10/10 Recruiting Update

I don’t know if there is a connection between Sam Bergen’s injury, and the decision to offer a scholarship to Sayreville LB Dave Milewski, but the timing is interesting, even if he grows into an end. Either way, he’s the latest verbal commitment to Rutgers. NJ.com posted a Milewski highlights package last week. He wasn’t really on the national recruiting radar until recently, so I don’t know enough about Dave to give any further thoughts at the moment.

326 yards and 5 TDs for Chas Dodd on the week.

Jordan Thomas rushed for 155 yards and a TD as Union-Endicott topped Binghamton.

J.T. Tartacoff hauled in a touchdown grab in Montgomery’s loss to Basking Ridge.

State of Rutgers is going premium soon, so you may want to read their recent articles on 2011 prospects Hakeem Flowers, Teddy Bridgewater, and Tanner McEvoy (unlike the first two, a realistic if not likely target) while you can. It’ll be interesting to see how SoR compares with Rivals and Scout once their premium service goes online.

Per the premium sites, 2011 NJ athlete Damiere Byrd picked up a Rutgers offer. Standout shore RB Charles Davis is still high on Rutgers.

“Rutgers is definitely a favorite,” he said. “Basically I’ve been really looking at them and Virginia. With Rutgers, the coaching staff is great from what I know about them. I’ve been around the campus a little bit and it’s very nice. I’ve heard they’re also strong in what I want to go to school for (criminal justice).”

Florida athlete Jeremy Deering injured his collarbone last Friday, and is set to undergo surgery next week. Per the report, one Rutgers assistant was in attendance on the night. DT Richard Ash visited UCLA over the weekend.

The latest update on Maryland DB Lorenzo Waters says he’s open, and has only looked hard at Wake Forest.

Paul Franklin asks whether changing demographics in North Edison are hurting J.P. Stevens football.

Soft Minnesota CB verbal Jabari Price switched to UNC. FL DT Antonio Ford committed to Wake Forest. I’m not happy about TE Jarrett Darmstatter committing to BC. It’s a hard sell when you’re playing two freshmen, and redshirting two more, but I think he’s going to be good. FL CB Keion Payne committed to Miami.

Watchlist: Bill Belton, Devin Fuller, Kevin Hogan, Jonathan Jenkins, T.J. Mutcherson, Gary Nova, Miles Shuler, and Chris Valenti.

11/3 Recruiting Update

Bad news; LB commit Sam Bergen injured his knee.

Chas Dodd passed for 294 yards and 5 TDs in his most recent game.

It was a good week for Jordan Thomas too.

The Courier News named J.T. Tartacoff as one of their top players of the decade.

When will MD WR Brandon Coleman make it to campus for his official visit?

“I have scheduled my first official,” he said. “It’s set to be on the first weekend of December up to Rutgers.”

It’s unclear whether Florida RB Jawan Jamison has an offer, but he sounds high on Rutgers.

“The Rutgers coach called my mom and wants me to come up for a game,” he said. “We are trying to figure out if there is a game I can go to without getting into trouble.” He says Rutgers is telling him he could play as a freshman. “They put Ray Rice in the NFL and, if you look at his stats at Rutgers, they got him the ball over 30 times a game,” said Jamison. “They say they want to use me like that.”

Agh, Mustafa Greene just returned and is injured again.

In additions to updates on 2011 targets Cyrus Kouandijo, Trip Thurman, and Angelo Mangiro, State of Rutgers also has a few comments on ‘10 commit Jorge Vicioso by a teammate.

NJ.com has a video feature up on elite 2011 RB prospect Savon Huggins.

Unfortunately, ‘11 Neptune RB Charles Davis broke his wrist.

Scout is now showing an offer out to Florida athlete Devon Wright, who didn’t make his recent scheduled visit to Minnesota.

FL WR O.J. Ross is a soft verbal to Purdue. FL RB Eduardo Clements committed to Miami.

Watchlist: Martize Barr, Damiere Byrd, Conor Hanratty, Kendall Patterson, Anthony Sarao, and Miles Shuler (informative, more so than what I usually link here).

