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StevoBevo said:
Not saying it is or isn’t Horton but IF it is I will say I’d be a bit underwhelmed with our last 2 pulls..

A top 900 LB/Str from GA
A top 800 DT from GA

Both as very low 3 stars, hopefully this is Zo/Mario diving deep into film and finding the diamonds from the rough but from an outside/national view these are not big time gets.
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Horton is a steal. Pulliam is a stretch tho
 
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Mklein13 said:
Here we go slapdicks bashing the guy when he hasn’t even stepped foot on campus. Some of you need a swift kick to the ***.
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I would go a step farther and say that it's slapdicks bashing the guy when they haven't watched him in games, or in person, or interviewed the kid. But, yeah, they SURE CAN read a composite ranking, boyeee...

Tall, fast, ran track, frame to grow. In addition to whatever film study the coaches have done to assess his fluidity, instincts, and ability to tackle, it's the recipe that Miami has used to find linebackers under our best former head coaches and DCs.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I would go a step farther and say that it's slapdicks bashing the guy when they haven't watched him in games, or in person, or interviewed the kid. But, yeah, they SURE CAN read a composite ranking, boyeee...

Tall, fast, ran track, frame to grow. In addition to whatever film study the coaches have done to assess his fluidity, instincts, and ability to tackle, it's the recipe that Miami has used to find linebackers under our best former head coaches and DCs.
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Really have to believe that Alonzo is looking at this kid, his frame, athleticism playing style, and projecting that this is a kid that can grow and be developed as a potential NFL player. The old "diamond in the rough" evaluation.
 
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Rickd said:
Really have to believe that Alonzo is looking at this kid, his frame, athleticism playing style, and projecting that this is a kid that can grow and be developed as a potential NFL player. The old "diamond in the rough" evaluation.
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Yeah, let me add something else here.

We tend to use the term "diamond in the rough" to cover anyone who is not highly rated by the services. But there are really two different kinds of things that are going on here. FIRST, there is a situation where a kid is a true "diamond in the rough", where he has the attributes to be a great player, but is relatively inexperienced. But SECOND, there are also situations where a kid can be "underhyped" or "undiscovered", in that he might already be a very good player, but has not yet been noticed by the right people. I think that both Horton and Pulliam are a mixture of both, but I lean towards underhyped/undiscovered for both.

In another thread, @KANE talked about Pulliam moving down to Atlanta from Detroit and living with his sister. We've seen this storyline before. Rivals/247 don't know everyone and everything.

Something to think about. I moved up to Atlanta about 6 months ago. I've been telling people we should recruit Georgia harder FOR YEARS. Why? Georgia (generally) and Atlanta (specifically) are BOOMING in population. Competition-wise, you only have UGa and GaTech as legit "hometown" contenders for the best talent.

Furthermore...I live about 5 miles directly north of Horton's high school (Langston Hughes, about 2600 students). I live about 12 miles directly north of Pulliam's high school (Sandy Creek, about 1200 students). Not only are both of these schools small-ish by SoFla/Central Fla standards, but they also do not have the history and weight of the best Atlanta-area football programs. Langston Hughes is newer (less than 15 years old) and Sandy Creek has recently grown to its massive 1200 student size. I never hear about these schools on the TV news or in the newspaper, and if Horton/Pulliam don't hit many camps, it is easy to see how they could be overlooked by recruiting services, particularly with linemen.

I know a lot of Mope Squad porsters will try to reverse-engineer my logic, but don't try it. I am NOT saying these kids are good BECAUSE Miami spotted them. I am not projecting that every 3-star that Miami finds will be drafted. But what I AM saying is that these types of situations exist, where talented kids with P5 football prototype body types find that their families have to move them down the booming I-85 corridor, farther from Atlanta on the way to Auburn. And in the meantime, they might not get the same hype and attention as if they went to some of the historically "best" football programs in Georgia. You also see some of this with newer "growth" areas of Florida around Jax/Orlando/Tampa, and also as West Palm effectively pushes further north.

In the end, all I'm saying is that I trust our coaches to do the analysis. I realize that our coaches may or may not like some of the kids on the roster prior to 11 months ago, but I believe they have a better feel for the guys who have enrolled at Miami in 2022. So, with their jobs/resumes on the line, I'm going to give our coaches the benefit of the doubt to recruit a few players who may not be in the Top 500 of the recruiting class. But, yes, I'd like to understand a bit more about how those kids got overlooked, because it might give us a sense of how we can avoid the curse of signing "top talent" that never seems to develop as expected at Miami.

That is all.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Yeah, let me add something else here.

We tend to use the term "diamond in the rough" to cover anyone who is not highly rated by the services. But there are really two different kinds of things that are going on here. FIRST, there is a situation where a kid is a true "diamond in the rough", where he has the attributes to be a great player, but is relatively inexperienced. But SECOND, there are also situations where a kid can be "underhyped" or "undiscovered", in that he might already be a very good player, but has not yet been noticed by the right people. I think that both Horton and Pulliam are a mixture of both, but I lean towards underhyped/undiscovered for both.

