I'm just sad that bad things keep happening, thus allowing bb2 the opportunity to continually amaze with his hypocrisy and stupidity.
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
-
Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!
OL recruiting - a big problem
- Thread starter sackman
- Start date
I get that CU whiffed on a talented crop of in state OL. Callahan and Thurston were the only two CU had a real shot at, at least from what I read.
Right now CU has:
OT- Bakhtiari (a great OL IMO), Harris (another good one if he can stay healthy), Mustoe (Stole from fUCLA), Nembot (Stole from UW)
G/T- Dannewitz (Decent player) Lewis (Coaches love him, not much PT)
G- Crabb (Hasn't come on the way one would hope at this point), Munyer (Has some PT, decent OL in my book)
C/G- Handler (Really came into his own last year), Cotner (JC Transfer, don't know much about him), Kelley (Big and strong, coaches seem to like him)
So that is 11 schollie OL. We seem to be short on numbers (I'd like to see 14-15 OL), but not as bad off as CU has been in the recent past.
Talent may not be quite up to 2001 level, but again, it isn't a disaster.
I have to admit, Kough was a head scratcher, but the Irwin kid looked pretty good to me on film. If CU can pick up 2-3 OL this cycle I think it will be OK.
Why the proclamations of disaster other than missing on the highly touted kids from CO this past cycle?
Right now CU has:
OT- Bakhtiari (a great OL IMO), Harris (another good one if he can stay healthy), Mustoe (Stole from fUCLA), Nembot (Stole from UW)
G/T- Dannewitz (Decent player) Lewis (Coaches love him, not much PT)
G- Crabb (Hasn't come on the way one would hope at this point), Munyer (Has some PT, decent OL in my book)
C/G- Handler (Really came into his own last year), Cotner (JC Transfer, don't know much about him), Kelley (Big and strong, coaches seem to like him)
So that is 11 schollie OL. We seem to be short on numbers (I'd like to see 14-15 OL), but not as bad off as CU has been in the recent past.
Talent may not be quite up to 2001 level, but again, it isn't a disaster.
I have to admit, Kough was a head scratcher, but the Irwin kid looked pretty good to me on film. If CU can pick up 2-3 OL this cycle I think it will be OK.
Why the proclamations of disaster other than missing on the highly touted kids from CO this past cycle?
Good post.
A couple of the things to keep in mind with OL recruiting:
1. It's the most difficult position for the scouting services to project. So, no matter how much stock you put in what Scout/Rivals has to say, be quite a bit less confident in those services when it comes to OLs.
2. Most OLs aren't going to see the field until at least their 2nd year and are unlikely to be impact players until their third year. Unlike a WR who usually either has it or doesn't, many time an OL won't do a thing for you for 3 years and then can come in and perform at an all-conference level as a RS-Junior and Senior. So, don't get down on an OL because he hasn't shown much after his RS-Frosh or Soph season.
Something to keep in mind with recruiting in general:
1. Logic tells us that if we've got room for 5 OLs in a class and there are 50 OL offers reported by the various scouting services, then there's a good chance that all 50 aren't legitimate offers, some were probably offered early but we stopped recruiting them for whatever reason, and also that the coaches wouldn't accept a commitment today from everyone who has a legitimate offer. Unless it's clear from interviews and whatnot that the prospect is a "commitment today" type, we should temper our disappointment when a prospect with a "reported offer" commits elsewhere.
2. With 25 scholarships per class and around 150 legitimate offers extended each cycle, the batting average is only going to be under .200 (while appearing even lower due to non-legitimate offers swelling the reported offer list). In general, there's a ton more bad news than good so emotionally investing in each offer is miserable.
So, where does that leave us with OL recruiting:
1. Offer list matters much more at this position, especially when we see a number of offers from other schools that run a similar system to ours.
2. From that and from reading interviews, we can get a good idea of who the CU coaches are recruiting the hardest and where the competition is coming from.
Based on that:
1. Get upset when someone who is obviously high on our board removes us from consideration (commits elsewhere, pares down list without us making the cut, doesn't include us among his 5 official visits).
