Competitive Status of FB, Mens and Women's Basketball Programs
Since recruiting is a very, very popular subject here, I thought I'd look at the talent status of these 3 programs.
The most interesting is men's basketball. With Sims out, every player on the team is a Murphy recruit. Murphy has had, I believe, incredible success with identifying players who can play well at the MAC level. Murphy has done an outstanding job of building a team with GB III, Riley, Ward, Harrison, Talley, Lee, Combs, etc. in such a short period of time. Not one of these kids was a recruiting miss (high school kids are more likely to be hit or miss). Quite frankly, Austin Harper was the only one who comes to mind as a recruit who really didn't achieve at EMU. Murphy's success in evaluating talent is why we are such a deep team. This is why I don't worry about Murphy's recruiting. If a player gets a SCHOLARSHIP from Murphy the kid can play. Even backups like Ajayi has promise, even though, he is very green from a basketball experience point of view and Hughley is exactly what Murphy wanted, a one year man to provide depth up front as Riley is foul prone. This is a very, very deep team and Murphy is still going 10, 11 or even 12 deep even in MAC games (normally benches get 'short' in conference competition).
Next, is women's hoops. Verdi took over a team which had won the MAC and probably was rebuilding, more than reload (which happens with programs which are always on top). Even though he has some of Gilbert's players who can play, Verdi is bring in a lot of his players who look like they will be very successful in the MAC. I think we'll wake up one day, probably next season, and say wow, this is now a very, very good MAC basketball program. Verdi seems to be a very good judge of talent and a very strong recruiter. He is going to have a very deep team next year.
Last is FB. I think the salient point here is that whatever success CC has in the next two years will be with RE's players. As I am fond of saying, MAC FB teams don't win with freshman. If a team is depending much on frosh they aren't winning. CC's big mission is to take decent MAC-level talent and see if he can win with it. The cupboard is not bare. CC just might be able to win in 2014, but not because of his recruiting, but because the existing talent is there. CC's recruiting can't be judged until the 2015 class. CC's 2014 class should be redshirted.
We won't know until next January how good of a recruiter CC will prove to be. This year the deck was really, really stacked against him (the best recruits were committed to other programs before he got on board).
So, Murphy is winning with Murphy recruits. Verdi is winning with Gilbert and his recruits. CC will try to win next year with English's recruits.
(This post was last modified: 01-19-2014 11:35 PM by emu steve.)
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