Ethnicsands
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You think that's evidence that our staff knows how to evaluate or recruit WRs? LMAO. Wow.
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Mike Jackson of Palmetto is this years TuTu Atwell.
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I think Elijah Moore was the better prospect and better college player. TuTu had a great 2019 year.
Ethnicsands
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We've had incompetent coaches for the past 20 years, so yes, it's been a while. Most of those kids we ignore these days.
Last two that come to mind are Roscoe Parrish and Ethenic Sands.
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What a dope you are. All of those guys had tremendous HS talent coming out of HS. I responded to a comment about how schools have to do more panning for gold to find undervalued players when they can't sign top talent, and those three years Miami signed a lot of top talent at WR.
Funny stuff coming from a guy with a (misspelled) screen name referencing a Miami receiver with 2 starts in his 4 years at UM, and a total of 51 receptions.
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BoxingRobes
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Just an aside, since you and I have discussed this among ourselves before...but if you look at the best WRs that have come from here in recent vintage...very few of them have been highly rated. Amari Cooper, Calvin Ridley, Jerry Jeudy...sure. But Antonio Brown, TY Hilton, John Brown, Hollywood Brown, OchoCinco...but you can then go to some role player in the NFL types (good starters in college) like Eli Rogers, TreQuan Smith, Allen Hurns, Travis Benjamin...and then you can go to excellent collegiate WR (fringe NFL types) like Daniel Braverman, Stedman Bailey, Jacoby Ford...there are handfuls more just as examples, but were generally poor evaluations by the websites and plenty of teams.
IMO, one of the major themes from that list...very productive high school players that are undersized or played a different position in HS. Three of Miami's best WRs at the pro level over the past 15 years or so, outside of Andre Johnson (a little outside of the scope of this exercise) were Hurns (injury his senior year), Benjamin, and Phillip Dorsett (both 3* undersized WRs).
idk, missing out on undersized 3* shouldn't be something Miami does. We should be experts on these types locally. If we were, we'd never have to go to Georgia, California, Illinois, etc. for wide receivers and we wouldn't have to have this god awful discussion.
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Yeah, and before that? Outside of Dale Dawkins in the 1980s, pretty much nobody.
Miami has never been "known" for converting HS QBs into WRs. That has never been Miami's "thing".
Randal Hill was a cornerback at Killian.
Here's a list of Miami's all-time receivers (includes TEs and RBs). Run through the first 100 or 125 names.
Parrish, Sands...Dawkins...and nobody else.
Miami (FL) Hurricanes Receiving Stats | College Football at Sports-Reference.com
Check out the Miami (FL) Hurricanes Receiving Stats and more about College Football at Sports-Reference.com
www.sports-reference.com
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Antonio Brown, John Brown, and Chad Johnson all had serious academic issues and/or JuCo careers before finally succeeding in college. That doesn't mean they were not talented, just that they missed out on opportunities to go to a 4-year school NOT because their talent was overlooked.
Eli Rogers was a 4-star WR, Top 250 guy, I remember Miami recruiting him. Jacoby Ford had academic issues, he had to go to Fork Union, and after his time at Fork Union, he was a 4-star WR recruit. Travis Benjamin was a 4-star WR. Allen Hurns was a 3-star WR.
I think that many porsters tend to "misremember" a lot of facts...
Look, I'd prefer for Rivals/247 to rank kids regardless of academics, but we all know they didn't do that for at least a decade of time.
As for your memories of Travis Benjamin's ranking (he was a 4-star) or Allen Hurns' size (he was 6'2"), here's some info to refresh your memory. And all three played WR in high school.
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BoxingRobes
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You're missing the forest for the trees. The point is, the services misevaluate players down here and the players from the area that have gone on to play in the NFL by at large were misevaluated by both the services and much of the higher end of the Power 5. You can list every excuse you want, but they were misevaluated. Even mentioning Travis Benjamin being a low 4-star...cool...but he was the 4th best WR prospect in that 2008 Miami Hurricanes recruiting class behind Aldarius Johnson, Tommy Streeter, and Davon Johnson per 247. The point still stands that he was misevaluated even if we are splitting hairs about his rating. The same can be said for Eli Rogers (IIRC, he was a late 4-star bump...here is an article from January of his senior year where he was still listed as a 3-star by rivals) or Allen Hurns (I didn't misremember his size, I mentioned a few WRs that had some size...but the trend is that most of the misevaluated players down here tend to be small).
