MSNsportsNET.com Wrote:New Approach
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
March 6, 2008


Associate Head Coach Doc Holliday talks to reporters earlier this month at the Milan Puskar Center.
All-Pro Photogrpahy/Dale Sparks

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Having spent the last three years at the University of Florida, West Virginia University Associate Head Coach Doc Holliday grew to appreciate the number of outstanding high school prospects located nearby in the state of Georgia.

Consequently, Holliday says the state will now become a recruiting priority for West Virginia. Nearly 100 Georgia prospects signed with Division I schools last year and West Virginia will use at least three coaches to recruit the state.

“We’re going to take the Atlanta area from the airport to a two-hour radius from there,” Holliday said. “Lonnie Galloway is going to go in there. We think there are a lot of players in the state of Georgia and with our ties with Lonnie and also with Dave Johnson being at the University of Georgia and Jeff Mullen who has recruited that area, we’re going to concentrate hard on the Atlanta area.”

In the short period of time Holliday has been on the job as West Virginia’s director of recruiting, his staff has already made its presence felt in Atlanta by landing outstanding linebacker prospect Bernard Smith from Benjamin E. Mays High School. Smith was considered one of the Top 100 prospects in the state.

Holliday indicated that West Virginia will also make a return to New Jersey where assistant coach David Lockwood will primarily work. For many years the Garden State produced some of West Virginia’s top players, including a Holy Cross High School pipeline of prospects that included Avon Cobourne, Matt Taffoni, Bryan Pukenas and Kevin Landolt.

“We’re going to work really hard within a six-hour radius of our campus,” Holliday said.

That includes West Virginia. The Mountaineers landed one Mountain State prospect this year in Parade All-American offensive lineman Josh Jenkins from Parkersburg, and they plan on adding several invited walk-ons. West Virginia has fared well in the past with invited walk-ons from the state with several eventually receiving scholarships and earning playing time.

“We’re going to take all nine coaches and put them in the state of West Virginia and this spring we’re going to go out and hit every high school in the state,” Holliday said. “If there is a player in the state of West Virginia that is good enough for us to win the Big East championship and can help us play for the national championship we’re definitely going to recruit him. They will not go unnoticed in the state.”

Holliday says Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia will also remain important areas of emphasis for the staff. Veteran coach Bill Kirelawich will continue to recruit Eastern Pennsylvania where his ties are strong, Dave Johnson will recruit Western Pennsylvania where he once played high school football, and Chris Beatty will have the entire state of Virginia with an emphasis on Virginia Beach. Beatty was a successful high school coach in the Virginia Beach area before moving on to college football.

Jeff Casteel will take the Washington, D.C. area up to Baltimore - an area he became familiar with while coaching at Shepherd College, while Steve Dunlap and Jeff Mullen will split up Ohio. Mullen will recruit northern Ohio and Dunlap will take southern Ohio.

“Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, the Virginia area … we’re going to focus hard on. The No. 1 thing is this: there are enough great players out for us to win a Big East championship and play for a national title, we’ve just got to work our tails off and do a great job and hopefully we can find those guys,” Holliday said.

Holliday’s primary territory will remain South Florida where he has recruited for the last 25 years. Many of his former West Virginia players are now high school coaches at some of the top prep programs in the Sunshine State. Johnson, Galloway and Kirelawich will also recruit parts of Florida.

Holliday says new coach Bill Stewart has made identifying and evaluating prep prospects a top priority.

“I’ve been very fortunate the last eight years to be a part of two very good football staffs and the staff that Coach Stewart has put together here, not only are they great coaches but they’re great recruiters,” Holliday said. “We’re in the process of putting our boards together and right now we have a board list of about 300 kids that we’re actively recruiting and have evaluated at this point. Coach Stewart has given us the opportunity to spend about two hours every morning evaluating tapes and adding to our list.

“We’re looking forward to getting out there this spring and finding more players and actively recruit those guys,” Holliday said.

Holliday also mentioned that the staff is still pursuing a couple of prospects for this year’s recruiting class. The Mountaineers added Glendale (Ariz.) Community College running back Zach Hulse last week.

“We’ve got some concerns as far as our tailback depth along with our slot and our H receivers, so we’re going to continue to look for some people and hopefully down the road there will be one more guy we can add to the class,” Holliday said. “We can’t talk about anybody because we don’t have them signed but maybe at some point we can.”

He's right. There's a ton of talent around Atlanta. Where do you think most of last year's Georgia team came from?