Thoughts on the First Class of the Richt Era

[Martycane]

Let's not forget the upgrade in coaches -- two SEC level coordinators, a great SEC d-line coach and finally a needed change at OL. Also throw in a change in the weight room. Scheme and development should improve.

 

[Canesallday09]

Totally agree.. Todd Hartley and Banda showed me something.. especially Banda.. getting a couple guys who weren't considering miami to sign here after a month is impressive.. if Rumph can be good at his job, he and Banda will bring the DBU title back home where it belongs. The future is bright at LB.. we add wilder to next year's class and we will have 7 savages at lb in 2017.. we should win 10 games next year and that will lead to a top 5 class like Michigan did this year.. finally the U is on its way back!!

 

[Notsince1985]

Not trying to be a ****, and Mr. Money knows more than me about these yocal kids, but Wiggins signed with Cincy and Phillips with Toledo. If they were really that good, wouldn't bigger schools have been after them? To have been "dropped" by Miami, and only to land at an AAC and a MAC school, does say something. Did everyone else miss on them? Or were they Al Golden specials? Other than that, spot on, Senor Dinero.

 

[TheMatador]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

I understand what you are saying....but there is a difference between taking tier 2 players and taking the RIGHT tier 2 players. There is a lot of talent down here. We should be able to cherry-pick the best of it and still have room for the top tier guys from all over to come.

I think you are too caught up, like many of our past coaches, on really small differences between players that bc of recruiting services get magnified. I think Butch Davis is the best example, but really Howard and JJ started the trend. They didn't give a **** what stats you put up, what ur highlight tape looked like. If you had a better 40 time. Blah blah. They knew that if you are a good football player down in South Florida, you can play anywhere at the highest level. What matters is if the kid wants to work hard.

There is not much difference between most of these dudes. Yea, if you get a Cam Newton or Andre Johnson type freak that's different, but for most of the P5 level kids from South Florida are very close athletically. I'd rather have a team full of 3 star SoFla kids who hate losing, desperately want to beat people up, and love to be coached than put all my eggs in the basket of an All American who ends up taking the cash and running, leaving u with ur **** in ur hands and no depth.

No depth means no competition which hurts your program. The issue with losing Byrd wasnt that he is some Darrelle Revis type player, or Tim Tebow level transformative. The issue is we had no backup plan, and good players who could have helped us here now aren't.

Part of that is just bull****. You think JJ and Howard only recruited south Florida players. Just go back and look at how many kids they took from elsewhere, including some amazing studs from New Jersey, the state of coal shovelers. We took 3 stars from south Florida because often the divas didn't want to come. We would always lose so many south Florida 5 stars to FSU or elsewhere.

So much mythology about how Jimmy Johnson recruited. And Howard always had a lot of players from places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc. The only difference is JJ started to emphasize Texas more. Both coaches tried to recruit a fair amount in Chicago, because that's where Hubbard Alexander had a lot of contacts. We got Mike Sullivan, Andre Brown, Russ Maryland, (I think) Rod Holder, and a starting OL on the '83 team from Chicago. Chicago has always had good HS football.

 

[TheMatador]

Not trying to be a ****, and Mr. Money knows more than me about these yocal kids, but Wiggins signed with Cincy and Phillips with Toledo. If they were really that good, wouldn't bigger schools have been after them? To have been "dropped" by Miami, and only to land at an AAC and a MAC school, does say something. Did everyone else miss on them? Or were they Al Golden specials? Other than that, spot on, Senor Dinero.

Doesn't necessarily mean much. We've had success over the years with kids who were bypassed by the bigger schools except for us. Russ Maryland is the example everyone mentions, but there were others.

 

[JHallCanes]

One of our biggest problems over the last decade hasn't been the number signed, it's been the number that make it all four years.

We gotta be setting some kind of DiMaggio like streak with years where every analyst calls us "young"

Theres a lot of talent in this group and we can avoid these massive holes in our depth chart by just picking the right guys and sticking with them. Hope this is a start.

