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Stop recruiting small towns

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Cortez55403 said:
Why would you skip California? Good cultural fit that meets DMoney’s criteria.

Our history in Cali?

Gino at QB
Dorsey at QB
‘Kaaya at QB?
Kyle Wright at QB? Ok, a miss.

DJ Williams at LB
KWinslow at TE

Not too shabby!
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1) Not usually a good cultural fit. Don't buy that even slightly.
2) I like all those guys, but they are few. I'm always ok with honing in on one gem, no matter where, if it looks promising.
3) California is really expensive in time, money, and effort. We have limited recruiting resources. I am prioritizing.
 
DMoney said:
The Christian Williams transfer highlights a couple things. First, Rumph needs to do a better job recruiting corners. There are plenty of threads on this topic. The other is a broader reality about Miami recruiting: we need to stop wasting time with small-town players.

Obviously, there is a ton of talent in small towns. Look at the SEC and the Big 10. But for Miami, they are hard to get, hard to keep, and we usually can't sign the good ones. They get homesick and there is a culture gap. Williams is the latest example.

Since the 2010 Draft, we've had 51 kids drafted that signed with Miami out of high school. Thirty-five (69%) were from South Florida. Here are the rest:

Shaquille Quarterman- Jacksonville
Deejay Dallas- Brunswick
Michael Jackson- Birmingham
Chris Herndon- Atlanta
Braxton Berrios- Raleigh, NC
David Njoku- Essex County, NJ
Rayshawn Jenkins- St. Petersburg
Corn Elder- Nashville
Al-Quadin Muhammad- Bergen County (NYC suburb)
Brad Kaaya- Los Angeles
Anthony Chickillo- Tampa
Seantrel Henderson- St. Paul, Minnesota
Mike James- Davenport, Florida
Allen Bailey- Darien, Georgia
Colin McCarthy- Clearwater
Jason Fox- Fort Worth, Texas
Dedrick Epps- Richmond Virginia

So that's a total of two country kids (James and Bailey) out of 51 total and 17 non-local NFL players. It's just not a high rate of return. Let's focus on cities 100K population or more.
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There is the problem, Rumphelito doesn't recruit!!! It has been confirmed...it's Banda & DVD in support. Rumph is hands off...doesn't even have an assigned recruiting region unlike every other position coach
 
DMoney said:
Of course, evaluations are always part of the equation. But the problem with small-town kids isn't their ability. It's our ability to sign them and retain them in the 21st century.
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Again, given the number of problems we have to fix in recruiting, I’m generally okay with the idea of your filter on background. You’ve pointed this out for a long time. But to me, it’s a crutch of a rule for a staff that doesn’t know how to evaluate. Give me a Jimmy or Butch (great evaluator) and I’ll be okay with whoever they sign. I don’t trust our staffs’ evals so appreciate the discussion around factors that cause concern.

Also - I do not think it has to do with the current era. It’s evals. And likewise, ability to retain isn’t the issue to me so much as ability to assess. Some kids have it, others don’t.
 
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Liberty City El said:
Point being, everybody figures out CB recruiting except us.
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And we’re literally in the home for Corners, WRs and RB. Should never have a problem there.

Blaming this on big city kids versus small town kids is simplifying this far too much. Correlation isn’t enough to conclude causation here. But I 100 percent agree that we shouldn’t struggle so much specifically at CB.
 
Cortez55403 said:
Why would you skip California? Good cultural fit that meets DMoney’s criteria.

Our history in Cali?

Gino at QB
Dorsey at QB
‘Kaaya at QB?
Kyle Wright at QB? Ok, a miss.

DJ Williams at LB
KWinslow at TE

Not too shabby!
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cali kids have a rep

Kobe Bryant GIF
 
LuCane said:
Why can't we just profile the player and decipher whether the small town kid has 'big city' aspirations or the types of behaviors that match up well with our culture? Does that require resources we don't have? If we are not profiling kids we recruit, we have a far deeper issue.

If we're "hunting" for recruits the way digital marketers aim at demographics - height, weight, speed, big city, shops at X, etc. - we're opening ourselves up to some unnecessary assumptions. I understand why that has to be done for scalable businesses, but it doesn't seem to apply to a restricted list of 25 players (approximately) we, a football program, aim to get per year.

I'm not suggesting you're advocating for us to be lazy. I'm suggesting I don't think we need to exclude players based on their hometown when we can just do a better job at analyzing the player's potential fit. ****, some of that can be done over zoom with a limited set of questions. Creating a good player profile and recruiting that profile well is the coach's job. ****, go ask for help from the behavioral psychology department at the University.

