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?
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.