Again, Miami should have better evaluations at this position from players in the region. If you think Miami has been correct and sound in their decision making at evaluating, offering, and accepting commitments from wide receiver over the greater portion of the past 15 years over 4 different staffs...I'll just leave it at saying I strongly disagree.
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Ethnicsands
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You seem incapable of understanding the concept of evaluations. In your view, kids are random probabilities based on their fan site ratings, and coaches are just playing lotto. It’s a crazy view that has nothing to do with the real world of recruiting, except maybe the way Coker did it.
Our staff picked those guys for offers, and they were not the right set of choices. They did not do a good job of evaluating receivers these years. It’s really indisputable.
As for my screen name, I won’t bother explain to you the concept of irony but you can look it up. Since you don’t know where it came from, you’d probably look less dumb if you didn’t try to mock what you don’t understand.
Ethnicsands
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You bring up a great topic. WR is an interesting position that is mis-evaluated clearly, not only at UM but widely. Kids get highly rated based on pure physical traits (measurable) and camp results, but few come from great passing schemes and the biggest variable is toughness and willingness to make plays under duress. The traits they’re rated on are relevant but incomplete. Lance Leggett is one example of that, Elijah Moore another.
This is why it’s so frustrating to see staff after staff here mid-assess WR recruits. Why they do it is another thread, but it’s clear they do.
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Oh good lord. "Misevaluate players"? Again, I pointed out that the academic disasters on your list were NOT EVALUATED at all. So I actually agreed with you on that, but you can't handle it.
As for your insanity on Travis Benjamin, stop being a fvcktard. Benjamin was the #166 rated recruit on 247. That is not Not NOT "low 4-star", that's just your fragile ego lashing out. The "lowest ranked" 4-star was at #363. So, yeah, NOT a "low 4-star". Only a pathetic mope would COMPLAIN about Miami signing 4 WRs in the Top 166 players, and then whine because the "worst" of the 4 is #166. Good lord...
Aldarius - .9821 - #32 overall
Davon - .9659 - #74 overall
Tommy - .9310 - #142 overall
Travis - .9259 - #166 overall
Who in God's name is going to scream about 247 "misevaluating" Travis Benjamin because he was "only" #166 overall?
As for Eli, he was always a 4-star on 247, and he was a 4-star on the 247 composite. Only Rivals was slow to move him from 3-star to 4-star, but I just knew you would single out "the Russian judge" to act like Eli Rogers was "misevaluated".
And, sure, you can quibble about ratings and size and whatnot, but you are ignoring that you also claimed that many of those guys were "position changes". Which, of course, is not true either.
So, again, let's sum up TuTu Atwell.
Position change. Low 3-star. Tiny.
And NONE of the other guys that you mentioned on your lengthy list had all of those three characteristics.
Is it possible...JUST POSSIBLE...for some of you TuTu fanboys to acknowledge that there were MULTIPLE reasons to pass up THE MOST EXPLOSIVE PLAYER IN FLORIDA?
Because, yeah, we all know he developed quite nicely.
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Ethnicsands
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You bring up an interesting observation, considering how badly our WR evals have gone the past 18 years. Maybe we should try to do it differently.Yeah, and before that? Outside of Dale Dawkins in the 1980s, pretty much nobody.
Miami has never been "known" for converting HS QBs into WRs. That has never been Miami's "thing".
Randal Hill was a cornerback at Killian.
Here's a list of Miami's all-time receivers (includes TEs and RBs). Run through the first 100 or 125 names.
Parrish, Sands...Dawkins...and nobody else.
