Off to the recruiting races

ESPN is reporting that the NCAA is seriously considering an early signing period for college football.

College football is taking steps toward establishing an early signing period, according to the NCAA official who manages the national letter of intent program.

Susan Peal, NCAA associate director of operations, said the continued acceleration of recruiting has led the Conference Commissioners Association to consider an earlier date to supplement the long-existing date in February, similar to the structure for basketball and other sports.

“I think everyone wants an early signing period,” Peal said this week. “It’s just trying to nail down what’s the appropriate date for that.”

Can’t say I’m surprised, given the way the whole process has noticeably accelerated over the past few years.  I used to be unsure as to whom an early period would favor, but it seems clear to me now with the way the power programs are adding advisory staff to beef up contacts with the high schools that they would be the victors to whom the spoils would flow.  Which is probably why the NCAA is taking this up now.

With parents like these…

Malik McDowell still hasn’t signed with Michigan State, even though he wants to go there and his father now consents to his school choice.  His mother, however, won’t sign the MSU letter-of-intent for her 18-year old son.

If you think there’s an obvious solution to the kid’s problem, guess again.

According to the source, the elder McDowell has since changed his mind and now supports his son’s decision to attend Michigan State. He won’t sign a letter of intent, however, as he fears it could jeopardize his relationship with another child he has with Crowe.

Jesus, what a world.

“Let’s get caught up on recruiting before we even start talking about football.”

Jeremy Pruitt hasn’t coached a down of defense in Athens yet, but it seems like he’s already had a profound impact on his boss.

“He came straight from his vacation to accepting the job,” UGA coach Mark Richt told the AJC. “He came straight in and started working. The first thing he did was to start watching videos of our (2014) commitments and anybody else in the state of Georgia that was on our board at one time or another, and that might’ve been committed to another school. I was like ‘Let’s just see who he wants to offer and try go to recruit.’ There was just a little time left before signing day.”

“And after signing day, my thought was that the first thing Jeremy was going to do with that defensive staff was to gather them together and teach them the system. Well, the first thing he wanted to do was look at ’15 and ’16 kids together as a staff. He knew we were behind on the defensive side of the ball with making offers and seeing film because of what had happened (with the coaching changes).”

It’s no secret that the coaching world has gotten more aggressive on the recruiting front during Richt’s time in Athens.  And it’s been more than a little frustrating watching Richt deal with that in fits and spurts.  A lot of that comes from – dare I say it? – Richt having scruples.

“If you’ve only see this many and you make your offers based on this, then when you start seeing the rest, it’s like ‘Man, I wished I had offered that guy before this one.’ If you can see a bigger pool before you say ‘This is who I want,’ then you make better decision. It’s better for your kids, and it’s better for your program.

“But if you’re making offers fast because you don’t want to get behind, and a kid says he wants to come but you say ‘well, that’s not a committable offer’ … We are not going to do that here at the University of Georgia. We want to be thorough and we want to be truthful about what we’re telling a guy.”

All of which is admirable.  But it can leave you in a hole while every other program in competition for talent goes full-bore after it.  The solution would seem to be a combination of better organization, better focus and harder work.

The good news is that Richt seems to recognize that.

“I told McClendon, ‘Let’s look at what we do on a daily basis for the year and let’s get a plan for the amount of time that we’re going to spend as a staff on recruiting. So really, we’re already set up to where 50-percent of the time is football and 50-percent of the time is recruiting between now and the beginning of spring ball.

“Every single day, we’re evaluating film and making decisions on kids that are ’15 , ’16 and ’17 or whatever comes down the pipe, and making contact with the ones we’re allowed to, and talking to high school coaches.”

How much of that came to Richt on his own and how much of that was inspired by the coaching change and the addition of a new perspective is impossible to say right now.  But it’s sure going to be interesting to look back on the Pruitt hire in about five years’ time to measure its impact.

Tuesday morning buffet

Have at it, guys.

• Scarbinsky mocks Nick Saban’s concern about football becoming a “continuous game”.
• Arthur Lynch be preppin’ for the NFL.  It’s always interesting when players find new motivation (read:  $$) to take better care of their bodies than they did in college.
• Dan Jenkins has a memoir coming out today.  That should be a semi-great read.
• Ed Aschoff says Jeff Driskel, who’s important enough to the Florida program that Boom pushed back the spring practice schedule to accommodate his recovery, “has every reason to be bitter”.  Hmm.
• CFN‘s “unsolicited advice” to Georgia for spring practice is to work on turnover margin.  Dang, I bet Mark Richt wishes he’d have thought of that.
• Miami joins the ranks of programs hiring high-profile high school coaches in an advisory position.
• Weiszer notes a comment made by a 2015 Georgia commit:  “They’re switching to a 4-3 defense and I think that will give me an opportunity to come in and play as a true defensive end…”  Jeremy Pruitt, all things to all men.

