you don't follow college basketball recruiting in depth. I did get his name wrong...it's Brett Bearup. Brett Bearup There are a lot of people who feel like guys like Brett Bearup are a cancer on the college/AAU scene and are what is wrong with the whole smarmy scene in college basketball recruiting (much worse than football). The fact that Donavan was so successfull in luring high school talent from all over to UF was considered to be a factor of his relationship to shoe company agent/street agent/slime ball Brett Bearup.
Geez, is there absolutely nothing that you guys don't distort, spin, criticize, and knock? He did no such thing...he never said anything about a bad recruiting class. Read the Damn Letter He specifically defends the B10's record against allegations that we can't recruit, and refutes any thought that academic standards have or should have anything to do with football concerns. He says absolutely nothing derogatory about the SEC. I have my own thoughts about what is laughable commentary.
Per stu Who claimed the commish said anything about "bad recruiting" classes? I believe he stated: which would tend to indicate he didn't think the ranking of the classes signed by the Big-10/11 .......... see his use of "we" ...... were as highly ranked as those signed by the SEC, which had six classes in the top-10. But there's been no discussiopn of a "bad recruiting class" by anyone. Stu ... READ THE DAMN POSTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol: And his letter was laughable .............. hugely laughable.
I agree that he doesn't, and if you remember I said that even though he didn't it would be viewed by SEC folks as a shot at them. Reason is of course that the SEC had 7 of the top 10 recruiting classes and Michigan was the only B10 team in the top 10 and they weren't a consensus top 10 class. Toss in that what many considered the best B10 team in awhile (true or not) was taken apart by a UF squad that really and truly was hardly considered by anybody to be even close to the best SEC team in awhile. So the fact that he said things were fine and there was no reason to lower academic requirements or to go to other regions for talent. How else, framed against that background, could it be taken other than to be a shot at the SEC. BTW, when Paul Hornung suggested that ND lower academic standings so they can recruit more AA athletes he lost his job and was pilloried in the media. Fisher DeBerry said the same thing after the 2005 season and the 2006 season was his last, he wasn't fired but many think he was encouraged to retire. The B10 commish was savy enough to not imply that the B10 needed more AA athletes. AA= African American not All-American...although more AAAA athletes would help anybody's team. Terry
Terry...do you have any other references to Bearup in Florida recruiting under Donovan? Billy D has brought many McDonald's AAs and several other H/S stars from all over the country to Gainesville in his 10 year tenure and yet you imply that Bearup was responsible for Donovan's many successes? Do you have a Bearup link for all of these stars that Billy D has rounded up for UF or just the vague James White reference? Interesting that White took off for Cincy after a short time at UF and he definitely wasn't the kind of character I don't think Donovan is looking for in his recruiting searches these days. Guys like White and Donnell Harvey who took off so soon after landing at UF made Donovan rethink the kind of player he wanted on his team and in a way in sort of explains the crew he has now who opted to come back for their junior seasons.
Actually, now that I've read Terry's post I want to acknowledge that I mischaracterized the commissioner's comments when saying they are "laughable". I don't necessarily disagree with what he wrote and wouldn't attempt to debate the merits of what he stated .... but rather I find fault with his decision to engage in a "war of words" with the sports media over this matter. IMHO there is nothing wrong with how and whom the Big 10 recruits and there's no need to debate with the media the recruiting philosophies and practices of conference member institutions.
MCG, I gave you one link, it's to a chat session with some recruiting/sports type over on ESPN. You think that Bearups name just happened to come up accidentally? I doubt it, he's a known character in the recruiting underworld of AAU/Summer Leagues/etc. It's a dirty place, where street agents get kids and make them believe that they are the only ones they can trust to steer them to the right college. Bearup isn't the only guy out there doing it. But believe me when I say that once these kids get under the influence of one of these street agents, they are not going to a school that the street agent doesn't approve of. It could be that the street agent has a backroom deal with Addidas or Nike or somebody and he's not going to let his kids go to a program that is not supported by his financial backers. These guys are smart, the get support for their AAU team from people and it's legit, but there is a quid pro quo for that support. At the time that the Stanford coach made that comment there was no doubt that Bearup was steering players to Donavan. He had to eat his words because he couldn't prove it or if he could prove it there would be damage done to the whole basketball system that is currently in place. Now to be clear Donavan didn't have to anything illegal in the NCAA world, he was Bearups close friend, it's not his problem if Bearup is taking money under the table from shoe companies and suggesting (stongly) to players that Billy D is a great coach and UF is a great place to play. Donavan is just offering players scholarships. That he might not have even gotten in the door without Bearup is really immaterial, he didn't pay the players or offer illegal inducements. Bearup most like did any dirty work if it needed to be done. But nobody can prove all that. And as I said Bearup is not the only guy around steering kids to schools. Plauseable deniabilty comes to mind with regards to the relationships of college coaches to AAU coaches and street agents.
