It's only natural for us to get caught up in the "game" of recruiting down the stretch towards NSD and pay a lot of attention to the last guys to commit. Those guys are great players and certainly important members of the program, but I also want to give a big shout out to all of our early commits this year. We have a lot of guys who bought in very early to what our staff was selling and they stayed strong throughout the process. Guys like Shane Dillon, Tyler Henington, Jeff Thomas, Gerald Thomas, the Irwins, Gerrad Kough, Terrance Crowder, and Davien Payne (I apologize in advance if I'm forgetting some, I'm no Buffnik or Boulder Buff). These are players that could have played the game in the media, taken a bunch of extra trips, and tried to collect every offer they could. Instead, they chose to focus on school, their teams and on getting ready to be Buffs. These are players that turned down the chance to have their name up on ESPN or Rivals or Scout as a "big" name still on the board. These are players that said thanks, but no thanks when some of the "name" programs came knocking at their door throughout the fall.
Look especially at a guy like Clay Norgard. He is a major talent and was our very first commit of this class -- and he is already contributing to the program. Not only did he commit early and stay solid, he enrolled early to help with our numbers and so he could practice this spring at an unbelievably important position. He's just as important a commit as any one of the guys we got this year, but he didn't get a signing day ceremony yesterday, he didn't get his face in the local papers or on the 10:00 news, he didn't schedule his own press conference. He went to class, to the gym, to study hall (during Embo's presser, no less), and hopefully to get a burrito.
A big welcome to Clay and the rest of our early commits, we're proud to have you in the Black and Gold!
Look especially at a guy like Clay Norgard. He is a major talent and was our very first commit of this class -- and he is already contributing to the program. Not only did he commit early and stay solid, he enrolled early to help with our numbers and so he could practice this spring at an unbelievably important position. He's just as important a commit as any one of the guys we got this year, but he didn't get a signing day ceremony yesterday, he didn't get his face in the local papers or on the 10:00 news, he didn't schedule his own press conference. He went to class, to the gym, to study hall (during Embo's presser, no less), and hopefully to get a burrito.
A big welcome to Clay and the rest of our early commits, we're proud to have you in the Black and Gold!