10/27 Recruiting Update

There has been a lot of good content lately on State of Rutgers; better read all you that can before the paywall goes up. As to not steal their thunder, I’ll just link to a couple of new articles, including one on Casey Turner (apparently a new RB offer out of FL, still waiting for additional confirmation), Terrell Chestnut, Charles Davis, Savon Huggins, and VA S Ronnie Van Dyke (new offer) from the class of 2011, Brian Robinson, Mustafa Greene, and an enlightening article on verbal commit Marcus Thompson.

Jordan Thomas is Mr. Clutch. I don’t see Chas Dodd overtaking Tom Savage, even though he is putting up big numbers in Byrnes’s spread offense. Only 124 yards on the week for Dodd? What a bust. Bad game for J.T. Tartacoff as Westfield blew out Montgomery.

Not much info here, but the Charlotte Observer pegs Mustafa Greene to the Scarlet Knights.

Florida corner Johnnie Simon claims to have received a verbal offer from Rutgers (after mostly focusing on MAC schools up to this point), with a written one still on the way.

“Coach (Brian) Jenkins called me and asked me how I’d like playing cornerback, because they need corners. I told him I’d rather play safety, but I can learn how to play corner too. He said they were sending one (offer) in the mail.”

CB Jabari Price is open, and will take his visits (video). The Scout database is now showing an offer out to 2011 Florida DE B.J. Dubose. Another new 2011 offer is RB Mike Blakely. It’s a longshot, but maybe keep an eye on LB Christian Jones. ATH Tarean Austin favors USF.

In a sad story, a 2011 prospect from Staten Island who was reportedly starting to receive some interest from Rutgers died in a car accident last week.

With a whole lotta commits (and decommits), now Stanford is in the spotlight for its recruiting class this year.

FL RB Gio Bernard committed to Notre Dame. MD OL Robbie Havenstein committed to Wisconsin. For anyone wondering, Malcolm Yowk is off to Delaware, and did not have a commitable offer from Rutgers (or Stanford, for that matter).

Watchlist: Bill Belton, Cole Farrand, Dan Foesel, Antoine Pozniak, Doug Rigg (2), Nate Smith, and Dustin Thomas.

10/20 Recruiting Update

I think that things will start to heat up as we get deeper into the fall. It’s still very early. As I’ve reiterated numerous times, what matters is that the staff makes good evaluations and lands their top targets, and nothing else. Last year was a bit of an aberration in the sense that the Rutgers staff usually around this time of the year intensifies their Florida recruiting, while also evaluating some of the new senior film from prospects that they had been watching in search of late bloomers.

Case in point would be the renewed interest by Florida DT Richard Ash. I hadn’t even heard of Tim Smith before, and he looks like a pretty good prospect too. RB Jakhari Gore is another name, although he seems to be favoring LSU (and a lot of his offers are in question). Athlete Jeremy Deering has scheduled a visit to UNC.

There were nice recent features lately on RU commits Jawaun Wynn and Jordan Thomas. 263 yards, 5 TDs for Chas Dodd in another day at the office.

The whole Malcolm Cater situation is worth monitoring. Link is to the same SoR thread I linked last week, cause that’s the only free discussion I know of on the topic.

Sharrif Floyd isn’t mentioning RU as of late.

Rutgers is out with PA S Brandon Ifill, who’s down to Pitt and MD.

Helicopters offer style and convenience for recruiting players.

The Scout database is now listing 2011 Delaware lineman Trip Thurman as holding a Rutgers offer. Another new one is Good Counsel athlete Vincent Croce (I think the article spelled his name wrong) out of Maryland.

Paul Franklin’s GMC All-Decade team is an interesting read.

Watchlist: Sean Daniels, Quentin Gause, Criston Gill, Kevin Hogan, Ishmil Mack, Ryan Morris, Dillon Romain, Antoine Pozniak, Anthony Sarao, and Darrius Webb.

Second guessing

As good as Dion Lewis looked last night, it’s not fair to get on the Rutgers football staff for not offering him a scholarship. With a total limit of 85, sometimes you have to make tough decisions. The year Rutgers signed Ray Rice, they did not offer UConn’s Donald Brown, another New Jersey product. This is especially striking when you consider that Lewis’s only other offers were from Tulane and Miami (OH).

I’ll concede that Lewis looks wonderful. We don’t know how good De’Antwan Williams is yet though, and probably won’t until the offensive line gets their act together.

Reading through today’s media, one Wannstedt quote really stood out to me.