Don’t know much about geography.

Butch Jones draws his own maps.

“We treat Georgia as a home state for us. You look at the proximity from Georgia to the University of Tennessee. This is home territory for us, and I think we’ve proven we’ve had great success with players from the state of Georgia…”

Sounds like another UT coach of recent memory.

Dooley and company want to recruit a five-hour, 300-mile radius from Knoxville and treat everything in that circle as “in-state” for UT.

Continuity, bitches.  Maybe that explains the back-to-back losing seasons.

The Greatest Recruiting Story of Our Era

And all it cost Ohio State was a NCAA secondary recruiting violation.

Tuesday lunch buffet

Some mid-day nourishment for you.

• Honestly, this is kind of refreshing.
• Athlon ranks the SEC’s 2014 football rosters.
• Boom says Florida has “more pressing needs right now” than an IPF.
• Does the law give the NCAA the ability to define amateurism in college sports?  You can guess what the NCAA thinks about that.
• Anyway you look at it, this can’t be good news for Michigan.
• On the other hand, when you’re at Notre Dame, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly “told me I couldn’t talk about it” is a viable course of action.
• I’m sorry, did somebody say we needed another one of these?

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

I can’t say I was a big fan of Marietta’s Bobby Franklin.  The man knew how to put the “far” in the far right.  But he said something during Georgia’s infamous flag debate that has always resonated with me.

The compromise flag that emerged was the idea of one of the most conservative members of the House, Representative Bobby Franklin, Republican of Marietta. A former member and camp commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Mr. Franklin wrote recently that ”allowing hate groups and white supremacists to hijack the Confederate battle flag and pervert it into a negative symbol without publicly and repeatedly repudiating them has been a grievous moral failure.”

In other words, organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans that want to insist they’re taking an honorable stand by defending symbols and standards of the Confederacy fail to recognize they lost the moral high ground they believe they’re entitled to occupy when they didn’t fight to preserve their integrity as unsavory groups appropriated those same symbols and standards for their own racist ends.  And that’s why folks like the Sons of Confederate Veterans aren’t entitled to the benefit of the doubt now when they try to reclaim that position.

It’s also why, as much as I’m willing to acknowledge there are plenty of people of good will who are sincerely offended by the latest racial incident that occurred at Ole Miss – ironically, complete with that very Georgia state flag Bobby Franklin wrote about – I’m having a hard time working up a lot of sympathy for Hugh Freeze about the difficulties incidents like that may cause him on the recruiting trail.  As John Pennington notes,

Fair or not, the University of Mississippi’s history is tied to racism.  The Confederacy’s economy — everything about the Old South, for that matter — was based on slavery.  Yet the school’s athletic teams are called the Rebels in a reference to the Confederate States of America.  The school’s athletic teams often wear gray in addition to their red and navy colors. Hell, the statue of Meredith isn’t far from a memorial to Confederate soldiers on the UM campus.

It is impossible to separate the school or its sports teams from the Confederacy and the racism that was ingrained in that institution.

Ole Miss coaches have complained about this unwanted legacy since Billy Brewer’s time.  That it’s still a perceived issue for the school says a lot, sadly.

Robbing the cradle

“LSU is a top program, and Zadock has liked LSU for a long time,” Johan Dinkelmann said. “What kid at his age with dreams and aspirations wouldn’t commit to a program like that? It’s a tremendous opportunity. It was an opportunity that we, as his parents, wouldn’t let him pass up if that’s what he wanted.”

Spoken like the proud father of a 14-year old kid who hasn’t played a down of varsity high school football (and won’t this season, either).

Every time I read stories like this, I keep thinking Andy Staples has the right idea.

Friday morning buffet

There’s always something to grab.

• Talk about preparation:  Mike Ekeler watched every snap last season of the Bulldogs’ special teams before his interview with Richt.  Talk about being a glutton for punishment, too.
• Based on recruiting rankings, which teams and coaches were the biggest over and under achievers?
• ESPN is set to announce that the 2014 college football season will begin at its earliest point in 11 years.
• Here are some details from the third day of hearings on whether the National Labor Relations Board should certify the Northwestern players’ unionization request.
• And here is a listing of the spring practice start dates and spring game dates for all 14 SEC schools.
• Charlie Pierce uses Mark Richt to mock Georgia pols’ attempt to let guns on campus.
• Arkansas’ plan to modify its school color leads to a post about color scales that probably has more information than you could possibly care about.  But since it also mentions Georgia, what the hell.
• MaconDawg wonders if Georgia’s 2015 recruiting indicates that future offensive changes are a possibility.