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Sonny Odogwu is a Cane!

jhtheking said:
LA'Cane818 said:
canesman said:
Kehoe project. This is why he lost his job the first time. When is he gonna get it?
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Negged.

He lost his job the first time because clappy needed a scape goat. And btw, Mt. McKinney and Micheal Oher were both Kehoe projects.
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Wasn't Oher a big time prospect and wasn't he already at Ole Miss by the time Kehoe got there?

/Not saying Kehoe doesn't know what he's doing
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Michael Oher was a top 50 prospect in the country, he wasn't anybodies project.
 
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CanEs4life04 said:
jhtheking said:
LA'Cane818 said:
canesman said:
Kehoe project. This is why he lost his job the first time. When is he gonna get it?
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Negged.

He lost his job the first time because clappy needed a scape goat. And btw, Mt. McKinney and Micheal Oher were both Kehoe projects.
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Wasn't Oher a big time prospect and wasn't he already at Ole Miss by the time Kehoe got there?

/Not saying Kehoe doesn't know what he's doing
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Michael Oher was a top 50 prospect in the country, he wasn't anybodies project.
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Kehoe also wasnt awful on the recruiting trail when he got fired.
 
I don't think there is any way that any kid they accept as a commitment is any specific coach's recruit except Golden's. He manages every part of the team and evaluates the kids personally. He might take a position coach's opinion, but I don't see him taking kids on blind faith from one of the coaches. Kehoe got lazy, didn't recruit well, so he ended up just taking who he could get. He also didn't have Golden coming in behind him to seal the deal on kids to commit.
 
Taking Sunny right out of HS would have been a risk. Taking the Sunny one year later is a no brainer. Coaches have more data to rest their evaluations on.

When a kid with his measurables, raw athleticism, and attitude makes the strides he did in one year you take notice. Great addition to this class.
 
Ethnicsands said:
The Franchise said:
Ethnicsands said:
BrazilCane said:
Ethnicsands said:
And you, have you spoken to him and looked him in the eye and spoken to his coaches at length? Or do those things only matter if someone expresses concern, and not when they grab the pom poms?
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I believe coach Golden did all this to accept this young man commitment. Just saying...
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Thats fine. But welcome to 2003--2010 if we're just going to have folks jerking themselves off over recruits then hiding behind the infallible HC when someone asks why or expresses any concerns.

I have a lot of confidence generally in AG, but his eval skills aren't yet proven to be butch/jj level, and at OL, they're quite unproven, IMO. And kehoe, i aint relying on for recruiting evals. So color me skeptical. It's a small class, and spots are limited. Hopefully, he's the next mckinney.
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What are your reasons for skepticism when it comes to Sunny? If you spell them out, then we can discuss them.
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I'm torn between trying to answer seriously and having another bourbon.

Somewhat my instinct on how kids get recruited and what inferences to draw. I've been following recruiting for 15+ years. I've had a pretty good record of reading the tea leaves on it, and have been out front of it pro and con on many kids over that period on various UM sites.

The smart big mandingo story always sounds appealing. He hunts lions with a spear! Rarely pans out in my experience. I've seen the Canadian version of this (he shovels snow all year round), the Caribbean version, etc.

This kid seems like a credible prospect. And i've been on record on this site saying i think we need more OL recruits, so i'm not upset about it, but i think kirkland is a better prospect and i am concerned that we have limited space and hopefully some real program difference makers potentially in the mix (coley, collins, thomas, robinson, bryant, aqm, etc.). Meanwhile, the kid is not hotly recruited -- his offer list is not that of a top prospect. That concerns me, especially for someone who can speak four languages, plays OL, comes from a top PG program, and isnt wed to one school or area. Someone mentioned flowers above, but his talent was obvious and a lot of top programs wanted him.

I have not had the time to look at tape this year i've had in the past. I will say the two best kids from HS clips i've seen were franklin and flowers and i said that before they ever set foot on campus. This kid falls into the 'hope they know what to look for' category for me. And i might be skeptical in part because i do not trust kehoe at all on OL recruit evaluations, and don't have any real data yet on golden's quality control at that spot.

Anyhow, the bar is much higher when spots are limited. I'm asking who loses a spot to this kid.
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As to who loses a spot to this kid, it depends on how rigid the staff is about OL numbers. The answer may simply be someone we have never heard of who would have been plan B for the OL had we whiffed on Sunny. On the other hand, if we are not rigid about OL, it is still impossible to say because all our thoughts about future commits involve huge amounts of speculation.