To add, the problem seems to be more the restrictions on player height/weight, etc., than on where the player grew up. We have a weird *** approach to recruiting DBs. Which is really strange considering our DB coach played in the NFL with guys of all heights and varying speed.
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This is my view and what i’ve been saying. only difference is i think we have no clue on the profiling you mention. like i’d be surprised if we were even close to the mark on this from a capabilities perspective. given that, i’m okay with D$’s suggestion until we figure out a better recruiting approach. Training wheels shouldn’t be necessary, but for kids they are. That’s us, as far as recruiting goes.
 
CFLCane said:
Recruiting is now a full time job for every recruit and active player. Blame it on small towns all you want but a better CB coach would've had a replacement on the depth chart or convinced the kid to stay. The OOS reaches aren't the root of the problem.

Current Miami football culture is old men dusting off their memorabilia and us constantly trying make ex players from that era coaches.....It's not working.
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Nope. Your just talking about the fans venting. That's not culture.

I don't know what the culture is anymore. What's being passed off as the New Miami seems to be more of a façade than anything of substance.

The one thing I'm certain that's not working is how we go about building and maintaining the program. It used to be about evaluations and development. Who's doing the evaluating now? Who's doing the development? We never won the recruiting battles. Even in the 70s the best always went to Oklahoma, OSU, ND Bama, etc. We even had a head coach (an Alumni no less) on his way out the door say "You can't recruit at Miami".

But the admin wanted to bell the cat, because it got too out of control for them so we have what we have. To succeed we have to get back to our roots with a strong head coach to keep it under control.
 
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Liberty City El said:
We need to stop being so **** picky at CB, we have some extremely weird prerequisites for CB's...

We always act like we're just too good to offer so many kids, but then our CB recruiting has been subpar for 5 years now & kids we don't offer end up going elsewhere & excelling.

Whether it's local or OOS Corners, we recruit CB's like we're Art collectors, no ones ever good enough & the kids we want & waste all our time chasing after have no interest in us. Beggars can't be choosers & we choose as if we're not beggars despite the fact we clearly are & everybody can see it except us. The whole thing is backwards.

Tiawan Mullen was a TF All-American at Indiana & was more productive than any CB we've had since Artie Burns but yet he wasn't good enough for Miami???

- In the 2020 class, we never offered Dontae Mannig from Kansas City (he signed with Oregon), we let Ronald Delancy go to Nebraska, we never offered DJ Warnell from TX (he signed with UCLA).
- In the 2019 class, we lost Kaiir Elam & Ty Stevenson to the UF & UGA, we didn't want Jaden Davis, we lost John Dixon to South Carolina, we let Jarvis Brownlee get flipped.
- In the 2018 class, we miss evaluated Asante Jr & let him go to FSU, **** even Chandler Jones a Miami Central kid had 50tcks & 10PBU's for Louisville last year as a Sophomore.

I mean even Tulsa & La Tech has had more productive & successful CB's than us recently with guys like Reggie Robinson & Amik Robertson who both got drafted in the 4th round.

Shemar Jean Charles was a 2-star Miramar kid who's now killing it at App St, had 45tcks & 9PBU's last year & just last week had 7tcks & 4PBU's in his last game & was named Defensive MVP of the week by PFF.



Oregon somehow figured out how to develop CB's...





Derek Stingley & Cordale Flott were both TF's last year & Flott was a 3-star coming out of HS.

Ahmad Gardner was another low rated 3-star with an 83 rating coming out of HS & he's one of the best CB's in the nation.

Point being, everybody figures out CB recruiting except us.
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Strong post. It comes down to what the coaches value. Personally, when it comes to DBs, I care about feet first. If you can't change direction and your steps aren't clean (I'm not talking about what you're taught; I'm talking about how you move), the other overvalued attributes we seek aren't even in the picture of defending a ball or filling an alley.
 
Small town doesn’t matter. The evaluation process means more, this kid only visited once and it was on a official. Those kids tend to not pan out.
 
Ethnicsands said:
This is my view and what i’ve been saying. only difference is i think we have no clue on the profiling you mention. like i’d be surprised if we were even close to the mark on this from a capabilities perspective. given that, i’m okay with D$’s suggestion until we figure out a better recruiting approach. Training wheels shouldn’t be necessary, but for kids they are. That’s us, as far as recruiting goes.
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While I agree we need to take some first steps, I don't get why we're making this out to be surgery. It's a decently-funded University. I bet there are people on campus doing research on targeting/selling/profiling. Go ask them for some guidance?
 
