(10-14-2018 02:22 PM)owlman70 Wrote:  

(10-13-2018 04:06 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(10-12-2018 08:52 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 07:57 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  Junior day this weekend? Looks like some 2020 guys are coming

Let’s hope we at least look competitive this week in front of the recruits. While some would say that the last 3 games would show recruits that they have a chance to play immediately, I worry that we looked so bad that recruits would fear that there was little chance the program was worth taking a chance on.

after today...we need them more than ever.

Spoke at length with Nutter’s dad who seemed unfazed by the debacle
on the field.

The Nutter Kid is a well-built 285 pounder who looks like a solid player -though I’ve not seen him play.

I guess our selling points are instant playing time and a coach who gets offensive linemen into the NFL (in addition to our usual education etc). Anyone coming into Rice knows we’re terrible now.

Just got what I believe to be a PWO commitment from Nick Wagman from Potomac, MD (Churchill). Looks like an undersized OL who was also looking at some Ivies. Has an older brother who walked on at UMD.

A PWO is almost equivalent to a scholarship at Rice with the new Investment.

(10-16-2018 10:41 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  A PWO is almost equivalent to a scholarship at Rice with the new Investment.

Eh, kinda-sorta. You don't get a cost-of-attendance check, books, and other ancillary benefits which add up. Also, as much as coaches don't want to admit it, they generally favor scholarship players. For example, in the old locker room before Patterson, freshman walk-ons were banished to "temporary," metal, middle-school style locker rooms in the rear corner since there weren't enough regular ones. The things didn't even fit all of a player's gear. Obviously that particular thing isn't an issue anymore, but just an example.

Also, given where this kid is from, he may not qualify for the investment. I'm pretty sure Potomac has one of the highest median incomes of anywhere in the US.

(10-16-2018 09:23 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Just got what I believe to be a PWO commitment from Nick Wagman from Potomac, MD (Churchill). Looks like an undersized OL who was also looking at some Ivies. Has an older brother who walked on at UMD.

Confirmed on Twitter as a PWO.

One thing I’ve been thinking about the last couple of weeks is that our lack of ability to take early enrollees is really killing us in terms of ability to revive the program quickly.

Right now you’ve got guys like Montero, Chamberlain, etc playing decent despite only having 6 weeks of college strength and conditioning. Imagine if we could get 5-6 guys to join the program in January and have 7 months under their belt by the time the next season started. That’d be huge.

I sincerely hope a second 1 win season in a row will not be as huge a millstone around recruiting as I think it will be.

(10-18-2018 01:49 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  I sincerely hope a second 1 win season in a row will not be as huge a millstone around recruiting as I think it will be.

I don't think it will be. New coach's first season. In addition to the usual pitch, still selling newness and change, plus opportunities for early playing time. Now if we are really bad again next year...

Offered ‘19 ATH Jake Bailey from San Clemente, CA.

Looks like he had early offers from BC, UCLA, and BYU but more recent interest appears to be Service Academies and Ivies.

I’m hoping we are trying to make safeties out of some of these ATH types.

Wr jalen mcmillan(yes he's my cousin) 4 star wr from fresno cali it's tearing it up. I tried to put the staff on him last year. He's a really good baseball player as well. Got the rice connection, we should use the baseball to our advantage, and his(our) cousin went to UCLA. He's got the grades. He would help A LOT.

(10-19-2018 05:05 PM)nightowl24 Wrote:  Wr jalen mcmillan(yes he's my cousin) 4 star wr from fresno cali it's tearing it up. I tried to put the staff on him last year. He's a really good baseball player as well. Got the rice connection, we should use the baseball to our advantage, and his(our) cousin went to UCLA. He's got the grades. He would help A LOT.

Don't get me wrong, everybody would love it if we could land him. But he's the #92 player in 2020 with offers from LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, etc. Why in the world would he come to Rice?

To succeed in recruiting, I think we have to look for niches that may go overlooked. Places I think we can focus:

1. ATH types. We can use them in several spots.
2. Fullbacks and tight ends. A lot of spread offenses don't use them. I remember Pat Hill at Fresno (the "anybody, anywhere, anytime" guy) saying that his offense would always use a FB and a TE because those were positions that not everybody recruited, so there were good athletes that the big boys would pass on. And lots of those guys can help at LB or d-line if they don't make it at their recruited position.
3. Multi-sport athletes who want to continue to play multiple sports. Jess recruited a lot of those, nobody since has really done that. I realize that sports have become really specialized since Jess's time, but if we could pick off one or two great athletes a year, that would obviously help both football and whatever the other sport was.
4. Running quarterbacks. OK, I know I've said I liked the Erk Russell/Bob Wagner/Paul Johnson flexbone that combined the wishbone and the run-and-shoot, and this kind of player would be more effective in that scheme. And the big boys who are looking for pocket passers will pass on these guys. But this kind of player can also make an outstanding safety, or even LB if he grows like Dan Dawson did. If Texas tells a kid who was a running QB in HS, "We want you but we want you to play DB," and we say, "We'll give you a sot at QB, and if that doesn't work then we'll get you on the field as a DB," then we ave a chance to get that kid.
5. Defensive linemen that can convert to offense if they don't work out on defense. This was a favorite of Fred's, and I think it makes a lot of sense for us.
6. Smaller schools. Bill Yeoman had a Cotton Bowl team that had more starters from 3A and smaller schools than any other SWC school. Places like Brenham and Van Alstyne. I think we can find some diamonds in the rough.
7. Guys who may not have all the measurables, but are simply good football players.