The number of kids in the final class may not be rigid either, so it may just be a case of one more or one less.
 
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AUcane said:
Not to turn this into a Kehoe thread, but if he coached here for 20+ years and all someone in this thread can muster is a handful of names, then....well, you see my point (and yes, I know there are more).
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Ok, then lets compare to say...Alabama, who most people would say have a **** good OL year in and year out. A. Caldwell(HOU), J. Carpenter (SEA), M. Johnson (ATL), E. Mathis (CIN), A. Mc Cullough (PHI), and W. Vlachos (TEN). A whopping 6 dudes. Ceasefire on Kehoe!
 
canecountry3 said:
Let's talk about this guy in 2014 and 2015.

Nobody will be talking about him (except the idiots speculating about his transfer or him being cut because he isn't starting as a freshman from day one) in 2013.

Arguing about him is pointless. Young man is a Cane - ride or die.
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+1. O-line is a crap shoot. It will be years before we can tell if this is a good pick up.
 
You can't teach his measurables, like the pick-up. We also have enough depth on the OL to allow this kid time to develop. As far as room goes could signal some dead weight on the roster is moving on.
 
I love how easily and naturally he has added weight:


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A big part of your typical project is body recomposition ("once he adds 30-40 pounds..." "once he loses the baby fat...") This kid is already in a good place physically.

As for the "Kehoe Project" stuff, I think it's overplayed. The four and five-star OL recruits of that era gave us even more problems than the projects, and the conditioning issues from the "Coker Country Club" colored everything. Let's go through the key years:

2001: Robert Bergman (highly-recruited four star, lacked talent, washout), Rashad Butler (Kehoe offered him early at Down and Dirty camp, developed into NFL player), Tony Tella (complete sleeper, developed into average starter, played in NFL camps)

2002: Eric Winston (blue-chip tight end, developed into star NFL right tackle), Alex Pou (highly recruited four-star, never developed), Anthony Wollschlager (three-star, eventually became a below-average starter),

2003: Andrew Bain (blue-chip guard recruit, extreme conditioning problems, UFA), John Rochford (mid-level recruit, lacked size and strength, below-average starter), Cyrim Wimbs (well-regarded recruit, horrible conditioning led to washout career), Derrick Morse (sought-after recruit who also struggled with his weight, average player)

2004: Tyler McMeans (five-star JUCO recruit, overweight and undertalented, below-average starter), Tyrone Byrd (mid-level prospect with solid offers, never became more than a JAG) Chris Rutledge (late-bloomer project, struggled with strength ), Jonathan St. Pierre (project from Canada, bust)

2005- Reggie Youngblood (number one OL in country, never developed into more than a JAG), AJ Trump (four-star recruit, became average starting C), Matt Pipho (undersized tackle, never developed requisite strength), Chris Barney (four-star Dade kid, struggled with weight, transferred)

While the "Kehoe Projects" never got off the ground, the blue-chip prospects were just as bad. Most of them suffered from the conditioning/mentality problems that were systemic within the program. Kehoe coached arguably the greatest offensive line of all-time in 2001, which was laden with "projects" and longshots. And while there are strong mixed opinions on him as an OL coach, he has put as many guys in the NFL as anyone. That number will be going up in the years to come.

Bottom line, when you see guys like Seantrel and the rest of the monster OL in such fantastic shape, and you see the program's overall commitment to developing guys like Jeremy Lewis and Ben Jones, it makes me feel much better about taking a body and mind like Sunny Odogwu.
 
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The determining factor we all have to recognize is that Sunny is 6'8" 311lbs of good weight, with a basketball players athleticism and long arms.
Are there any other physical attributes you'd like in an offensive tackle?
Talent and attitude? If he didn't have talent and a good/great attitude Golden would never have offered him.
Don't forget Golden doesn't just carpet bomb the country with scholarship offers. Golden is probably the most selective Head Coach from a major college football program in regards to scholarship offering in the country.
Compare Sunny to Seantrel physically and do you see much of a difference? Sunny actually has better physical attributes then Seantrel did at the same age.
So it all comes down to talent and attitude. The talent level is up in the air because none of us non insiders know. The coach's know this kid's ceiling which is why they offered him. I'm guessing his ceiling is through the roof and is only a matter of Sunny working his tail off to develop, and everything I've read about him points to the fact that Sunny has a great attitude.
So the only thing Sunny seems to be missing in blog posters minds is stars next to his name.