Miami (FL) Hurricanes Receiving Stats | College Football at Sports-Reference.com
Check out the Miami (FL) Hurricanes Receiving Stats and more about College Football at Sports-Reference.com
Meanwhile, the point on projecting kids beyond their Hs position was what why we got on this and it remains the case. Not only at WR but plenty of other positions. Many of our best players were position switches. Coaches have to be able to see past a kid’s HS position to his potential at UM.
BoxingRobes
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@TheOriginalCane
I didn't mention anything about the academic players in my rebuttal. You agreed with me, and I just left it at that.
When I say you are missing the forest for the trees, it's based on you nitpicking ratings and "misremembering" aspects about certain players versus the total argument I made which was that WRs in South Florida are wildly misevaluated...and they are.
We can extend this to Tutu Atwell and Elijah Moore if you'd like in relation to Miami...but I'll just simply ask we agree to disagree and not get into a poo flinging contest like we did the last time on the same topic. I think Miami fvcked up and did a poor job evaluating WRs in 2018 and ended up with a bunch of slop and Mike Harley (who is...fine). You think they were justified by their evaluations. Whatever. Either way, we ended up with some slop and Mike Harley and not two WRs that will go off and play in the NFL that played within 50 miles of campus that accumulated 4700 yards and 37 touchdowns in their career in college.
I didn't mention anything about the academic players in my rebuttal. You agreed with me, and I just left it at that.
When I say you are missing the forest for the trees, it's based on you nitpicking ratings and "misremembering" aspects about certain players versus the total argument I made which was that WRs in South Florida are wildly misevaluated...and they are.
We can extend this to Tutu Atwell and Elijah Moore if you'd like in relation to Miami...but I'll just simply ask we agree to disagree and not get into a poo flinging contest like we did the last time on the same topic. I think Miami fvcked up and did a poor job evaluating WRs in 2018 and ended up with a bunch of slop and Mike Harley (who is...fine). You think they were justified by their evaluations. Whatever. Either way, we ended up with some slop and Mike Harley and not two WRs that will go off and play in the NFL that played within 50 miles of campus that accumulated 4700 yards and 37 touchdowns in their career in college.
UM didn’t wanna take Harley bc of size.
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I never said anything was "justified" in 2018.
I said that Miami did the best that it could and got top talent.
OK, you want to be calm and logical, let's roll with that. In 2018, per Rivals, Miami had the #6 overall ranked recruiting class, with 23 commits (and I know some people will argue that "we had ICs to give", but of course the Rivals commit list does not include transfers). Per 247, we had the #8 overall ranked recruiting class.
Miami signed the highest rated WR in Florida (Mark Pope). The only other FL WR that Rivals had in the Top 100 was Warren Thompson. So 2018 was not a year where Miami missed on the Jerry Jeudys of the world. Of course, 247 had Pope rated a bit lower, but he was still the highest-rated WR in FL.
The #2 Rivals-rated FL WR (Warren Thompson) was actually ranked LOWER than Brian Hightower on 247. And while we can quibble about whether Hightower was a hardcore "Florida" kid, he was the #6 highest rated WR from a FL high school on 247. So, again, judging by the information that everyone had in February 2018, neither Pope nor Hightower would have been "bumped" by THE MOST EXPLOSIVE PLAYER IN FLORIDA, TuTu Atwell. Can we at least agree on that?
And, for the record, both Pope and Hightower committed to Miami while TuTu Atwell was committed to FAU as a QB, and before Atwell flipped to Louisville as a WR.
As an aside, Anthony Schwartz was the #8 rated FL HS WR, behind Hightower and Thompson, and I definitely wanted to sign Schwartz.
Let's skip over Marquez Ezzard for a moment to chat about Dee Wiggins.
Now, unlike TuTu, Dee Wiggins was a Top 500 player, with HS reps and film at the WR position, and a significant height advantage, in addition to being really fast. I realize he was a 3-star, but he was also a verbal commit to UM for over 2 years. As I recall, he committed about a month after Golden was fired, and before Richt was hired. Richt had over 2 years to make a decision to process Wiggins out, and he never did. Now, I'm not saying we should honor a commit solely due to the time and loyalty factors, but it's pretty clear that nobody at UM was uncomfortable with Wiggins being a part of our 2018 class, and certainly we weren't going to push him out for TuTu Atwell.