2. Get upset when someone comes for an official visit and then commits elsewhere.
3. Get upset when someone who is committed to us flips to another school.
My personal feeling is that we have not been winning nearly enough recruiting battles for OLs we obviously wanted. Losing in recruiting now = losing on the field in the future. I like a lot of the OLs in our program, but I don't see the upgrade under Embree's staff that I'm seeing at other positions like quarterback. This must improve.
I also think that there was a major over-reaction to the Blake Nowland news. He's a decent prospect and he's an in-state kid. But he's also a borderline 2*/3* prospect who may not have tremendous upside considering that he comes from a high school program that has a weight training program which gets its lineman pretty fully developed before they get to campus. Too many Douglas County OLs dominate against the mediocre DLs at the Colorado high school level and then aren't anything special in college. If I'm looking at OLs, at the top of the list are guys who play against top competition in CA or TX and are physically developed to the point they could potentially start and perform from the day they walk on campus. At the next level are the guys who have elite physical tools but need to be developed, with a nod to the ones who play against top competition. I put guys like Nowland who overpower mediocre competition in the third tier.
I was more excited about Kough's commitment last year than I would have been about Nowland's this year because I see the upside potential... and OL is about projecting 3 or 4 years into the future.
bigbang2
blindslighted
Good objective post. Even guys that are committed to other programs can still flip, and there are guys that we may have offered that are not in the databases of both rivals and scout. There maybe a silent commit out there that has not reported his commitment to the recruiting sites. There are alot of variables that we have to consider. Life is not black and white, probably going to get a neg rep. But i have to say there are a lot of simple minded posters on this board. I am kind of sick and tired of all the whining every time we lose an in state player. Blake Nowland is a good player, but it is not the end of the world, there are other players we can still flip or recruit. Nowland doesn't make or break our recruiting class. Even the recruiting sites are still adjusting their databases, we don't have the complete picture. I agree it is extremely too early to panic.
Way to destroy lefty's credibility.
And lefty, the panic is that we are low on #s already and are constantly losing guys that we want to other PAC12 programs. That can't keep happening without very bad results down the line. You don't see the full results of OL recruiting until a few years have gone by. Another year of bad recruiting at the OL (and this is definitely bad recruiting thus far) will be very very very bad for future years.
We are losing too many players we actually want (Crane, Hunt, and Harlow and likely Lopez, Falah, and others as well in this class). That is a pretty big dent in the board, no matter how you try to spin it. We need to start winning some OL recruits in California (more Nembot than Cotner/Kough).
bigbang2
blindslighted
Losing guys, fliping guys, getting guys and etc is part of the recruiting process. There are guys that are not even in the recruiting site database that we have offered. Recruiting was always going to be difficult for Embo, the team hasn't had a winning record in a long time. It takes time to build the program back to where it was.
excellent non-responsive response.
bigbang2
blindslighted
This is your best response ever.
The problem becomes when you lose far more battles for quality OL than you win. That is where we stand. Not even sure why people are trying to debate that point.
I'm not sure what bb2 thinks is debating.
bigbang2
blindslighted
I am not saying we don't need to improve the OL situation. My point is, it is not all doom and gloom, it is not a disaster like most people will like to believe. The team has also won the battle of Colin Sutton. I like that kid Huckins, who will be visiting this month. There are some positives like the recruitment of Nembot and Mustoe last year. For a program that hasn't had a winning record in a long time, we are doing okay. We are going to lose a lot of battles, it is part of the recruiting process. Too early to panic, at least wait until October, after the major recruiting visiting weekends. By then we will have a better picture of the situation. I am not going to lie, I have concerns, but i also realize, it is way too early to panic.
Last edited:
+1
Agree with all. OL recruiting is different than other positions and we don't know the full story of what is going on. The coaches can't tell us and so we are left to what the kids and their associates tell us, true or not.
We won't really know anything for certain until signing day then as you state it will be another couple years before we know what we really got on signing day.
With all that in mind, based on the kids we didn't get last year and appearances this year we need to step it up significantly on the OL recruiting if that is not going to be the position that holds the team back.