In another thread, @KANE talked about Pulliam moving down to Atlanta from Detroit and living with his sister. We've seen this storyline before. Rivals/247 don't know everyone and everything.

Something to think about. I moved up to Atlanta about 6 months ago. I've been telling people we should recruit Georgia harder FOR YEARS. Why? Georgia (generally) and Atlanta (specifically) are BOOMING in population. Competition-wise, you only have UGa and GaTech as legit "hometown" contenders for the best talent.

Furthermore...I live about 5 miles directly north of Horton's high school (Langston Hughes, about 2600 students). I live about 12 miles directly north of Pulliam's high school (Sandy Creek, about 1200 students). Not only are both of these schools small-ish by SoFla/Central Fla standards, but they also do not have the history and weight of the best Atlanta-area football programs. Langston Hughes is newer (less than 15 years old) and Sandy Creek has recently grown to its massive 1200 student size. I never hear about these schools on the news or in the newspaper, and if Horton/Pulliam don't hit many camps, it is easy to see how they could be overlooked by recruiting services, particularly with linemen.

I know a lot of Mope Squad porsters will try to reverse-engineer my logic, but don't try it. I am NOT saying these kids are good BECAUSE Miami spotted them. I am not projecting that every 3-star that Miami finds will be drafted. But what I AM saying is that these types of situations exist, where talented kids with P5 football prototype body types find that their families have to move them down the booming I-85 corridor, farther from Atlanta on the way to Auburn. And in the meantime, they might not get the same hype and attention as if they went to some of the historically "best" football programs in Georgia. You also see some of this with newer "growth" areas of Florida around Jax/Orlando/Tampa, and also as West Palm effectively pushes further north.

In the end, all I'm saying is that I trust our coaches to do the analysis. I realize that our coaches may or may not like some of the kids on the roster prior to 11 months ago, but I believe they have a better feel for the guys who have enrolled at Miami in 2022. So, with their jobs/resumes on the line, I'm going to give our coaches the benefit of the doubt to recruit a few players who may not be in the Top 500 of the recruiting class. But, yes, I'd like to understand a bit more about how those kids got overlooked, because it might give us a sense of how we can avoid the curse of signing "top talent" that never seems to develop as expected at Miami.

That is all.
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Outside of UGA and GT, Auburn and Clemson have strong footholds in GA. I agree It would be huge to start pulling recruits from the metro Atlanta area though and especially Gwinnett. You’d think UGA would lock that area down, but they don’t. A lot of high end talent that’s well coached in that area.
 
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USAFCane88 said:
Outside of UGA and GT, Auburn and Clemson have strong footholds in GA. I agree It would be huge to start pulling recruits from the metro Atlanta area though and especially Gwinnett. You’d think UGA would lock that area down, but they don’t. A lot of high end talent that’s well coached in that area.
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Man, you hit the nail on the head with that last sentence.

My longtime friend who connected me with the ATL job has lived up here for a couple of decades, he lives on the north side of ATL and his son played (lower) Division I-A football (D-line).

First, there's a ton of high-end talent that is CONCENTRATED around Atlanta, particularly kids of former professional athletes. I am NOT saying that Florida doesn't have that talent too, it's just spread around to more cities, not just one big one.

Second, the "well-coached" part is incredibly important. We've talked about this for years, how CA and TX had the advantage of "coaching" over Florida, but you can also listen to Uncle Luke tell honest stories about the pay and resources accorded to FL HS coaches (and I realize a bunch of folks don't like Uncle Luke, but he's right about what he's talking about at the HS level). Georgia now has a lot of good coaching to offer that is giving a lot of kids the edge over Florida kids, even if Florida still has the edge on "competition-level". As I just pointed out, two GA kids just chose Miami who are coming from what WOULD be considered "small high schools" if they were Florida CITY kids (Miami, FtL, WPB, Orlando, Tampa, Jax).

And I agree, Auburn/Clemson come into the ATL area, though they are still "out-of-state schools" to many. Those schools (plus Bama, LSU, UGa, and many others) come down to Florida too. I was just pointing out the "affinity" for a school/logo that kids may develop as they grow up, like when they go out around town and see UGa stuff everywhere. When Florida kids go out to the stores, they see UF/F$U/UM/UCF/USF, depending on what part of the state they are in. Right now, I see a TOOOOOOON of UGa stuff and I barely ever see GaTech, and I certainly don't see Auburn/Clemson either.

Just being honest, I went to McDonald's on Friday (it's literally the closest thing to my office and I had about 15 minutes before a Zoom call with one of the corporate officers), and I got free fries and a Coke due to an UGa promo on my McD's app. UGa is EVERYWHERE up here...
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Man, you hit the nail on the head with that last sentence.

