Nah, as your uneasiness rises over the doings in Calhoun, this isn’t one of those “I heard from my best friend’s sister’s grocer who knows somebody who lives down the street from somebody who’s married to a teacher at…” posts to calm you down.
I’m just here to provide a little context, people.
- Brian Cook reminds us that, when it comes to the recruiting services, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.
- Be still, my heart: Former UT coach Phillip Fulmer will be featured as an analyst by CBS College Sports on signing day.
- More trees and forest stuff from David Hale here.
- I haven’t been able to find their 2010 projections posted anywhere, but it’s worth refreshing your memory with a look at Mercer University’s football recruiting prediction model, which boasts a 70% success rate historically.
- Speaking of the 2010 class, there are lots of fascinating tidbits about how it’s shaping up in this post at MrSEC.com. Here’s a sample: “Four SEC schools currently have more commitments from Georgia than from any other state: Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.”
Get The Picture 
I just cannot quit laughing over the idea that a kid would shun Vandy for Ufk, and then gush about Ufk’s business school.
Really?
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To be fair, he actually gushed about the new shiny business building, not necessarily the school itself. 🙂
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Hey wait a sec…..UT has a great logistics/trucking program, and regularly sends their graduates to work in Knoxville and Copper Mountain. With a legacy like that, who needs Vandy?
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Be serious. Why would any kid from Georgia ever go to UT? I just don’t see it. And if the kid doesn’t know better. why would his coach let it happen? And if the coach didn’t know better, why would the kid’s momma and daddy let him go there? Maybe if you got no other option, but a good player? What’s the world coming to?
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What worries me, and should, is not Nance’s going to UT, but his reaction to Derek Dooley.
And if anybody with bat brains from UT had shown an
earlier interest in Nance would he still have committed to Vandy?
Apparently the bat brains only arrived in Knoxvegas recently.
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My TN friends tell me the OC always liked Nance but Kiffin told him to forget it. Heard Nance’s father called and asked if there was any interest after Junior bolted. Also heard Rodgers lives with the Nances, don’t know if that is true. They have heard Searles may be coming to UT and he is the one recruiting Rodgers. The story they have is Searles will announce this next week. I am sure a lot of this is unsubstantiated rumor, and I am not reporting this as factual, or reliable. I will say if we were to lose Searles, this would be the year to do it. I believe I could successfully coach the group we have returning.
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Do any of you guys know if we have any recruits taking visits (official or otherwise) this weekend?
Also, looking at how Rogers is approaching things really makes me appreciate the way A.J. handled recruiting. Having said that, I usually try not to get too worked-up about recruiting. We are talking about the decision making process and judgment ability of kids who in many instances are even less intelligent and emotionally mature than your average eighteen year old.
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I have a bad feeling this year. I think we will lose a couple of verbals and soft verbals and I think the guys we are trying to close with will probably end up elsewhere.
I guess the problem that I have is not so much losing him, but losing him and others to SEC teams or Tech… or idiots like Kiffin. But those that end up with Kiffin, at least get what they deserve.
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My take on recruiting is that most schools (UGA, UF, Tenn, et al) are going to get good players. Talent is usually going to be fairly relative (sidenote – UF has been incredibly, abnormally talented in the last couple of years). However, it usually comes down to coaching. What can you get out of your kids. None of these schools are signing classes full of duds.
Does anybody think if Dwayne Allen was on campus things would have gone any different in the last couple of years, other than us possibly not being the 2009 ACC champs?
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I am not a huge follower of recruiting, the rating services, or all the drama that goes along with the process compared to most fans. I never get caught up in all the frantic emotional swings as Signing Day nears, I just feel sorry for 18-19 year old men who cannot make a decision, nor honor a commitment for longer than one month. I feel even more sorry for middle-aged men who let those same teenagers (not related to them) ruin their days/weeks as they grovel for attention.
That said, I went to my first HS football game in almost 20 years early this season to watch Calhoun play at the urging of a friend. What I saw was a great looking athlete in Rogers who possesses lots of potential. I also saw one of the biggest attitude problems I have ever seen in a HS game. Rogers drew TWO personal foul penalties for showboating, and took plays off where his number wasn’t called. Not saying he cannot change at the next level under the right coach, but he seems a better fit at TN; he may want to ask for Kelly Washington’s number. I can live with him switching to the Vols IF he is going to act like that (and he may not, I get that.) It would surprise me if he switched just because of Nance since this would make him a “follower”, and not his own man.
From what I can recall, Nance didn’t seem like a big time QB prospect at all. I am very surprised he got an offer from TN, given their lack of QB talent on campus. It would make Rogers switching his commitment even more unlikely to me. He doesn’t strike me as the type to not want an opportunity to put up flashy numbers.
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FWIW, Nance says he committed to Dooley because Dooley made it clear it wasn’t a package deal.
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Nah, they just gave him a scholly to be a sideline signal caller for the duration of his career at UT because he’s just got so much potential as a sideline signal caller.
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Have you looked at UT’s depth chart at QB? Thanks to Junior, the pickin’s are pretty slim there right now.
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An attempt at at package deal without the package knowing he is part of the deal, perhaps?
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Yes, I can believe that. Things may just be that tough right now in Knoxville, and it is getting late. As much I love the stories about passed-over athletes that blossom in college and make recruitniks scratch their heads 3-4 years later, it usually isn’t QBs that don’t get inundated with offers and then surprise. My comment was more in the vein of it would have been hard to miss a top-notch QB on the field that night.
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I checked with Mercer. They will not run the recruiting prediction model this year – maybe next year.
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