De-Commits

2

22 HORN

250+ Posts
I have heard that Texas lost 10 2014 commits; I know of some but cant recall all 10....who are they and to whom...
 
Let's see I can name 4 and where they went
OT Knox -- Ohio State
RB Gresham -- landed at SMU I read today
LB Alaka -- A&M
DT Henderson A&M
 
Here's 4 more I think.

DT Courtney Garnett - Oklahoma
DT Trey Lealaimatafao - LSU
DE Sione Teuhema - LSU
WR Emanuel Porter - TCU

Also 2015 OT Maea Teuhema - LSU if you want to count next year.

I'm not sure how you would count Porter since he flipped from TCU to UT and then he flipped back to TCU.
 
^^ Yeah, but that was way back for a few months. He decommitted last April. I now don't even think that he was ever really committed to us. But I wasn't clear in what I said. He had us for a while as a fallback safe option or something, and Daniel Gresham was in the mix too; that was about it. At least that's how it looks to me.

Anyway, it shouldn't be counted as a decommit connected to the coach change. That is about 7 decommits.
 
I don't give a flying F about the ones that decommited. Screw em.
 
Yep, no point talking about those who screwed themselves up by not coming! But the number of decommits weren't that unexpected.

The only issue this time was that there was hardly much time (just 20 days) for Charlie to try to find some big names and get them to flip. He only managed to land some good key replacements at the DL and OL spots (especially DT). He worked about as hard as he could, which is all we can ask for.
 
I am very happy with the signees and the coaching change. I see this program as being on the right track and will be one that others won't be looking forward to playing.
 
Working as hard as you can without the desired results is what an evaluation would rate the same as a perfect attendance award.
The head coach of the University of Texas should not get a pass. No excuses.
I said earlier that we need to not judge Strong until we see his performance and results. He also should not be judged or evaluated against his predecessor. He is the head coach and responsible for results.
From what I can glean from this years class;
Strong and his staff signed 6 of his own recruits:
4 star Edwin Freeman
3 star Alex Anderson
3 star Poona Ford
3 star transfer Blake Whitley
2 star E. Rodriquez
? star Nelson

Macks recruits that Strong held onto were 5-4 stars, 11-3stars and 1- 2star
Mack's committed recruits that Strong and his staff were not able to retain, Alaka, Tuehema , etc was troubling as his starting point with them was that they had already committed, not having to take them away form another team. I did not see Strong or his staff impact major commits from other power teams.

I would grade his recruiting performance as a C or C- for 2014.
Hopefully he will do better on the field in wins and losses.
 
IDH, I would disagree a bit. Poona is a 4-star (national top-300) and may even be of national top-100 quality, unless you follow recruiting services who don't do a good job of evaluating players (rivals, that is
smile.gif
). Watch his tape and see what you feel. Nelson is clearly a 3-star too. But it is true that many big programs passed on them, because they evaluated differently. It's also true that some services are giving these two guys 4 and 3 stars are basically because it was Charlie who had identified and was recruiting them for over a year. But looking at the tapes, it is tough to disagree with his evaluation, and I trust him a bit more than others.

The rest of what you say is correct, except that you didn't mention a key detail. Just 20 days to do it (and two weekends for visits). That is a HUGE deal. Charlie and Franklin ended up with a rather rare thing at a top university. A Coach being changed AFTER a bowl game and the new coaches coming in to recruit only by the 2nd week of Jan. This happens at smaller universities when a coach leaves, but only rarely at a top univ. And three extra weeks makes a huge difference. You would be hard-pressed to find any coach who started recruiting top-300 players and landed more than a couple of them in 3 weeks flat anywhere. 6 weeks, yes, that's quite a different story.

Now, let us look at some of the ones he lost and how.

Sione Teuhema (3-star) was lost because of things Charlie couldn't have done much about. His younger brother who committed to Mack (probably to make sure that older brother would have his safe offer) had a girlfriend who is going to LSU. A 3rd party's son needed a military scholarship which LSU was able to organize for him (apparently all legal). The kind of thing a coach who just came to UT would have trouble doing anything about, when it drops on him with 4 days to go to NSD, as the boys suddenly take off on a visit to LSU. Too little time to hold on to guys, when one of the top recruiting staffs in the country was working for quite some time.