Finally, let's address Ezzard. 247 lists him as an Athlete, while Rivals has him as a WR. Both services have him as a 4-star. And while Miami offered him in January 2017 (again, while TuTu was still committed to FAU as a QB), things didn't heat up until November 2017 when he decommitted from F$U (and TuTu had already flipped to Louisville). Maybe Richt over-focused on Ezzard to stick it in F$U's face. Who knows. But we have to be honest, we lost Schwartz to Auburn in January 2018, and at that point I think we put the full-court press on Ezzard. But, at no time, was it some sort of "Ezzard vs. Atwell" decision.
Could an argument be made that "hey, with Pope, Hightower, and Wiggins in the barn, Miami could have afforded to take a developmental position-change WR as the #4 in the class"? Sure, I guess. But, again, Ezzard was highly-rated, had played WR, and was taller, so it's not some slam-dunk (in early 2018) that we should have taken Atwell over Ezzard.
Anyhow, I still believe that Anthony Schwartz and Elijah Moore were more egregious recruiting misses than Atwell was.
And I wish them all the best.
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I don't care if we do things differently, I'm fine with it.
But kids have to also be willing to do camps and get video of them performing other skill sets if they want to get full consideration. Not once have I heard anyone say "but TuTu had this amazing film of him playing WR that the Miami coaches refused to watch".
You can't just project a kid to change position simply because he is fast. Dozens of colleges wanted to recruit Lamar Jackson as a WR. How did that turn out?
We now live in a world of college football where kids are hitting the portal after a year. The patience level is not high. The environment for a "Top 25" university (and we may not always be that in the end-of-year rankings, but we are almost always ranked in the Top 25 by recruiting classes) to take a chance and have patience with a kid who is changing positions...is not great...
We've seen a lot of stubborn kids who don't want to change positions. Lamar Jackson (worked out great), Turdbarrel, even this one CB kid that we are chasing, he really wants to play WR. I'm perfectly happy if TuTu Atwell tells the world "I want to switch from QB to WR". But I'd also like to see if the kid takes some time to build his WR skills before college, and I'd certainly like to see some film as well. I don't think it's too much to ask.
And I would really like to challenge ANYONE to tell me what the magical "scouting test" is that our coaches are supposed to use to figure out whether we should be changing a kid's position. Lots of porsters are completely clueless as to HOW LITTLE time any college coach has to physically examine a recruit. What should Miami have done? Gone to all of TuTu's HS games, when he was playing QB? Seriously, I am so happy the kid has turned into an excellent WR, but what was the secret method that Miami would have used to determine that, in the absence of TuTu playing WR or training as a WR or getting film of himself running WR drills?
BoxingRobes
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Your whole post, and I guess overall point is based on the recruiting services and their rankings. I think they grossly misevaluate the wide receiver position (especially in South Florida...I won't speak on the rest of the country, but I'd hypothesize worse) and ultimately make this whole discussion you would like to have pointless. If you're argument is that Miami did well based off of 247's rankings...alright. My argument is that Miami should be better than 247 in their evaluation of local players. We can disagree on Pope, Hightower, and Wiggins...but it doesn't matter...the end result is they all stink and the people that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars at this school should be better at evaluating these players.
I've posted this before...this was MY post in the summer between his junior/senior year
That's exactly what happened to Tutu.
This was me right after his JUNIOR season
I called the man Tommy Shuler (also from South Florida, and an under-recruited midget) and he was a 3500 yard, 25 touchdown player over his four year career at Marshall. Tutu Atwell was a 2300/21 player in 3 years.
Brother...I'm a ******* on a message board, and I basically nailed Tutu's evaluation before his senior season began. Mark Richt was getting paid millions of dollars with an inordinate amount of resources and didn't know he even wanted to play WR and ended up with a bunch of slop that was highly rated by the recruiting services, but ultimately stink. ...and I don't even disagree with your take that Schwartz and Moore may be more egregious misses...they might be, but it doesn't matter...they also misevaluated Tutu Atwell, which is the point. It is their job to know better and they didn't.