Some of those represent contrarian thinking, and I realize that other than perhaps the FBs/TEs, those really aren't the people we need to pound the rock. But I'm not all that fond of pound the rock. My feeling there is that at least I know what Bloomgren is trying to do, and if he can make it work then more power to him, but I just don't think that gives us our best chance to win. If there's a common objective to them, I'd say it's to accumulate a more athletic talent pool that can help on both sides of the ball. With our chronic depth issues, I think that's a huge consideration.

If we took this approach, we might well end up with a team that were better athletes than football players. I think that's a good problem to have.

(10-19-2018 05:46 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 05:05 PM)nightowl24 Wrote:  Wr jalen mcmillan(yes he's my cousin) 4 star wr from fresno cali it's tearing it up. I tried to put the staff on him last year. He's a really good baseball player as well. Got the rice connection, we should use the baseball to our advantage, and his(our) cousin went to UCLA. He's got the grades. He would help A LOT.

Don't get me wrong, everybody would love it if we could land him. But he's the #92 player in 2020 with offers from LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, etc. Why in the world would he come to Rice?

Because cousin nightowl can exercise a lot of (totally legal) influence?

Call the recruiting coordinator. They always want to hear from Rice followers. Just be ready to have some backup data to send them. Be proactive.

(10-19-2018 06:33 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 05:46 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 05:05 PM)nightowl24 Wrote:  Wr jalen mcmillan(yes he's my cousin) 4 star wr from fresno cali it's tearing it up. I tried to put the staff on him last year. He's a really good baseball player as well. Got the rice connection, we should use the baseball to our advantage, and his(our) cousin went to UCLA. He's got the grades. He would help A LOT.

Don't get me wrong, everybody would love it if we could land him. But he's the #92 player in 2020 with offers from LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, etc. Why in the world would he come to Rice?

Because cousin nightowl can exercise a lot of (totally legal) influence?

Even then. If you have the grades for Rice, you have the grades for Duke, Vandy, Stanford, NW etc. And if you have the talent to be recruited by LSU, OU and Oregon, then why would they come to Rice? Influence can help, but usually thats on a borderline case or choosing between equal options.

Just my 2 cents. Obviously this case could be different and it would be great to pick up a 4 star with offers from the big name P5s, but I'd still be scratching my head if he did decide to come here.

(10-19-2018 07:18 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 06:33 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 05:46 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  

(10-19-2018 05:05 PM)nightowl24 Wrote:  Wr jalen mcmillan(yes he's my cousin) 4 star wr from fresno cali it's tearing it up. I tried to put the staff on him last year. He's a really good baseball player as well. Got the rice connection, we should use the baseball to our advantage, and his(our) cousin went to UCLA. He's got the grades. He would help A LOT.

Don't get me wrong, everybody would love it if we could land him. But he's the #92 player in 2020 with offers from LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, etc. Why in the world would he come to Rice?

Because cousin nightowl can exercise a lot of (totally legal) influence?

Even then. If you have the grades for Rice, you have the grades for Duke, Vandy, Stanford, NW etc. And if you have the talent to be recruited by LSU, OU and Oregon, then why would they come to Rice? Influence can help, but usually thats on a borderline case or choosing between equal options.

Just my 2 cents. Obviously this case could be different and it would be great to pick up a 4 star with offers from the big name P5s, but I'd still be scratching my head if he did decide to come here.

We got gavin booth, #21 we in his class. I told then a year ago what he was. Lol. I know new staff. But still I've put them on great players EARLY. THAT'S the key identify early and offer. Use that to your advantage. It may not work but at least try. I can't promise he's coming but dang why not go after him early to try and get the commit? I got some others we should go after right now that are young but they don't listen. THIS is my problem with rice. People who have played and know talent they don't listen to. They don't even try. Put it out there. Use your inside line. You'd be surprised who will commit.

I was at tonight's Ridge Point/Travis game (before the rains came and pretty much washed out the entire 2nd half). Tons of offense in the first half, it was 36-29 RP at the half. I really liked Travis' junior QB Eric Rodriguez (but not as a QB - he's a D1 prospect for sure either at RB or possibly in the secondary?). Travis has someone committed to OU but I don't even recall seeing him much.

RP has some guys committed to various schools (a senior DE to UH) but most of their best players are underclass. They have a junior DL (Bryson Stewart) who I think is better than the UH commit. They also have a sophomore WR (JP Richardson - Bucky's son) who will be D1 although I question whether he is good enough or big enough to play at A&M.

(10-18-2018 12:29 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  One thing I’ve been thinking about the last couple of weeks is that our lack of ability to take early enrollees is really killing us in terms of ability to revive the program quickly.

Right now you’ve got guys like Montero, Chamberlain, etc playing decent despite only having 6 weeks of college strength and conditioning. Imagine if we could get 5-6 guys to join the program in January and have 7 months under their belt by the time the next season started. That’d be huge.

Forgive my ignorance, but how does this work?

Does the player have to graduate HS before attending Rice?

(10-20-2018 07:27 AM)TFW Wrote:  

(10-18-2018 12:29 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  One thing I’ve been thinking about the last couple of weeks is that our lack of ability to take early enrollees is really killing us in terms of ability to revive the program quickly.

Right now you’ve got guys like Montero, Chamberlain, etc playing decent despite only having 6 weeks of college strength and conditioning. Imagine if we could get 5-6 guys to join the program in January and have 7 months under their belt by the time the next season started. That’d be huge.

Forgive my ignorance, but how does this work?

Does the player have to graduate HS before attending Rice?

Essentially, you graduate HS in 3.5 years. Apparently, this isn’t very difficult at lots of high schools (it wouldn’t have been allowed at mine).

This isn’t something that only the “factories” do... Lots of solid academic schools also do this.

Here’s an article about it: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sbnatio...recruiting