Recruiting remains a topic no matter what time of year. What once dominated January and February, it’s now a twelve-month long obligation.
Unlike the NFL, talent can pretty much overcome coaching in the college game – making recruiting all the more important.
The Miami Hurricanes fell off the map the latter part of this decade, due to poor recruiting and development of talent. If you follow this blog, you know where I stand on Larry Coker. His greatest weakness is proving to be Randy Shannon’s strength; recruiting.
A lot of chatter occurs in the ‘comments’ section of this blog. I don’t censor anybody who’s not afraid to put their name with their thoughts. I even let a lot of ‘Anonymous’ stuff slide, as long as it’s productive.
Everyone has an opinion about coaching, recruiting and the process. For those off base, I oft direct them to Bruce Feldman’s “Meat Market : Inside The Smash-Mouth World Of College Football Recruiting”.
Not enough college football fans have read that book and even based on my recommendation, I know most are too busy to heed the advice. Because of that, I’m going to occasionally post excerpts here. I want fans to compare the old coaching regime with the new. I want them to picture both coaching staffs recruiting — the process, the attitude, the overall goal, the communication, the evaluation of talent.
And for my critics, yes I realize that Ed Orgeron, the former Ole Miss head coach, has since been fired. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a solid recruiter and didn’t have a game plan. Those in doubt, remember then when Tennessee starts reeling in solid classes with him as their line coach and recruiting coordinator.
You can also look at the Ole Miss team Houston Nutt took over in 2008. The one chock full of Orgeron’s players that went 9-4 and knocked off Florida, LSU and Texas Tech. Proof that it takes recruiting and coaching, but that it all starts with talent.
Pay attention. Here’s this week’s passage:
Orgeron had been telling his staff since Day One that the evaluation process was always, always ongoing, but even he sometimes forgot his own edict about not falling in love too fast or writing someone off too quickly. Players the staff loved — as well as ones they didn’t — were always up for discussion.
That also included committed players like (Robert) Elliott. Even though it was in Orgeron’s nature to ride his initial reaction on a player, either good or bad, he knew he had to learn from past mistakes and go through the process as hard as he could, just like he preached.
“We need to crank this machine back up,” he said before heading down the hall to grab a cup of coffee to top off the Red Bull.
The rest of the Ole Miss staff filed into the war room a few minutes before 8am for the Rebels’ recruiting meeting. Orgeron reentered and circled around the table.
“I want these names to come alive!” he boomed, pointing to the recruiting boards. “We gotta re-recruit. They are out there, and we can get them. We got Brent Schaffer here! We got Cordera Eason here! We got John Jerry! Those guys could’ve gone anywhere, but we got them to come here. This time last year, Marcus Tillman was committed to LSU, and he ended up coming here…
Oregon paused for a breath and a couple heartbeats, his words still hanging in the air as if afraid to leave the room. Then he wriggled his shoulders to shed some tension and brought his voice down a few decibels.
“I don’t wanna be an a**hole about this,” he said. This was obviously the part of the top job he hadn’t fully adjusted to, the part where he had to squeeze his buddies. “But please, please don’t think your s**t is so important you don’t have to be out there recruiting. I’ll take that as a dagger right here.”
He smashed his thumb into his heart with such force you half expected to see blood spurt out. Yet this didn’t qualify as a full-bore, gloves-off, “let-’em-hear-you-in-Baton-Rouge” Oregeron rant. His voice hadn’t ascended to an indecipherable high-pitched shrill. His eyes had bulged out, but only slightly. His chin had stayed moored to his face.
Maybe Orgeron had toned down his standard stump speech down a bit because two former Miami assistants, (Art) Kehoe and (Dan) Werner, and soft-spoken linebackers coach David Saunders were new to his system.
Orgeron knew that Kehoe, a proud man who’d spent 27 years at Miami, was beloved by many of the high school coaches in the state of Florida and that he could do wonders for his young line on the practice field. But Orgeron also knew that the Canes didn’t have to recruit very hard to stay on top. Blue-chippers sought them out. Orgeron didn’t directly stare at Kehoe or Saunders, the man who’d introduced him to his wife, but it became obvious these two guys were the principal targets of his “We Gotta Do More!” speech.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s just how Miami’s war room sounded 2002-2006.