 

[ProjectMKUltra5]

Totally agree.. Todd Hartley and Banda showed me something.. especially Banda.. getting a couple guys who weren't considering miami to sign here after a month is impressive.. if Rumph can be good at his job, he and Banda will bring the DBU title back home where it belongs. The future is bright at LB.. we add wilder to next year's class and we will have 7 savages at lb in 2017.. we should win 10 games next year and that will lead to a top 5 class like Michigan did this year.. finally the U is on its way back!!

Who'd a thought we'd be coming out of NSD singing the praises of Banda and being kind of meh on Rumph.

 

[SmokeyRone]

Very good write up

 

[shayleon]

Great post, Money. It seems, however, that other major P5 programs agreed with Richt's evaluation of guys like Phillips and Wiggins. Not so sure you can consider it a mistake dropping guys that no one else wanted either.

Maybe they'll prove everyone wrong, but I'll trust Richt and the entire rest of marquee P5 programs over Folden on these guys. UM won't get back where we belong beating Toledo and Cincinnati for many recruits. They might prove everyone wrong, or, more likely, there are some big flaws that kept every marquee program away from them.

This..

 

[INCaneFan]

Well stated, fair, and on point. As others have noted, I don't consider it a loss when you lose someone to Toledo and Cincy. I don't like getting into the habit of saying wait for next year, but the lack of depth will be attractive to some recruits. It's going to be a monster recruiting class next year, top five with a shot at top three.

 

[Dghustla]

I think ppl are forgetting also that when you've been a .500 team for a decade and you have a class of 18 commits they know their spot isn't in jeopardy and they can play games. When you have 22+ commits and winning record the team and coaches have leverage becuase when you play games you get dropped and someone else takes your spot.

 

[DMoney]

Not trying to be a ****, and Mr. Money knows more than me about these yocal kids, but Wiggins signed with Cincy and Phillips with Toledo. If they were really that good, wouldn't bigger schools have been after them? To have been "dropped" by Miami, and only to land at an AAC and a MAC school, does say something. Did everyone else miss on them? Or were they Al Golden specials?

I've posted about this a bunch (see below), but there are many, many future NFL players from South Florida who take the same route as Phillips and Wiggins. Louisville built their foundation with those guys. If you pick the right ones, you can build tremendous depth. Since we have the most information on these guys, we should be picking the right ones.

Phillips and Wiggins were underrated because they didn't frequent the camp scene and played multiple positions. In Phillips' case, he blew up as a senior (which is why the interim staff jumped on him). I expect both to be very good players but I've been wrong before.

https://www.canesinsight.com/thread/note-miami-stars/95156?highlight=antonio+brown
https://www.canesinsight.com/thread...florida-players/95320?highlight=antonio+brown

 

[Sabetta]

 

[stancane]

Love the optimism, and hope all expectations will be exceeded. I'm not sure where the 20th rank is coming from. Scout has us ranked nationally at 37 and 6th in the ACC. I don't understand why we only recruited 18. I don't understand why we could only recruit one at DT, and one on the OL, and too few at CB.

I think we are going into next season the same as in the near past - with too little depth at key positions. Coaching will have to be the difference compared to the past. And lastly, I wish we would stop making a point to bad mouth Golden. Some of the new recruits were signed on by his regime. Be thankful for that. He did his best after arriving here at a very inopportune time. That should not be ignored. He ran a clean program, and that's important going forward. Time goes in one direction, and that's where we should be focusing, in my humble opinion.

 

[tsimonitis]

Not trying to be a ****, and Mr. Money knows more than me about these yocal kids, but Wiggins signed with Cincy and Phillips with Toledo. If they were really that good, wouldn't bigger schools have been after them? To have been "dropped" by Miami, and only to land at an AAC and a MAC school, does say something. Did everyone else miss on them? Or were they Al Golden specials?

I've posted about this a bunch (see below), but there are many, many future NFL players from South Florida who take the same route as Phillips and Wiggins. Louisville built their foundation with those guys. If you pick the right ones, you can build tremendous depth. Since we have the most information on these guys, we should be picking the right ones.