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JeddTheFisch said:
My argument is really for Houston, if I'm being specific. It's also a matter of resources.

The other two areas I'd pound are the Atlanta metro and Hampton Roads.
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Man, with all the *****ing and insecurity about bags, we want to go into Houston? LSU's Texas outpost, Houston?

Nah. But Memphis? Now that is interesting.

I echo the great Al McGuire when he was coach at Marquette, "If I show up to recruit a kid and he's got a grassy front yard, we've got no shot. If that kid has glass and asphalt in front of the door, he's one of ours."
 
LuCane said:
Strong post. It comes down to what the coaches value. Personally, when it comes to DBs, I care about feet first. If you can't change direction and your steps aren't clean (I'm not talking about what you're taught; I'm talking about how you move), the other overvalued attributes we seek aren't even in the picture of defending a ball or filling an alley.
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Feet, eyes & hips, are the foundation to every good/great corner.

Ball skills & speed are important as well, but technique supersedes all.

Size, arm length & overall physical frame matter too, but not as much as natural foot speed & lateral movement. Idc how ideal sized a CB may be, if he's stiff hipped with bad feet he's not gonna make it at CB.

I think our issue is our Defensive staff places the premium on tackling, they talk about tackling all the time with our DB's, they completely disregard their ability to move or cover, they just want DB's that can hit & the funniest thing about is, we only have about 2 starters in the secondary who are textbook tacklers, the rest are a lot of swing & missers including my boy Amari lol.

Idk what our philosophy is with CB, it seriously seems completely random, but ability to cover down the field & football IQ need to pushed to the forefront, because sooner or later these constant misses & bad evals at CB is going to bite us even more than it already has.

Miami is smack dab in the middle of the region the produces the most CB's in the nation in college & the NFL, yet we can't find 3-4 solid corners to save our lives, it's really Bizarro world.
 
LuCane said:
Why can't we just profile the player and decipher whether the small town kid has 'big city' aspirations or the types of behaviors that match up well with our culture? Does that require resources we don't have? If we are not profiling kids we recruit, we have a far deeper issue.Why can't we just profile the player and decipher whether the small town kid has 'big city' aspirations or the types of behaviors that match up well with our culture? Does that require resources we don't have? If we are not profiling kids we recruit, we have a far deeper issue.
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It's just not realistic at the macro level. There are too many kids, there's no organized interview process like a combine, and the personnel departments are limited in what they are allowed to do. You get a better feel for the kids once you start recruiting them, but that's already a streamlined list. And the country kid may show interest and say the right things before burning you at the end of the road.

This is about better ways to focus scarce resources.
 
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rustywalkedaway said:
Man, with all the *****ing and insecurity about bags, we want to go into Houston? LSU's Texas outpost, Houston?

Nah. But Memphis? Now that is interesting.

I echo the great Al McGuire when he was coach at Marquette, "If I show up to recruit a kid and he's got a grassy front yard, we've got no shot. If that kid has glass and asphalt in front of the door, he's one of ours."
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What's your recruiting strategy for Memphis? Hire Terris Harris and give him free reign at Olive Branch High?
 
DMoney said:
It's just not realistic at the macro level. There are too many kids, there's no organized interview process like a combine, and the personnel departments are limited in what they are allowed to do. You get a better feel for the kids once you start recruiting them, but that's already a streamlined list. And the country kid may show interest and say the right things before burning you at the end of the road.

This is about better ways to focus scarce resources.
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You don't find it weird that you and LCE often have more awareness of some of these kids than the staff appears to or at least acts on? I don't know what LCE does for a living, but I know you have a pretty serious real life job.
 
JeddTheFisch said:
What's your recruiting strategy for Memphis? Hire Terris Harris and give him free reign at Olive Branch High?
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Hmm, I had not been asked to develop that plan, but it seems you want to fight about something. So let's do it your way.

What is your detailed plan for established successful Miami recruiting in Houston?
 
LuCane said:
You don't find it weird that you and LEL often have more awareness of some of these kids than the staff appears to or at least acts on? I don't know what LEL does for a living, but I know you have a pretty serious real life job.
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All I can say is that it was worse under our last two defensive staffs.

There have been some head-scratchers (Elam, Samuel, Wilson) but they biggest issue IMO has been getting the fish in the boat.
 
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