Meh. You brought up plenty of good points. We shall see how things look in January.
I am not nearly as concerned about this issue either. I am sure that this has likely been raised already in this thread, but we took in a HUGE D-Line class last year, in fact too many to have in one class at a specific position. Embree has eluded to this before, but I see about 3 of these kids being moved over to the O-Line when it is all said and done. And frankly, I like this better. These kids are going to be more athletic than your avg. O-Line recruit coming out of HS, and it isn't that much of a leap to make this change, especially for those that played on the offensive side of the ball in HS (I am sure that Wyo could expand on this a bit more).
This transition would leave us with the best D-Linemen from this last class, staying at the position for which they were recruited (because they are performing the best out of the group), and opening up room at the position to recruit other studs along the D-Line in this and future classes. A couple of good O-Line signees this year, and the numbers are not nearly as bad as they appear on paper right now.
This transition would leave us with the best D-Linemen from this last class, staying at the position for which they were recruited (because they are performing the best out of the group), and opening up room at the position to recruit other studs along the D-Line in this and future classes. A couple of good O-Line signees this year, and the numbers are not nearly as bad as they appear on paper right now.
The transition form dline to oline is not as easy as it may seem. You would have to completely relearn a playbook at what is the second toughest positions on the team mentally (QB being the most to learn). If they didnt make the swap until after the kids red shirt year you would probably be looking at rs so or rs jr year before he could reasonably contribute. TE to Oline is a much flatter learning curve but you usually see push back from the player on this move.
I disagree in that the playbook is not hard to learn. Proper technique is where the biggest adjustment/growing pains occur. But, these guys will already have the size, strength and athleticism....and they will know what it is like to play in the trenches at the D1 level....things that can't be taught.
Have you ever peeked into a college football playbook? I agree that they will know what it is like to play in the trenches at that level but that is where most of the similarities in the two positions end. The build of most dlinemen and olinemen is fairly different as well.
you know this is an interesting thought. Would you rather have a guy who can learn the playbook and execute it perfectly, but get beat from time to time or a guy who is a physical freak who struggles with the playbook, he won't get beat, but his will block the wrong guy.
I think I am almost at the point of getting guys who can execute, since you can scheme around them getting beat.
Are the physical freaks eligible? My experience is that they dont typically just have a tough time understanding playbooks. It usually carries over to the classroom. You need guys who know their blocking assignment. They also need to know who everyone else is blocking on that play from that formation and this is for probably 6-8 fronts depending on the defense you are playing that week. You can see how this can compound fairly quickly. Even the best linemen get beat more often that most people realize.
The answer to your question is the grey area between your two options.
Yes, thoroughly. And the bodies are not as different as you might think....especially at DT vs guard and center
Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? CU doesn't generally admit guys that are really going to have THAT hard of a time learning concepts, blocking schemes and a playbook over the period of a year (my assumption as to how long it would take for one of these guys to make a transitions from DL to OL and be considered "serviceable")
Kafovalu and Rasmussen and the only 2 I could see moving from DL to OL. Both as guards due to their 6'3 height. Both also played both ways in HS. Maybe Tupou as well, but I feel as though (hope) he will anchor our DLine for years. John Stuart could be a blocking TE possibly. I don't see Solis, Henington, or Wilson making the switch at all.
they don't, but lets face it, there are a very limited number of guys who are the best at both criteria (or even great in one and really good in another) and the way we are going in OL recruiting, we can't be too picky. How do these guys get evaluated? size? technique? potential? a bit of all?
This, I guess, is where I just look at it differently. You have a handful of guys from this years DL class (call it 2 or 3) that are not going to see the field at that position if things go well for this team IMO. Learning a new playbook on the offensive side of the ball, while taking a lot of time, is not rocket science. It is more about repetition and discipline....but then that would be true with any recruit coming in. They *should* have the physical skills, they should be able to learn the position.
As it relates to your last question, I think that they generally are evaluated by their effectiveness....which requires some combination of all the traits that you list and there is no magical formula as to which ones are most important.