“His highlight tape was five plays and they were all 80-yard runs. I seriously watched five plays and told [assistant coach] Jeff Hafley to offer him,” Wannstedt said after the true freshman rushed 31 times for 180 yards in Pittsburgh’s 24-17 victory Friday over Rutgers at Rutgers Stadium.

That has to be an exaggeration, right? Contrast that line with a Doug Marrone quote from earlier in the year.

I have a lot of friends that are high school coaches. A good friend of mine had a tape of a kid and he was good. I called my buddy and said, ‘What do I need to do to get in with this kid?’ He said, ‘You don’t want this kid.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Doug, I could make a highlight tape and make anyone look great.’ I said, ‘Whoa.’ That’s when I took a step back and said, ‘We need to go slow and make the right decision.’

Wannstedt had to be fibbing a little, because Marrone’s quote; quite rightly, makes anyone who would actually offer based on a highlight tape look like a total moron. It doesn’t matter how good you look on those five plays.

Clearly though, Lewis is talented. Recruiting is important, but it’s just as much about proper scouting as beating your competitors, and later on it’s about developing your talent. Sometimes, a prospect may be limited, but a coach sees one thing that projects to be a good fit in a highly specialized scheme. No name schools wanted Eric Foster, and yet I could not think of a more perfect fit in Coach Schiano’s defense. For Rutgers, he was a five star prospect.

I mention this possibility, because there was a recent study published in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. I’m still looking for a copy of the paper, but the abstract sheds some light on exactly the level of importants fans and the media should place on recruiting rankings.

The results indicated that RIV & SCO TOTPTS and AVESTAR predicted up to 45% of the variances in the end-of-season ratings and total wins. Thus, other factors (besides recruiting rankings) must be contributing to the end-of-season ratings for the 100 NCAA football teams included in this study. In addition, up to 51% of the variance in RIV & SCO AVESTAR and TOTPTS was predicted by the previous year’s end-of-season ratings or total wins, which suggests that more successful seasons tend to yield better subsequent recruiting classes.

I’m going to try to find a copy of the full paper today, and I might have more to say about it and the methodology used at a later point. Still, 45%. Meaning, recruiting matters, a lot, but other things go into the petri dish as well. That’s why FSU is struggling. I can’t say whether the problem is with scouting, coaching, or talent development, but it’s probably combination of those, other factors, and just plain random chance. You do have to take into account that sites like Rivals, Scout, and ESPN are businesses that intend to make a profit. That certainly will influence their ratings; whether it comes to just hyping uncommitted players left on the board as signing day approaches to build more drama, or just plain overhyping the mediocre classes that teams like Notre Dame bring in.

edit: Scratch all that. I took a look at the article, and I was surprised to the extent of how limited in scope it was. It unfortunately turned out to be a dud, and I continue looking for the definitive statistical analysis of the topic.

10/13 Recruiting Update

Over the weekend, Pennsylvania linebacker Sam Bergen received an offer from Rutgers and pulled the trigger.

“I went to the game yesterday and Rutgers has been my number one choice for a while,” Bergen explained. “I got offered at the end of the game and I told coach (Greg) Schiano that I would commit right then. It all happened yesterday.”

I don’t have a problem with taking Bergen, although like many of this year’s commits, he’s somewhat of a question mark. Bergen tore his ACL last season. He was receiving some hype to that’s point, although it’s unclear how exactly his recruiting would have otherwise proceeded. He came back healthy this year, and presumably the coaching staff has done their homework. It is worth noting that the coaching staff did choose him over several “bigger” names in the area. I’d assume that Rutgers isn’t going to recruit any more pure linebackers in this class.

Paramus lineman Danny Foose just returned from his official to Illinois.

“I don’t have any more visits set up yet. I’ve narrowed it a little bit but it’s still the main schools that it has been—Rutgers, Boston College, Illinois, Central Florida, Stanford and Cincinnati.”

Brandon Coleman on his timetable:

“I just want to wait and take my time,” said the 6-7, 215-pound Coleman, who has caught at least one touchdown pass in each of the Mustangs’ five games. “I know this is a big decision. I don’t want to go through the decommitting process. I don’t want to build that reputation that I can’t make up my mind.”

Expect to hear more about 2011 DE Connor Wujciak.

His brother “is leaving it up to me,” Connor said. “I haven’t visited Boston College yet but I’m definitely looking to get up there. With Rutgers, I definitely feel comfortable with the coaches. I really wouldn’t say I have any favorites. I don’t know when I’ll commit, whenever I feel ready, whether that’s tomorrow or when I’m signing the Letter of Intent.”

