Clearly, as this is a recruiting site, there's a lot of information, speculation, and talk about how recruiting has changed since Riley arrived, and a lot of it centers on the new process, better position coaches as recruiters, and Riley's influence in California. The things that stick out more to me:
1. We're finally able to recruit QBs who seem to be without significant mechanical or processing shortcomings, QBs who can run a modern college offense. Sure, we'll have to see what happens with O'Brien and Gebbia as they are unproven and Lee who will be taking a step up in competition, but my goodness, you could argue that these three QBs are in the top 5 of QBs that we have recruited since the end of the Osborne era, with the others being probably TM and Zac Taylor.
2. Everybody in the 2016 class is qualified and here. Under the last 3 coaches, we always seemed to have several players who made our classes look better but didn't show up.
3. I know that this is 20/20 hindsight, but in the past, we would sign guys like Carl Crawford, Monte Harrison, and Bubba Starling who were high rated but had a 99% chance of not playing football. We would sign guys like Antoine Bagwell, Ronnie Smith, Kade Pittman, Shamus McKoy, Marque McCray, Santino Pancino, Justin Tomerlin, Jordan Adams, Brock Pasture, David Harvey, Ben Martin, Anthony Blue, Micah Kreikmeier, Mason Wald, Bronson Marsh, David Sutton, Dwayne Johnson, Tobi Okuyemi, Walker Ashburn, Donovan Vestal, many of which didn't have the talent to play D-1 football anywhere, especially not here. We seemed to get desperate and sign players at the end just to fill slots.
4. We seemed to have multiple academic failures and weird discipline problems in the past, we'll see if that continues, but having everyone qualifying seems to be headed in the right direction.
5. Finally, and maybe it's just me, but the photos of the new players indicate to me kids that are better put together than many in the past. I like the size at many of the positions, especially at LB.
BTW - As if we didn't have enough reasons to fire Pelini, another is: any coach who couldn't recognize a talent in state like Andy Janovich shouldn't be running a major college program. Same with Solich/Callahan and Danny Woodhead.
1. We're finally able to recruit QBs who seem to be without significant mechanical or processing shortcomings, QBs who can run a modern college offense. Sure, we'll have to see what happens with O'Brien and Gebbia as they are unproven and Lee who will be taking a step up in competition, but my goodness, you could argue that these three QBs are in the top 5 of QBs that we have recruited since the end of the Osborne era, with the others being probably TM and Zac Taylor.
2. Everybody in the 2016 class is qualified and here. Under the last 3 coaches, we always seemed to have several players who made our classes look better but didn't show up.
3. I know that this is 20/20 hindsight, but in the past, we would sign guys like Carl Crawford, Monte Harrison, and Bubba Starling who were high rated but had a 99% chance of not playing football. We would sign guys like Antoine Bagwell, Ronnie Smith, Kade Pittman, Shamus McKoy, Marque McCray, Santino Pancino, Justin Tomerlin, Jordan Adams, Brock Pasture, David Harvey, Ben Martin, Anthony Blue, Micah Kreikmeier, Mason Wald, Bronson Marsh, David Sutton, Dwayne Johnson, Tobi Okuyemi, Walker Ashburn, Donovan Vestal, many of which didn't have the talent to play D-1 football anywhere, especially not here. We seemed to get desperate and sign players at the end just to fill slots.
4. We seemed to have multiple academic failures and weird discipline problems in the past, we'll see if that continues, but having everyone qualifying seems to be headed in the right direction.
5. Finally, and maybe it's just me, but the photos of the new players indicate to me kids that are better put together than many in the past. I like the size at many of the positions, especially at LB.
BTW - As if we didn't have enough reasons to fire Pelini, another is: any coach who couldn't recognize a talent in state like Andy Janovich shouldn't be running a major college program. Same with Solich/Callahan and Danny Woodhead.
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