Who knows, maybe he'll open his eyes and realize that he can help change the direction of a program by signing with them, rather than going to one of the usual suspects.
That's be nice to see, regardless of what school that is.
Being a devout Hurricane football fan since 1971 and a Hoosier fan since 1979, it's frustrating sitting here knowing that Pryor's such a talented basketball player, too, but that both the U-M and IU are not even on his radar screen, since he seems to have the kind of natural ability, smarts and leadership that could really help both sports in Coral Gables or Bloomington.
He'd look so great in the cream & crimson or the orange & green of the Hoosiers or Hurricanes!
On the other hand, at least Pryor won't be one more PA high school QB -a la U-M alum Jim Kelly- that Joe Paterno tried to recruit and turn into a linebacker.
Those kind of recruiting stories stories never get old when you beat Penn State!
Less so when you lose the national championship to them in the '87 Fiesta Bowl game as the the top-ranked team in the country, when you clearly have the better team, brimming with future NFL talent!
Somewhere, I still have the Fiesta Bowl t-shirt with the -M helmet on it which I bought at the U-M bookstore that Christmas break, when I came back from Evanston.
Meanwhile, some guy that nobody has ever heard of will likely sign tomorrow and in three years, be in the Top Five in Heisman Trophy voting, and everyone you meet will say, quite mater-of- factly, that they always projected him 'ready for the next level.'
Such is the world of recruiting.
Top recruit Pryor keeps college coaches on hold
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2008-02-05-sign-prepfootball_N.htm
USA Today also had some positive news for U-M fans like me who could use some, with a story (and photo) of U-M Hurricane-to-be, safety Vaughn Telemaque of Long Beach Poly, one of the top players on the West Coast from a school with a history of producing talented playmakers, something the Hurricanes desperately need on both sides of the ball.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/recruiting/football/west/2008-02-01-west.htm
Telemaque had no problems seeing himself at Miami. He has lofty goals and hopes to help Miami get back to the top of the national polls.
"We're going to get Miami back in the national title hunt," he said. "I have some big goals when I get out there. I think I have a great opportunity to get early playing time, but I'm going to have to work for it."
Before I mention some other aspects of the college recruiting process, as well as the odd comment here and there, let me ask some questions for which there may not be any good answers, but questions that need to be asked nonetheless, a word I rarely use on my blogs.
How can IU football be anything more than a one-year wonder -given James Hardy's leaving early for the NFL- if the program continues to do such a piss-poor job of recruiting in the state of Florida?
It's really great that Hoosier QB Kellen Lewis is from the Jacksonville area and has turned out to be such a wonderful kid on and off the field, but as of a few days ago, rivals.com, http://indiana.rivals.com/commitlist.asp?school=30 showed only two kids from the entire state going to Bloomington, Peter St. Fort, a DB from Naples and A.J. Thompson from Lakeland, an offensive lineman.
That's simply not enough to be competitive!
Having been as deeply involved with IU athletics as long as I was, and as were so many of my best friends, I'm under no illusions about IU's football program or it's relative place within the football universe.
But I'm dumbfounded to see so many kids from the state who could be effective players at IU, leave for out-of-state programs that play in lesser conferences in MUCH more unattractive towns and blah campuses.
And really, what are MAC schools doing, getting more players from Florida than IU?
IU outclasses them in every way, but the only way to get those kids and use Bloomington and its resources to ultimate advantage is to develop a rep for producing playmakers.
I wish those two Florida kids I mentioned earlier the best, I hope they turn out to be great players and teammates and more importantly, get the great education they should get at IU, but I didn't see the word playmaker, dynamic or change-maker in their player profile.
That's what you need to get from the state of Florida, even if they're only County 2nd team, 3rd team or honorable mention, to stop the feast and famine routine at IU.
This is not an entirely new thought of mine, since many of my IU alum friends from all over the country used to wonder this when we'd get together to watch IU basketball games or U-M football games while I was in Evanston or Washington, D.C., either at my place or at some sports bar.
This was just before U-M, FSU and the Gators would routinely finish in the Top 5 by the end of the year, but the demographics and talent of the state were already hard to deny.
I even wondered this while I was at IU and would glance at the football roster and see maybe two players from the entire state of Florida there. It was presposterous even then.
Back then, when the sports TV landscape was much more limited, I always thought that given that IU had the advantage of playing in the Big Ten conference, that it would probably take IU having some high-profile skilled offensive players and a 2-3 year stretch of 7-4 or 8-3 seasons to overcome the inertia of Florida players to consider the idea of Indiana, even as I knew there were talented but not superstar caliber players leaving the Sunshine State for places like Michigan State or Illinois.
As for the Hurricanes and Coach Randy Shannon, would it be too much to ask that they actually try to sign some talented possession wide receivers or tight ends from Oklahoma and the Midwest?
Players who aren't speedsters from the inner city or from around Lake Okeechobee, and who foolishly think that speed is the answer to every question?
It's not, otherwise the U-M football program wouldn't have sunk to such pathetic levels.
You know, recruit ballplayers who hustle throughout the ballgame, instead of guys with big heads who think they can take breaks during an offensive drive, like multiple-year football failure and off-field screw-up Lance Leggett, who has regressed since he first signed?
He should've been released from his scholarship after the 2006 season, but Randy Shannon,
channeling Father Flanagan, gave him more chances to screw-up and screw-up Lance Leggett did. Over and over.
I still have handy my audiotapes of WQAM's play-by-play broadcastsof last year's U-M games, including a compilation tape of the season's highs and lows that I put together, to free up the other tapes.