Phillips and Wiggins were underrated because they didn't frequent the camp scene and played multiple positions. In Phillips' case, he blew up as a senior (which is why the interim staff jumped on him). I expect both to be very good players but I've been wrong before.

https://www.canesinsight.com/thread/note-miami-stars/95156?highlight=antonio+brown
https://www.canesinsight.com/thread...florida-players/95320?highlight=antonio+brown

Like Tebow and NFL? h_gif_kid:

 

[The Franchise]

One of our biggest problems over the last decade hasn't been the number signed, it's been the number that make it all four years.

We gotta be setting some kind of DiMaggio like streak with years where every analyst calls us "young"

Theres a lot of talent in this group and we can avoid these massive holes in our depth chart by just picking the right guys and sticking with them. Hope this is a start.

Very important factor. The attrition rate under Folden was pathetic.

Unfortunately, one thing I noticed from HurricaneVision's Richt UGA class breakdowns was that he had a lot of attrition at UGA.

 

[micmeistr8]

I think the '17 class should be very good. Even Shannon and Golden had good classes in their first full cycle, even though Golden's was propped up by the size of the class. Richt should be no different and have the bump in his first full cycle. It's Richt's 2nd full cycle that will determine how he will ultimately do here. You can't compete at the highest level with one great class, you have to stack top notch classes year after year.

Shannon's '09 and Golden's '13 classes were pretty much disasters outside of a handful of very good players like Coley, Burns, Elder, Miller, and Vernon. You can't just whiff on basically a whole class and both did in their 2nd full cycle. As great as Meyer's '06 class was look at his '07 class as well. Look at Saban in '08 and '09.

We need to stack and stack top notch talent in '17 and '18.

 

[DMoney]

Like Tebow and NFL? h_gif_kid:

He got one shot as a starter and took a 1-4 team to the second round. It's not my fault coaches would rather lose games with traditional stiffs like Blaine Gabbert, the Butt-fumbler and Sam Bradford.

But I digress...

 

[sdaly]

Thank you for some perspective.... next year will be key and i expect great things. winning cures an awful lot of ills.... once recruits see how Diaz/Kool have an ultra aggressive D we'll start to see the dominance up front.
need a huge year in the trenches next year. will be very intrigued to see what Searles does with O line which has been awful for awhile as well

 

[BoxingRobes]

There are so many D1 contributor-at-minimum players in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach you can't even keep track of them all. There are also so many South Florida kids that get lost in the shuffle for countless reasons - injured junior or senior year, play at a really small school or **** competition, don't really participate in offseason flag or camp circuits, grade risk or grade casualty or has such terrible grades no one cares about them and they resurface two years later as a JUCO prospect, basketball players that end up realizing they are better at football and don't play until their senior year, they don't blow up until their senior year and no one sees them outside of locals until that senior tape gets sent around and by then, most P5 schools are almost full, or they are super raw and not worth the "risk" to P5 programs, but MAC, Fun Belt, and the FCS drool at simply taking these types of athletes, even if they are undersized, etc. (truly, the number of kids down here and how they fall victim of the struggle is insane and the reasons they get lost are vast).

Miami, in theory, would never have to leave the tri-county area if they put the right resources with the right eyes with the right coaches in places to see all of the South Florida kids. The region is rich at every position enough to be a Top 5 team in the country annually. Even little thought of positions in the area like OL and DT produce enough talent to be a top team.

Not every South Florida "where in the fakk did he come from" story has the upside of Khalil Mack, Antonio Brown, or John Brown, but there are way too many solid collegiate players scattered around the country. If you're going to reach, reach on a South Florida player. Maybe they won't hit, maybe they need to move to a place that averages 3 feet of snow on the ground for 5 months of the year to focus and get away from the bull****, maybe they can't keep up with Big Three talent early on and are phased out and you never see them develop. However, the are worth the risk, the results over a 30 year sample are just too damning to overlook them.