Recruiting

[TUFan1981]

I think it's fair to question Monty's wares as a recruiter. To me, we look pretty slow and I'm wondering where the speed is. No, I'm not ready to can the guy, but this is somewhat alarming. Look, having a rebuilding season is no crime, but what I'm seeing out there isn't rebuilding, it's a dumpster fire. Yeah, I think there should be a higher level of talent on campus and I'm definitely wondering if Philip can recruit at the level we need. Say what you will, but Dane Evans, Keevan Lucas and notable others were not his guys.

 

[drboobay]

I think it's fair to question Monty's wares as a recruiter. To me, we look pretty slow and I'm wondering where the speed is. No, I'm not ready to can the guy, but this is somewhat alarming. Look, having a rebuilding season is no crime, but what I'm seeing out there isn't rebuilding, it's a dumpster fire. Yeah, I think there should be a higher level of talent on campus and I'm definitely wondering if Philip can recruit at the level we need. Say what you will, but Dane Evans, Keevan Lucas and notable others were not his guys.

I think we have playmakers on offense. Stokes and Brooks both look good. Skipper had a nice debut.

Defense looks completely disorganized so hard to gage the talent level.

 

[Lumpuckeroo]

I think we have playmakers on offense. Stokes and Brooks both look good. Skipper had a nice debut.

Defense looks completely disorganized so hard to gage the talent level.

Defensive talent is at "Low Tide". Unless there is someone on redshirt (and I doubt it), we need some juco players to fill the void. I watched Houston and SMU play each other tonight and it doesn't look good for us. If the Tulane coach had not let up on the throttle in the second half they could have got close to the 100 point beat down by Houston 49 years ago. Our excuse back then was the flu bug decimated TU's players...today was a total embarrassment.

 

[hotterthanyourhusbandTU]

The resultant talent from his three years of recruiting is by far the biggest issue IMO.

When these “rockstar” young coaches come in, there is typically a very nice “surge” in year 3 related to the overall talent on a team.

What’s surprising to me? When you look at Monty’s recruits, there’s really only 1 that looks to be far superior than Blankenship’s recruits...Shamari Brooks.

Conversely, Blank’s recruiting looks far superior in numerous areas...including the skill positions and at QB.

Obviously, it’s early in some of their careers. Also, it’s unfair to compare the incomplete careers of freshman and sophomores to juniors and seniors, but I am absolutely shocked that Monty’s talent isn’t at (at least) at a slightly higher level than Blank’s...

Especially at receiver! Wow.

 

[jerandlaur]

This is almost comical. Anytime we lose people like to blame recruiting. The reason Blankenship won the first two season was because he had Graham's recruits, when he got his own he sucked. Then Montgomery has a 6-7 season and a 10-3 season with many of those same players and now that they are losing he obviously can't recruit. So he won with recruits from a coach who can't recruit but now that he is losing its because he can't recruit? Give me a break.

I don't know what the problem is but we have to stop bringing out the same excuses every single time.

 

[cmullinsTU]

I do not think this is an issue of recruiting, at least not primarily.

It comes down to a few issues compounding to make this one of the worst teams in recent memory:

1. Our best talent is young, at almost every position
2. Offense struggles to stay on the field. This leads to a bad defense being on the field substantially more.
3. Defensive coaching has been piss poor all 3 seasons now. It’s worse this year because the pieces of talent we did have graduated. And the coaches aren’t doing a good job teaching the kids.
4. Monty decided to be stubborn and keep President as the starter 2-3 games too many. Seeing what we did yesterday out of Skipper, it is truly baffling to me how coach could see Skipper/President in practice and decide President is the better option.
5. We played seniors due to being veterans instead of playing the most talented players. Especially on defense and at DT.

We knew going into this year it was a rebuilding year but those 5 items have led to a terrible season. I’m not making excuses, I’m not at all happy with the product on the field the last 4 games, but wanted to provide my opinion on why the coaches have failed this season.

 

[TulsaGrad07]

How can TU start winning the recruiting battles? We assess the team as outsiders on game performace from week-to-week. Recruting is a 24/7 competition with no real beginning or end date. Do we need a bigger network? BB had the best of the non-OU / OSU recruits in his pocket when he coached here because he'd cultivated a vast network with other coaches around the state coaching HS football. How'd Todd Graham do such a good job when he was a cussing, apoplectic tyrant 95% of the time...

 

[tuharvard]

We used to have a few more recruiting pipelines that provided some excellent talent. Our roster will always be heavy with Oklahoma and Texas kids. However, we have struck gold in the past with recruits from other areas.

Graham (and his assistants), in particular, developed a couple of pipelines that gave us some of the best players we’ve had in the past couple decades. The main one was Louisiana. First, he reeled in Damaris Johnson in 2008. Thanks in large part to Damaris’s instant success, we were able to go back down to Louisiana the next year and lure even more talent to Tulsa. Ricky Johnson and Jordan James were talented WR’s. Dexter McCoil and Alex Singleton ended their careers among the best players at their positions in TU history.

