I remember Wendell Tyler! He was my 'close enough' namesake in the NFL. Or, secretly my long lost cousin that the family never speaks of. And his kid is checking out the Vols? I can't have any of my kin going to Tennessee!!
I remember when Wendell Tyler was on the Niners and changed the pronunciation of his name fromWENdell to WenDELL. Niner fans took it a step further and changed it to FumBELL. :wink:
Thanks for the good word on Ross, JO'Co. I really thought he'd go to USC or Orgeon, but Stoops apparently did a great sales job. Rick
Doesn't sound to me like Clausen is any more than a 1 in 5 chance to go to Tenn. I suspect one of the USCs gets him.
I think the Irish have a good chance at Jimmy. Casey wasn't recruited by ND, much to the chagrin of the Clausen family, who at that time, at least, were devout ND fans. Apparently they were told that an option style QB would be a better fit. We all know that that is no longer an impediment.
I think Clay Jr. was a Fr. LB this year for So.Cal. I seem to remember seeing his name. I have met both Bruce and Clay at my sisters house, their next door neighbor knows them very well. Bruce is a super nice guy, esp for a Trog. One of his sons is a walkon OL at A&M this year and he has another son who is still playing HS football here in Houston, I forget what he plays but I don't think it's OL. Clausen and Tyler are National recruits, I'm not sure that Casey is...but they are all buddies and have talked about going to the same school. After they came back from So.Carolina they all said they liked it there. Not so sure they all liked ND, although I do believe ND is a player here for Clausen. I would imagine the quickest way to playing time is So.Carolina for Clausen, Tenn besides Ainge had a top rated QB from North Carolina who I believe red shirted this year. While So. Cal has Booty and Sanchez. At ND in the fall of 2007 he'll have to compete with Frazer,Jones,Sharpley, Wolke all of who will have more time in the system, but none of them will be the incumbent since Quinn will be back next year (2006), and none of them are supposedly as polished as he is right now. I hope he isn't the 2nd comming of Ron Powlus! He will be an early enrollment kid so no matter where he goes he will go through Spring Drills with the team. Terry
Come Wednesday we will all know where our teams stand with the final few recruits. It looks like the Gators will only add 1-3 more people. Mon Williams, running back, should be one of them. I am estatic with the Gator class. The only real disappointment for me is that Young went to Notre Dame instead of Florida. The rest of the class more than makes up for one person though. Four of our players are already in school and will participate in spring practice. Now comes the long gap until kickoff! Gator Bill
I think the most satisfying thing for the Notre Dame fans about this years recruiting class is that it goes against what the talking heads have been saying. That is that Notre Dame can't recruit with the elite teams in the country anymore. ND fans knew that this wasn't true that it was lazy recruiting tactics esp by Willingham that killed us, Davie was a better recruiter than Willingham. Our class is going to be in the top 5 this year, we have as many top 100 players as the entire ACC right now (Scout.com), that may change of course if FSU and Miami close out a couple of players. We have 6 top 100 players, the entire Big 12 only has 10 right now. The Big East has 4 and they are all Pitt commits. Alabama had a great year as well, fell off in the last couple of games but still had a great year, yet Alabama has no 5 Star players (yet) and only 4 4star players. Notre Dame has 15 5*and 4* players. Alabama has no top 100 players. Much was made over how much easier it was to recruit at Fla as being one of the prime reasons Urban took the UF job over his "dream job" at Notre Dame. Urban went head to head with Charlie 3 times and is 0-3. Urban does have the #1 class in the country and its a great class. He is a dynamic recruiter, he was probably helped a little bit by the mustercluck that is the Miami program right now and the terrible season by FSU, with his Fla recruiting. But our class is very close to his class and really so close that we won't know who really had the best class for a couple of years. All the ESPN types who wrote us off were wrong, and the fact that they were so smug about it makes it even more satisfying. Of course like everybody else Charlie has to follow up a great 1st year with another great year next year and so on and so on. But I think we are headed back to where we belong. Charlie is already where Willingham would have been in Dec 2006, with regards to the 2007 class. If he has another great year on the field, he will bring in another great class, not as big and since we won't have as many scholarships available but it will likely be another top rated class. Not bad for a guy who's never been a HC in college (or anywhere) and wasn't supposed to be able to recruit, esp at Notre Dame. Terry edit: Also because of the way they do things at ND, the entire class is already qualified, there will be not be any noshows in Aug. No detours to Jr. Colleges.
There are many 5* and 4* recruits in Charlie's first full class that neither Willingham nor Davie would even have gone after. Neither of them understood Notre Dame; its culture, traditions or expectations. They honestly didn't know what they were supposed to sell. Davie was a bad coach who knew something about recruiting. He got some talent in, then hoped it would carry him. (To the NFL?) Willingham was an average coach who is one of the worst recruiters ever seen in Division 1. At Stanford and Notre Dame, his situation sold itself to a certain extent, because of the formidable academic reputations of those two schools, but in his current situation at Washington, he can't even keep the in-state kids home; bringing in a low range of talent that will quickly place the Huskies on a level with Idaho and Weber State... I just hope the administration remembers this example the next time they hire a football coach. The school has always seemed embarrassed by its football success; as if there were something wrong with students being good at a game. As long as they're real, graduating students, what's the problem? .....................JO'Co
You are completly right Terry. But as much as I enjoy those other sports there's nothing like a Saturday at the Swamp. But thanks for reminding me of what we have to be happy about. Seems you are in same situation with good basketball and baseball to follow. And you have the Astro's to boot! Gator Bill
2 out my 3 basketball teams are on life support right now...Rockets and Irish, Longhorns however should go deep into the NCAA's! On the baseball front, a lot of unknowns. Astros are in a no win battle with Jeff Bagwell and lots of roster questions, Irish I don't know what to expect from them this year. Texas will most likely go to the CWS though! Good reason to have lots of teams to root for! Terry
:idea: Socal Prep Sports was on TV last night. They ranked Pac10 recruiting this way: 1.USC 2.UCLA 3.Arizona The big surprise was that Oregon has fallen to dead, last place (10th) in the recruiting war, despite finishing in 2nd place during 2005... ................JO'Co PS. I REALLY like that QB (Lyons) from Hart HS that Arizona got. I've seen him play for years and I've seen him pull the wabbit out of the hat again and again. One time, he was down by four scores and he still pulled out a victory in the final minute. He's amazing and he's got a gun...
Another disappointment for me, D. Williams decommited to attend Arkansas, his home state. I understand these things happen, but when it happens two days before signing day and in the dead period it's a bummer when we lose a player. However when we get one that was commited elsewhere, then :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Gator Bill
Bill, I think more kids than ever are changing their commitments, I'm sure part of it is due to them make a verbal too early before they have considered all the factors that go into the decision. As I said earlier, Penn State reportedly has 10 kids on their list that where previously verbaled to another school. I'm sure that many of them thought PSU was down and out and didn't want to play for them. Then when they had such a great season they changed their minds. Penn State in the past has always done well in recruiting, but I'm sure the last 4 years has made it a little harder for them. Terry