Zaycoven (4 star DT) who was supposed to enroll at UT during the week when Charlie arrived (and was working on his staff) suddenly went away, for reasons only he knows. Told Texas tech that he was enrolling and next day enrolled at A&M. Whatever was the issue with him, was known to A&M, and they handled it. Charlie got to make a phone call to him, and couldn't even tell him who his staff was (I suppose). No way any coach could have brought Jaycoven back in, if A&M knew what it was he was looking for and was down to 2 days before making his decision on enrolling somewhere. So, don't put Jaycoven on Charlie, unless you want to say that he should have kept Searels (who recruited him) rather than bring in Wickline!

Alaka was really the one Charlie failed to hold on to. Not sure what Alaka's issue was, but if I were an LB and looked at how many LBs we have on campus now (and knew that Charllie and his topnotch LB coach might find a way to get those guys coached up), I would pause too. This was the straight head-to-head between Sumlin who had recruited him for months and Charlie who did it for a week. Not easy when you are up against a top recruiter who had a big leg up on you. Give Charlie a bit more time with Alaka's HS coach and you wouldn't doubt where the coach would have sent his ward (see this ESPN The Link for more). It was damn close.

Emmannuel Porter had his HS coach pushing him to TCU. He had decommitted from TCU to come to UT. He basically went back. he was the second best WR in a group of 5 WR commits (a mistake of too much early offering by the previous staff). I don't think Charlie put a full court press on Porter. I wouldn't have either, other than to show that we had one more 4-star in an already (badly) screwed up depth chart. It wasn't like CS lost a battle on that one.

Also look at some of the guys whom he held on to. In fact, had the staff not come up with a decision to get 4-star Heard's and Lorenzo's help (two guys they immediately got into the fold once they arrived - and recruits on O were what we were worried about!), and put together a 'senior day" last Saturday, we may have lost John Bonney also.

But if your basic point is that you won't give a good grade for Charlie because he pulled no magic, you are right. He is not a magician recruiter who does snake-oil sales. He is a straight-forward recruiter, who can close players by convincing them over time that he is worth playing for. There is enormous evidence of his having done that over the years. He needs time and results for that. Otherwise, it is snake-oil. So, yes, you are right that he needs results for that. He will coach these guys and get results. It better be right away too. I have no doubts, having observed how he went about the recruiting this time, that he will take back the edge away from A&M and Baylor very soon. May not do better than A&M in 2015 as it stands (unless they go 8 or less and we go 10 or more) but it will happen soon thereafter.
 
To those who still don't clearly see why time and relationships are important in recruiting, and wonder why Charlie didn't land a top-10 class like they blindly expected him to, see this from the ESPN article I linked above, which detailed the head-to-head, back-to-back visits by Sumlin and Charlie to see Alaka on Jan 23rd at his school.
In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
What jayakris said except until this time next year we will not know. Perhaps some of the recruiting staff or maybe another hold over could have made the difference, but who knows. The values of 18 year old males are not quite the same as real grown-up's.

Both Strong and Patterson have a lot riding on making a go of this.
 
Interesting, almost sympathetic, article on Ryan Perrilloux, the most infamous Longhorn decommit of them all. He paints Les Miles as the villain.
Link
 
OH, that was a good article. It's interesting to think about what would have happened if he had stayed with UT and red-shirted during the 2005 season. Of course if he had then become a good or great QB, we wouldn't have had Colt, and I'm pretty fond of Colt.
hookem.gif
 
Good article on Perriloux. That's not the last time Mack lost a recruit to Miles because Mack was honest. Miles told QB Russell Shepard, who always wanted to be a Longhorn, that he could start at quarterback and start early, while Mack wouldn't guarantee that, having gotten a comittment from Garrett Gilbert. Shepard believed Miles and signed with LSU and he ended up a receiver and never played quarterback. Despite his reputation of misleading recruits (I'm sure he's not the only one), Miles still reels 'em in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top