On a side note it seems that every time I have turned on a pro football game the past decade or so there is always a Sunny Odagwu type of player not only playing but starring be it Priest Holmes, Arian Foster, Colin Kapaernick etc.,
Just goes to show that from high school on to the pro's that so called experts get it wrong all the time. Just ask a Dallas Cowboys' fan how much he thinks of Jerry Jone's talent judgement.
 
I love any kid who believes in the potential of this program, especially one who can do the "popular thing" and go SEC, its on the coaches to develop this kid, so I expect nothing but success given the proper coaching and development
 
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rudebuddha said:
The determining factor we all have to recognize is that Sunny is 6'8" 311lbs of good weight, with a basketball players athleticism and long arms.
Are there any other physical attributes you'd like in an offensive tackle?
Talent and attitude? If he didn't have talent and a good/great attitude Golden would never have offered him.
Don't forget Golden doesn't just carpet bomb the country with scholarship offers. Golden is probably the most selective Head Coach from a major college football program in regards to scholarship offering in the country.
Compare Sunny to Seantrel physically and do you see much of a difference? Sunny actually has better physical attributes then Seantrel did at the same age.
So it all comes down to talent and attitude. The talent level is up in the air because none of us non insiders know. The coach's know this kid's ceiling which is why they offered him. I'm guessing his ceiling is through the roof and is only a matter of Sunny working his tail off to develop, and everything I've read about him points to the fact that Sunny has a great attitude.
So the only thing Sunny seems to be missing in blog posters minds is stars next to his name.

On a side note it seems that every time I have turned on a pro football game the past decade or so there is always a Sunny Odagwu type of player not only playing but starring be it Priest Holmes, Arian Foster, Colin Kapaernick etc.,
Just goes to show that from high school on to the pro's that so called experts get it wrong all the time. Just ask a Dallas Cowboys' fan how much he thinks of Jerry Jone's talent judgement.
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Excellent post. Most of the OL and DL in the NFL are 3 stars. Fact.

It's a tough position to project from HS to college because a lot of the big kids just push smaller kids around in HS without much effort or technique. You need to find good athletes with the right attitude. The hard part is the attitude evaluation. Seems like Sunny has that in boatloads along with a great frame and good athletic ability.

Freckles Davis used to put a premium on finding big kids who played basketball in HS. Sunny fits that bill too.

I don't see the downside here at all. If you're concerned about his offer list take solace in Sumlin offering him. Sumlin is a pretty smart dude and an offensive wizard.
 
So tired of the former assistants getting blamed for Coker's incompetence. So many assistants left here and were highly successful and sought after. Kehoe, Todd Berry, Chud, CJ, Werner, etc all were and still are very good coaches. Larry Coker ran the organization poorly, plain and simple. Take a guy like Reggie Youngblood and put him in a program ran by Butch Davis with Kehoe coaching him. I bet he turns out at the very least, a very solid, valued player in the program. Take a look back at that rivals recruiting class that was the highest we ever had. No way all of those guys turn out to do so poorly under a real head coach.
 
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DMoney said:
While the "Kehoe Projects" never got off the ground, the blue-chip prospects were just as bad. Most of them suffered from the conditioning/mentality problems that were systemic within the program. Kehoe coached arguably the greatest offensive line of all-time in 2001, which was laden with "projects" and longshots.
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Not exactly reassuring words there. To me as it stands right now, that '01 OL is looking more like the outlier of Kehoe's tenure(s) at UM. Something close to simply a dumb luck assemblance of talent. I really hope it can all be traced back to conditioning and motivation as opposed to Kehoe's eye for OL talent.
 
All I know is this kid is one of those who sticks out in the crowd when you see him you are like **** who is this kid.... also the staff loves his attitude and his athleticism on his OV he showed off his B Ball skills to them and for a man of his size lets just say they were impressed.


would not be surprised at all if this kid becomes a good one hard worker, will stay out of trouble and will work his *** off to get somewhere so he can have the money to probably either go visit his mom in Africa or have her move to America with him.
 
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