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Again, we can debate this thing in circles, but...
If the problem was ONLY "the recruiting services" and their "misevaluations", then you would see the brilliant coaches at Alabama and Clemson and Ohio State uncovering all these 3-star diamonds in the rough, and proving to these "recruiting services" that they don't know ****e. But that ALSO never happens.
Yes, there will always be some incorrect 5-star evals. And incorrect 3-star evals. But the issue is NOT "everyone at the recruiting services are idiots". The REALITY is that there should be a lot more writers/scouts/eyeballs in these heavily populated areas of Florida, Texas, and California. At the end of the day, when you put all the Rivals guys or 247 guys in one room, everyone makes their arguments based on their own observations. Thus, if you have 3 guys who cover SoFla, and 3 guys who cover Arkansas, there number of voices from Arkansas is "equal" to the number of voices advocating for SoFla kids, regardless of the fact that there is MUCH MORE talent in SoFla than Arkansas.
I am not denying that the recruiting services have their limitations. I just don't think it is as binary as you might think. It's not "misevaluation", so much as it is a disproportionate representation "in the room where it happens". Ivins can't possibly get 100 Florida kids on the Top 247, even if it is accurate and warranted.
And college coaches have much larger and much more highly-skilled staffs who can do those evaluations. Thus, if Rivals/247 were WILDLY off in their evaluations, you would quickly see the guys making multi-millions (the head coaches) dispensing with the craptastic Rivals/247 rankings and going with their own rankings. This is why 32 NFL teams have their own draft boards. Everyone has to do their own work. But the fact that there is significant overlap between the Rivals/247 rankings and the signing classes themselves is an indication that Rivals/247 gets it MOSTLY correct.
Finally, look, I'm not going to knock your scouting skills. But you made a comparison to a kid who did "big things" at MARSHALL. So allow me to do my Allen Iverson voice. MARSHALL. My god, you could go out and find a 2 or 3 star kid in Dade, and then predict he is going to do BIG THINGS at Oberlin or Lehigh, and you'd probably be correct. The reality is, you predicted that TuTu would excel at FAU, which is not exactly an earth-shattering prediction (even when it comes true). The kid was one of the 750 best players in the Class of 2018. Had he gone to FAU, he would have been one of the best players on the field for both teams in nearly every game. Now, I have no idea if you would have predicted the same greatness for TuTu at LOUISVILLE, but I would point out that you predicted "special teams" as an FAU freshman. Meanwhile, TuTu did very well at Louisville as a WR as a freshman, so he EXCEEDED your predictions. And then he had an amazing sophomore season that I don't think ANYONE would have predicted.
Again, I ask a very simple question. I'm not talking about a "******* on a message board" predicting big things for a 305 kid going to play in the 561. I'm asking WHAT ASSESSMENT do you think that a coach coulda/woulda/shoulda made, on which he would stake his own six-figure salary, that would justify him taking a low 3-star, position-changing kid standing 5'8" and weighing 150 pounds (notwithstanding your bold predictions on TuTu hitting the weight room)? And not just the MIAMI coaches, but ALL of the coaches (except for Louisville). This is not a knock against you, but I have seen NOBODY (particularly smack-talking Coach Macho) acknowledge that these college coaches have very little in-person evaluation time. Not to mention the no-patience/win-now world isn't exactly set up to wait around for a kid to change positions in college for the very first time.
That's all. I've never told people "you are insane to have been a TuTu Atwell fan when he was in high school". I've only said that it is nuts to put all of the blame in the world on "Miami coaches" who had very little EVIDENCE to project Atwell's position change, while also having plenty of higher-rated, more-experienced, and larger WR candidates on the board.
This is the real world. If you're going to take a chance on TuTu Atwell at Miami in 2018, someone else in our recruiting class has to go. And it's easy to identify those kids 2 years later. It's a lot harder to do on Signing Day.
Truth.
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