Graham signed 6 players from Louisiana over the course of 2 years. 3 of them became all-time greats at TU. And it all started with the signing of 1 player. I realize that luring recruits to TU is a challenge. But I believe Monty has all the tools to get it done. It just might take some unconventional thinking.

 

[HuffyCane]

Graham only hired his friends/family and people who could deliver a proven recruiting stream of players.

Montgomery hired his friends.

After two decades of exposure to Texas high school coaches, part of that with a Big 12 recruiting budget, I would have liked to have seen a better pipeline system. You could almost project who TG was going to recruit by looking at holes in the lineup in two years and then surfing the Internet to see what Cedar Hill, LA, the northwest Arkansas schools and the Austin suburbs had coming down their pipe as juniors who were good enough but not too good to get away.

Brennan Marion is a good young coach and a recruiting machine. Bring him home Coach — if we can afford him at this point.

 

[Raisin_Cane]

OUR PLAYERS ARE YOUNG. They look slow because they're hesitant and learning. They were young during Blankenship's last two years and then got older and better. They're young again. When you bring in a new coach, that first recruiting class is usually worse than normal.

Go look at Monty's classes and see who is playing. He brought in JR Reed who switched his commitment from SMU when Monty got hired. Know where he is? Starting at Georgia because he's good. Other than him, almost every defensive player Monty has brought in over the last two years has been called in to service this year. That's a lot of youth. We're talking a bunch of true freshmen, redshirt freshmen, and redshirt sophomores. Very few of these guys have less than two years of playing time remaining. They're young but experience makes guys more confident. Everyone breathe and accept what this season looks like.

 

[Lumpuckeroo]

OUR PLAYERS ARE YOUNG. They look slow because they're hesitant and learning. They were young during Blankenship's last two years and then got older and better. They're young again. When you bring in a new coach, that first recruiting class is usually worse than normal.

Go look at Monty's classes and see who is playing. He brought in JR Reed who switched his commitment from SMU when Monty got hired. Know where he is? Starting at Georgia because he's good. Other than him, almost every defensive player Monty has brought in over the last two years has been called in to service this year. That's a lot of youth. We're talking a bunch of true freshmen, redshirt freshmen, and redshirt sophomores. Very few of these guys have less than two years of playing time remaining. They're young but experience makes guys more confident. Everyone breathe and accept what this season looks like.

It all starts on the D-Line and on game day they are hemorrhaging. First play against Tulane...51 yard run right up the middle. When you don't stop the run and cannot put any pressure on the QB , you rarely win. Give an average quarterback 5 to 7 seconds to hold the ball and he becomes a great QB. TU has to upgrade the D-Tackle position next year , then work on the rest.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

Another year under Flanary, Robinson, and Stevenson's belt should improve it dramatically. Bringing in a decent JC recruit would help as well. Player should be good as well but he won't be our salvation his freshman year. But he should help quite a bit his sophomore and jr year.

 

[Lumpuckeroo]

It all starts on the D-Line and on game day they are hemorrhaging. First play against Tulane...51 yard run right up the middle. When you don't stop the run and cannot put any pressure on the QB , you rarely win. Give an average quarterback 5 to 7 seconds to hold the ball and he becomes a great QB. TU has to upgrade the D-Tackle position next year , then work on the rest.

We used to have a few more recruiting pipelines that provided some excellent talent. Our roster will always be heavy with Oklahoma and Texas kids. However, we have struck gold in the past with recruits from other areas.

Graham (and his assistants), in particular, developed a couple of pipelines that gave us some of the best players we’ve had in the past couple decades. The main one was Louisiana. First, he reeled in Damaris Johnson in 2008. Thanks in large part to Damaris’s instant success, we were able to go back down to Louisiana the next year and lure even more talent to Tulsa. Ricky Johnson and Jordan James were talented WR’s. Dexter McCoil and Alex Singleton ended their careers among the best players at their positions in TU history.

Graham signed 6 players from Louisiana over the course of 2 years. 3 of them became all-time greats at TU. And it all started with the signing of 1 player. I realize that luring recruits to TU is a challenge. But I believe Monty has all the tools to get it done. It just might take some unconventional thinking.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

Player is our highest ranked guy, so that is good tidings as far as who we've got so far.

 

[Lumpuckeroo]

Damaris Johnson and Charles Clay- two D-1 studs . Man , they were fun to watch. Hated the way Damaris ended his career on a foolish mistake, but will always fondly remember his talents.

 

[TU1NNJ]

IIRC Clay only came because Genesis Cole was his best friend. He was set to go to Arkansas as a LB. The day before signing he called the TU coaches and asked if he could play offense if he signed with TU. Sometimes the Football “gods” smile on TU!

 

[TU Sepp]

When Iowa St. has a better 3rd string QB than our best QB, we have a problem!

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

When Iowa St. has a better 3rd string QB than our best QB, we have a problem!

We made New Mexico's 3rd stringer look pretty good too.

 

[cmullinsTU]

We made New Mexico's 3rd stringer look pretty good too.

That’s it!!! I see why Monty thinks so highly of President’s game. He’s playing against our defense in practice and probably has 200-300 rushing yards per practice on them.