I'm not buying any of that Terry. Some guys are great recruiters and some are not. Zook is and that is one of the reasons he was hired at Florida, he was fired because he couldn't do with the players what the fans expected. Illinois has enough of a football past and are the only fish in a big state, I think they are a program waiting for the right guy to lead them back. Zook can recruit, and if he becomes a better game day coach and handles his players better he could become a winner at Illinois. And after Charlie complained about others contacting his players it came out that his staff was contacting players commited elsewhere. I think we can have a lot less of pointing fingers at people who get out their and work their butts off to get the players.
Bill, where did you see that? I've never read or heard of him saying anything like that. Can you cite where he made such a comment?
Well I think there are 2 issues here Bill. Contacting of players is one thing and I think everybody does it, it's not against the rules, and while I don't know exactly how Charlie does things it's fair to assume that he has contacted or followed up in some way with players committed to other teams. I could try to put lipstick on that pig and say that well he makes the kid call the coach at the school he verbaled to like Mack Brown does, but it's still stealing other teams players IMHO. I don't like it, wheter it's Charlie or Mack or Zook. But secondly I just think Zook is a cheater, he has no record on the field that would make any player excited to play for him. Illinois has a history of cheating in recruiting. Now I'll qualify that and say that maybe Zook doesn't personally cheat, probably uses those famous words.. "I don't want to know about it". When all that stuff broke out over the Means recruitment, it wasn't the head coach at Alabama who was doing the cheating, there were boosters and assistants who were involved. He might have had some inkling, maybe not, but it was going on never the less and maybe he was smart enough to maintain plauseable deniablity. At Texas when Tom Penders was our basketball coach, he was a cheater. Not him personally he had his assistants break all the rules. When it went bad for him the assistants took the fall, one of them was barred from ever coaching in the NCAA again. He sells cars in Bastrop last I heard. After taking the fall for Penders, he later realized that he was screwed totally and started talking but nobody would listen. Penders knew everything he was doing and never told him to not do it. Penders has a clean jacket, but he's still dirty IMHO. Then there's Jerry Tarkanian, who's also got a clean jacket, but if you believe he was never dirty then I've got some oil property for you. I doubt if Zook had to do anything wrong while he was at Fla though, when he was on Spurriers staff all he had to do was sell Spurrier...how hard is that? When he was the head coach, he was still selling Fla which was still one of the top programs in the country, where there are pretty girls, reasonable weather, the talent he was recruiting didn't have to drive too far from home, etc. He had it relatively easy. Terry
Sid, I think I may have mixed up two situations, what Charlie did for sure was complain about other people contacting his recruits and he did do that publically. I don't have the complaint but I am sure it did happen. Because after he complained it came out that a member of his staff was doing the same thing. While I agree with Terry it's legal and it doesn't bother me, it did seem to bother Charlie, then it came out his staff was doing the same thing. Terry, I'm a bit surprised at you thinking Zook is a cheater. That is your right, but the only evidence you have is that he is getting good players when in the past Illinois was not getting them. I'll say again that the state of Illinois has plenty of players and there is no real competetion in state for Zook if he can recruit right. And he is a rentless recruiter. It's easy to accuse others of cheating, but if building a program from weak to strong makes one think you are cheating then we would have to look at Va Tech who never had winning seasons until they got their present coach, Bill Donovan because he's built the Gators into a consistent basketball winner and I could think of many other examples. I just don't buy it, period.
Sid, Charlie never specifically pointed fingers at Zook in any public forum. But the media has jumped on him and ND as chief grumblers about Zooks success. And he did address the matter of committed players in his signing day press conference, he did so in a way that didn't point fingers at any particular school. But said that he was going to go about recruiting a little different next year, not accepting any soft verbals or silent verbals, and when pressed on Benn he said you ask him if he was commited here. Now Benn did apparently have 2 text messages (or emails or voice I forget) where Peter Vaas contacted him after he had verbaled to Illinois trying to get him to reconsider, he gave those to the press. There is more to this story but I can't put it out on this board. Terry