2011 athlete Damiere Byrd now has an offer.

“I really enjoyed it,” Byrd said of the experience. “It’s very nice up there and it’s a great atmosphere. I was able to see their weight room but didn’t get to talk to anyone. For my first time to Rutgers though, it was a good experience.”

2011 Florida athlete Teddy Bridgewater does too.

A complete waste of time

Per ZAGSBLOG, junior college forward Marvell Waithe is down to Rutgers and Arkansas. We’ve been down this road before. Waithe nearly committed to the Scarlet Knights several yeras ago, before strangely jumping to Loyola at the last minute. Specifically, there’s just something about Ro Russell’s program and not exactly being friendly to Rutgers basketball. Over the past decade, commits Olu Ashaolu (Louisiana Tech!?!?!, after they hired his brother on staff, or something like that), and Antwi Atuahene (JUCO, and then Arizona State) failed to end up on the banks.

When this story popped up on my news reader just now, it instantly brought to mind a Zagoria interview with Russell from two years ago. Specifically, this paragraph:

“I’m going to always have players, and all (fans who rip me) are doing is hurting their opportunity for players like (6-8 St. Benedict’s big man) Tristan Thompson and (6-1 St. Benedict’s point guard) Myck Kabongo to look at Rutgers because if they’re seeing the stuff being said by the fans, then that’s just going to steer them away because those kids are part of the program and they know what goes on. The Rutgers fans should be friendly with me, and not be hard line like they are.”

It takes a certain type of individual to make idle threats towards a fanbase. Oooh, you won’t steer players towards a school your players already avoid like the plague.

I hope Waithe commits to Arkansas, or some other team that is not Rutgers. There’s no upside in being involved with Ro Russell or his program. At least there are no remaining expectations left to shatter at this point.

10/6 Recruiting Update

Was the Schianocopter in service for Friday’s game between STA and Byrnes?

Rutgers’ Greg Schiano noted he landed in an eight-seat plane.

“I’ve got six empty seats to take players back,” he said.

He was joking.

In addition to Chas Dodd (and his 416 yards and 3 TDs), one of the players Coach may have been watching were Aquinas LB Vinnie Mauro, DB Brian Robinson, one of several prospects mentioned in this post on the new State of Rutgers site. They also have new articles up on Tejay Johnson (who’s having a big year),  Bjoern Werner, Connor Wujciak, along with verbal Jordan Thomas (RU assistant/s watched his last game in person), so check those out before the site’s paywall goes up.

Per the Ledger, J.T. Tartacoff had two touchdowns on the weekend. Lots of other familiar names on that list.

Brandon Coleman has designs on three visits.

Let me get this straight; Charles Davis was offered a scholarship as a junior, and he has doubters?

“I think Charles Davis posted a statement for any of those doubters why Rutgers offered him a full scholarship,” Neptune coach John Fiore said. “Now we know why.”

Some bad news on the T.J. Clemmings front.

Clemmings, a defensive end for Paterson Catholic (3-0), has yet to fully commit to a college, but told MSG Varsity his choices are narrowed down to Pittsburgh, Florida, and Ohio State.

It’s unfortunate to not see RU on his list at the moment. Don’t think he ends up at UF, given that they turned down Easley. Schiano is not giving up yet, watching P.C. in person on Saturday. And now I’m editing this section for the third time, as ZAGSBLOG has even more, including some Pitt-related damage control by his coach.

“He did verbally commit to Pitt,” Wimberly added. “He’s now considering taking visits. Can that change between now and December? Yes, it can.

“He has said that he would consider taking other visits at the conclusion of the season. Obviously, Rutgers is somebody that if he does consider taking visits they would be one of the schools. Nothing is going to be set until next month.”

God Bless You, Larry Coker

6 pm note: WordPress acting stupid, I have no idea why this post isn’t working, and am about at my wits end here. Try again, I think it is now.

With the bye week, I’d like to take this opportunity to go over a few things that I may have ignored or glossed over during the past month.