One of the common elements of any ballgame was the WQAM announcing crew calling out
Lance Leggett for self-evident lack of hustle or effort, whether that was NOT going for the ball along the sidelines when the QB was running for his life and needed a dump-off target, not laying down a block on a running play, or taking one of his customary siestas during the game, when he sleepwalked.
Randy Moss might've been able to get away with that, but he's Randy Moss.
LL is just code for lazy.
You know, players along the lines of Howard Twilley, Steve Largent, Wes Welker, Dallas Clark or Jeremy Shockey? That'd be a nice start.
Many other U-M fans I know share a similar feeling.
We're SO fed up with watching lanky, trash-talking wannabe stars who can't go over the middle in a game against a tough opponent late in a game.
Players so fundamentally unsound around the sidelines that they lack proper footwork skills and don't know how to make a good target for a QB running for his life, as has been the case far too much the past three years in Coral Gables.
Frankly, if it was up to me, a good starting point would be dropping some curent U-M wide receivers who failed to show any signs of intelligent life when they were given their chances, few though that may've been.
The most embarrassing part of last year's season was the U-M's beyond-shameful passing performance against North Carolina State, where they actually chose to line up wide receivers behind center in the shotgun for a direct snap.
Sorry, but only completing one pass in a game should be enough to get a coach on the hot seat and a player demoted.
The most recent Tom Lemming 2008 National Top 25 rankings of college recruits for CSTV is at: http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/recruiting/classrankings/08national.html
He has Notre Dame ranked first, the Gators third, U-M ranked eigth and the Seminoles at ninth. He ranks 5 Big Ten schools in the top 20, including Minnesota, saying "Finishing 1-11 on season and reeling in T-20 class makes Tim Brewster and staff biggest surprise in country."
List of Gator verbal commitments: http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/searchrecruit.cfm?sport=football&dbyear=07&school_name=fla
Hurricane: http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/searchrecruit.cfm?sport=football&dbyear=07&school_name=mifl
Seminole: http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/searchrecruit.cfm?sport=football&dbyear=07&school_name=fsu
Tom's CSTV show Generation Next will have their annual National Signing Day programming Wednesday. The first show will be a one-hour program at 10 a.m., followed by a four-hour show at 2 p.m., which repeats at 6 p.m., with a one-hour wrap-up show at 10 p.m.
Tom's 2008 All-American team is at: http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/recruiting/allamericans08.html
The Hodge Football Reporter, from Director of Recruiting Coverage for CSTV.com, Bill Hodge is at: http://slog.cstv.com/hodgereport_fb/
His list of IU verbal commitments is at: http://slog.cstv.com/hodgereport_fb/indiana/
Scout.com has U-M's class ranked 4th, FSU at 6th and the Gators ranked 7th, with IU ranked #58 in its rankings, with barely one-third of the talent and ability of top-ranked Alabama's.
Scout.com's HoosierNation football page with tons of info and video is at: http://indiana.scout.com/
Scout.com's network for the Big Three here in Florida is: CanesTime at http://miami.scout.com/, FSU's NoleDigest at http://florida.scout.com/ , with the Fightin'Gators at http://florida.scout.com/
Their John Decker reports on three recruits that IU is desperately trying to get, and why they may or may not sign with the Hoosiers: http://indiana.scout.com/a.z?s=170&p=10&c=726247&refid=4781
Meanwhile Jamie Newberg of SuperPrep.com takes a look at the Top 25 schools at: http://recruiting.scout.com/2/726125.html
The Big Ten Network will delve into the recruiting process, present expert analysis and unveil video highlights of the Big Ten's newest student-athletes with three editions of BIG TEN TONIGHT: SIGNING DAY SPECIAL: A live 90-minute show beginning at 5:30 PM ET Wednesday, Feb. 6; A 60-minute edition of BIG TEN TONIGHT later that evening with additional analysis; And a live 60-minute show on at 6 PM ET on Thursday, Feb. 7.
Excerpts from email I just received from the Big Ten Network.
______________________________________________
Big Ten Network to Air National Signing Day Specials
Network to devote three shows to college football's most anticipated event
CHICAGO - Fueled by months, and sometimes years, of speculation and controversy, National Signing Day is the most anticipated day in college football. No single event has a greater effect upon the fates of football programs and the fortunes of coaching staffs.
The Big Ten Network will delve into the recruiting process, present expert analysis and unveil video highlights of the Big Ten's newest student-athletes with three editions of BIG TEN TONIGHT: SIGNING DAY SPECIAL:
A live 90-minute show beginning at 5 PM ET Wednesday, Feb. 6;
A 60-minute edition of BIG TEN TONIGHT later that evening with additional analysis;
And a live 60-minute show on at 5 PM ET on Thursday, Feb. 7.
"These shows will allow Big Ten fans to look into the crystal ball and see the future of their favorite teams and their archrivals," Big Ten Network coordinating producer Quentin Carter said. "The great thing about our coverage is that we'll concentrate solely on 11 schools and the student-athletes who will be coming to these 11 campuses."
Wednesday's programs will include portions of university press conferences, interviews with Big Ten coaches and instant analysis. On Thursday, Big Ten Network experts will closely examine each school's recruiting class and evaluate how each team addressed its most immediate and long-term needs.
Hosts Dave Revsine and Rick Pizzo will be joined by Big Ten Network analysts Gerry DiNardo, Howard Griffith and Chris Martin and national recruiting expert Bob Lichtenfels of Scout.com.
For more information regarding the Big Ten Network, visit www.BigTenNetwork.com.
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