My longtime friend who connected me with the ATL job has lived up here for a couple of decades, he lives on the north side of ATL and his son played (lower) Division I-A football (D-line).

First, there's a ton of high-end talent that is CONCENTRATED around Atlanta, particularly kids of former professional athletes. I am NOT saying that Florida doesn't have that talent too, it's just spread around to more cities, not just one big one.

Second, the "well-coached" part is incredibly important. We've talked about this for years, how CA and TX had the advantage of "coaching" over Florida, but you can also listen to Uncle Luke tell honest stories about the pay and resources accorded to FL HS coaches (and I realize a bunch of folks don't like Uncle Luke, but he's right about what he's talking about at the HS level). Georgia now has a lot of good coaching to offer that is giving a lot of kids the edge over Florida kids, even if Florida still has the edge on "competition-level". As I just pointed out, two GA kids just chose Miami who are coming from what WOULD be considered "small high schools" if they were Florida CITY kids (Miami, FtL, WPB, Orlando, Tampa, Jax).

And I agree, Auburn/Clemson come into the ATL area, though they are still "out-of-state schools" to many. Those schools (plus Bama, LSU, UGa, and many others) come down to Florida too. I was just pointing out the "affinity" for a school/logo that kids may develop as they grow up, like when they go out around town and see UGa stuff everywhere. When Florida kids go out to the stores, they see UF/F$U/UM/UCF/USF, depending on what part of the state they are in. Right now, I see a TOOOOOOON of UGa stuff and I barely ever see GaTech, and I certainly don't see Auburn/Clemson either.

Just being honest, I went to McDonald's on Friday (it's literally the closest thing to my office and I had about 15 minutes before a Zoom call with one of the corporate officers), and I got free fries and a Coke due to an UGa promo on my McD's app. UGa is EVERYWHERE up here...
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I hear you, I lived in the metro Atlanta area for about 15 years and had to deal with annoying UGA fans. Obviously these days their ****iness is actually justified, which I’m sure makes it even worse.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
Yeah, let me add something else here.

We tend to use the term "diamond in the rough" to cover anyone who is not highly rated by the services. But there are really two different kinds of things that are going on here. FIRST, there is a situation where a kid is a true "diamond in the rough", where he has the attributes to be a great player, but is relatively inexperienced. But SECOND, there are also situations where a kid can be "underhyped" or "undiscovered", in that he might already be a very good player, but has not yet been noticed by the right people. I think that both Horton and Pulliam are a mixture of both, but I lean towards underhyped/undiscovered for both.

In another thread, @KANE talked about Pulliam moving down to Atlanta from Detroit and living with his sister. We've seen this storyline before. Rivals/247 don't know everyone and everything.

Something to think about. I moved up to Atlanta about 6 months ago. I've been telling people we should recruit Georgia harder FOR YEARS. Why? Georgia (generally) and Atlanta (specifically) are BOOMING in population. Competition-wise, you only have UGa and GaTech as legit "hometown" contenders for the best talent.

Furthermore...I live about 5 miles directly north of Horton's high school (Langston Hughes, about 2600 students). I live about 12 miles directly north of Pulliam's high school (Sandy Creek, about 1200 students). Not only are both of these schools small-ish by SoFla/Central Fla standards, but they also do not have the history and weight of the best Atlanta-area football programs. Langston Hughes is newer (less than 15 years old) and Sandy Creek has recently grown to its massive 1200 student size. I never hear about these schools on the TV news or in the newspaper, and if Horton/Pulliam don't hit many camps, it is easy to see how they could be overlooked by recruiting services, particularly with linemen.

I know a lot of Mope Squad porsters will try to reverse-engineer my logic, but don't try it. I am NOT saying these kids are good BECAUSE Miami spotted them. I am not projecting that every 3-star that Miami finds will be drafted. But what I AM saying is that these types of situations exist, where talented kids with P5 football prototype body types find that their families have to move them down the booming I-85 corridor, farther from Atlanta on the way to Auburn. And in the meantime, they might not get the same hype and attention as if they went to some of the historically "best" football programs in Georgia. You also see some of this with newer "growth" areas of Florida around Jax/Orlando/Tampa, and also as West Palm effectively pushes further north.

In the end, all I'm saying is that I trust our coaches to do the analysis. I realize that our coaches may or may not like some of the kids on the roster prior to 11 months ago, but I believe they have a better feel for the guys who have enrolled at Miami in 2022. So, with their jobs/resumes on the line, I'm going to give our coaches the benefit of the doubt to recruit a few players who may not be in the Top 500 of the recruiting class. But, yes, I'd like to understand a bit more about how those kids got overlooked, because it might give us a sense of how we can avoid the curse of signing "top talent" that never seems to develop as expected at Miami.

That is all.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself. Even in 2022, some kids through can STILL end up slipping through the cracks.
 
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