One big storyline coming out of the Maryland win was, of course, Joe Lefeged’s triumphant return as the conquering native son. Which raises an interesting point - Lefeged grew up a Terp fan in the shadow of College Park. Scores of ACC, Big East, and Big Ten schools were after him. Joe has lived up to expectations from the moment he stepped foot on campus, so talent clearly wasn’t an issue. In that case, why didn’t Maryland offer him a football scholarship coming out of high school? Clearly, there must have been some underlying cause.

Ralph Friedgen and staff apparently preferred an unheralded safety from Newark with no other offers. Ok, you have to trust your eyes when it comes to scouting. Rutgers certainly hasn’t offered every big name to come out of New Jersey over the past few years, for varying reasons. Even if those players bust, sometimes they create a pipeline that will hurt a program later on down the road. But when you don’t go after these prospects, and they end up living to the hype and then some, there will inevitably be second guessing over passing up on the local product.

Moving along, this theme is kinda the undercurrent in Aditi’s story on Tim Brown and Antonio Lowery last week. Having followed RU sports on the web for the past few years, I still remember the sentiment from late 2005 when the staff were going after those two players: how, how, how was the former Miami HC Larry Coker letting them through his grasp? I can recall watching their highlight tapes, and being utterly dumb-founded. There was no doubt whatsoever that each was good enough to play for the Hurricanes, or any other team, for that matter.

If I was in charge of the Miami football program, I wouldn’t bother recruiting on a national level. Hell, I wouldn’t cross the I-4 corridor with Tampa, Orlando, and Daytona Beach. Growing up in the Miami area is no picnic. Those kids have a certain toughness to them. It’s not the Northeast, blue collar, lunchpail, I’ll-punch-you-in-the-teeth brand of toughness. In a Pahokee (in the Everglades region, H/T to mgoblog), or certain parts of Dade County, football literally is your only shot to escape from a life of anguish. I’d assume that many of you are familiar with the Sean Taylor or Bryan Pata stories.

More meta bluster

update: stupid, nonmaterial error corrected

Over the weekend, Scout.com launched Scarlet Report, its new affiliate covering Rutgers athletics. (The State of Rutgers site also recently moved to its new url). At the helm of the site is publisher Brian Dohn, a Rutgers alumnus formerly of the UCLA beat at the Los Angeles Daily News.

Unfortunately, time constraints limit my ability to go into as much detail as I would like at the moment, but I do want to hit a couple of important points about this development.

• Dohn touts his Rutgers credentials, and all readers can rest assured that he is 100% sincere. When he was at the LADN, his blog would come up in my news reader all the time because he would always manage to work in references to the Scarlet Knights.
• He’s also a great journalist. You can read the comments from when he announced his departure at the LA Times, or from a thread on Bruin Nation to make up your mind for yourself.
• I feel ticked today for missing that August post announcing his departure for New Jersey. I should have noticed that Dohn’s updates about UCLA weren’t showing up on my feeds any longer. Based on the timing of his announcement, I wonder when exactly the wheels started setting in motion regarding SoR’s departure from Scout.
• As for my comments about the Scout.com network last week, I stand by them 100%. Brian Dohn is excellent and I wish him the best, and sincerely hope that Scout is inclined to change their ways. The network may be in trouble, but certain individual affiliates do quite well for themselves. One thing I am very curious about is how the exact arrangement here was set up. Does Dohn now operate a full-fledged affiliate, or is he a direct employee of Fox Interactive Media? The latter setup would insulate him from a lot of the recent problems. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a direct subsidiary model (wherein Scout runs the show on everything but content); just with how things progressed with the affiliates. Very curious about this question.
• Why leave the LADN for the Rutgers beat? There’s no reason to doubt Dohn’s sincerity about his affinity for RU athletics. When a journalist makes the jump from print to online, it could be a matter of getting ahead of the curve. The LA Daily News has been hit hard by the economic downturn, losing a lot of personnel in the process. Again, I’m not trying to insinuate anything here, but it’s important to be familiar with this background information.
• Another interesting aspect are the differences between his old traditional beat for a new media position. “Some” affiliates on Rivals/Scout/ESPN do have a reputation for biased coverage, and possibly being too close to coaching staffs. Contrast that to when I spoke to Jim Carty a few months back.

“The perspective of a professional sportswriter is one that’s entirely different from a fan, and one that’s often difficult for fans to understand. Whether a team wins or loses is usually very, very secondary to a sportswriter’s job. Sportswriters exist to tell stories, and there are always good stories associated with a Division I athletics program, win or lose.”