http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...10401/1064

Bearcats to sign 'very solid class' of recruits

BY BILL KOCH | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The University of Cincinnati expects to sign 16 players to letters of intent in the signing period that begins today to go with the two junior-college offensive linemen they signed in December.

UC coach Mark Dantonio's third class will add four offensive linemen, four defensive linemen and four defensive backs to a program that went 4-7 overall last year, 2-5 in its first season in the Big East Conference.

Recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said UC's class will not be highly rated in the Big East because it's relatively small, but he called it "a very solid class.

"Cincinnati won't be in the top 50," Lemming said, "but they got quality athletes at those spots, just enough of what they needed."

The Bearcats suffered one significant loss this week when they learned that wide receiver Jacob Sherman, from Jacksonville, Fla., had decided to choose Big East foe South Florida over UC.

Sherman had been considered one of the best players in UC's class because of the combination of speed and size he would have provided at wide receiver, a position that was a problem for the Bearcats last season.

Their most highly regarded player is Freddie Lenix, a 6-foot, 215-pound linebacker from Glenville High in Cleveland who reportedly runs a 4.4-second 40.

UC coaches are not allowed to comment on specific players until they sign a letter of intent, but recruiting coordinator Mark Staten talked Tuesday in general terms about this class.

"We went in thinking O-line," Staten said, "knowing we wanted to get a couple of more defensive linemen, linebackers and help in the defensive backfield, guys we can see competing in the Big East for championships. We really feel it complements the first two classes we brought in here."

Staten also thinks this class will improve the Bearcats' team speed, another area of concern last season.

UC, which returns its top four running backs from last season, has received commitments from two running backs - Jacob Ramsey of Independence High School in Columbus and John Goebel from Brother Rice High in Detroit.

There are two local players: Withrow safety Brandon Miller and Highlands tight end Ben Guidugli, the brother of former UC quarterback Gino Guidugli.

With starting QB Dustin Grutza returning for his sophomore season along with his backup, Nick Davila, and Elder High School redshirt freshman Craig Carey, UC did not recruit a quarterback.

The Bearcats also will add defensive end Curtis Smith and wide receiver Derrick Stewart, both of whom were academic non-qualifiers last season.



Coach D is still starting to add his players and install his system. Hopefully it means something big is brewing for Cincinnati football!

64 kids from Ohio signed with BCS schools, Cin got 4 of them. Before some thing special happens, Cin better close them borders.

templefootballfan Wrote:64 kids from Ohio signed with BCS schools, Cin got 4 of them. Before some thing special happens, Cin better close them borders.

We loaded up on Ohio players last year. You can only get so many players from our state and we closed ranks last year. This year we went outside of Ohio to mix things up.

templefootballfan Wrote:64 kids from Ohio signed with BCS schools, Cin got 4 of them. Before some thing special happens, Cin better close them borders.

Agreed, I don't understand why everyone is so happy about this class. It is so mediocre. If this is the best Dantonio can do, the future looks bleak.

JFlight21 Wrote:

templefootballfan Wrote:64 kids from Ohio signed with BCS schools, Cin got 4 of them. Before some thing special happens, Cin better close them borders.

Agreed, I don't understand why everyone is so happy about this class. It is so mediocre. If this is the best Dantonio can do, the future looks bleak.

People are happy because he filled our needs. The team was ridiculously young last year. A lot of last year's mistakes were attributed to youth, not lack of talent. Meanwhile, he's still house cleaning Minter's mess. Whether people like it or not Rick Minter set back this program 2 years with his senior heavy, yet thin class. I think he's doing a solid job of plugging holes and getting a solid foundation in here to win with. You're not going to all of a sudden get 4 star players into here. But with a proper foundation maybe next year he can get some top flight players in. Dantonio is building and re-building a program at the same time. Meanwhile, UC is capable of winning 7 games this year and getting to a bowl game. That will also help recruiting. Remember, Frank Beamer had some "mediocre" recruiting classes his first few years.

Filling holes?? Our most glaring need was wide reciever, and Dantonio didn't do **** about that. Without a passing game this team cannot succeed because our running game is anything but dominant. Hopefully I'm wrong, I just don't see what is so good about this class.

Our most glaring need was OL and that seemed to be filled in this class. WR should be OK with the addition of Derrick Stewart and the development of Dominic Goodman. The question marks on this team are 1. will the OL have an immediate impact?
2. will QB play improve?

If the answer to these questions is yes then we should be able to win 7 games with still a very young team. Then the next two years after that we should be able to compete for conference titles with upperclassmen.

RealDeal Wrote:Our most glaring need was OL and that seemed to be filled in this class. WR should be OK with the addition of Derrick Stewart and the development of Dominic Goodman. The question marks on this team are 1. will the OL have an immediate impact?
2. will QB play improve?

If the answer to these questions is yes then we should be able to win 7 games with still a very young team. Then the next two years after that we should be able to compete for conference titles with upperclassmen.

The quarterback won't do anything if his recievers can't get open (ours last year). The wide reciever position had to be upgraded with this recruiting class, and I don't see anything other than Derrick Stewart (from last years class).

Flight, you couldn't be any further from the truth. Poland can get behind defenses regularly. Stewart and Goodman have speed, and should be factors. Jackson and Giddens are still learning the ropes. Martin is coming off a redshirt and is reportedly very fast.

Our issues were a combination of Dustin's arm strength, and the lack of protection, plain and simple.

We're loaded up on linmen on both sides (our biggest need), and found some serious help in the secondary and linebacker. Canadian Peter Carrier at corner and Lenix at LB are impact players that could start right away. This defense won't wear down like it did late last year.

Good running backs as well. We need to improve to stay with the big dogs in the conference, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

I'll be honest. I checked out the Rivals Ohio Top 60 and when I saw only 3 or 4 UC commits I was a little concerned also. I'll take the Bearcat fan's word on it explanation wise though. It seems plausible that when you can only take a small class and the scholarships to hand out are at a premium, sometimes you just aren't going to find the guys you want at the positions you need in state.

For future years though...I'd definitely be concerned if I see MAC school names more often on the list than UC anymore.

Lemmiwinks Wrote:Flight, you couldn't be any further from the truth. Poland can get behind defenses regularly. Stewart and Goodman have speed, and should be factors. Jackson and Giddens are still learning the ropes. Martin is coming off a redshirt and is reportedly very fast.

Our issues were a combination of Dustin's arm strength, and the lack of protection, plain and simple.

We're loaded up on linmen on both sides (our biggest need), and found some serious help in the secondary and linebacker. Canadian Peter Carrier at corner and Lenix at LB are impact players that could start right away. This defense won't wear down like it did late last year.

Good running backs as well. We need to improve to stay with the big dogs in the conference, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Unfortunately you're going to have UC fans trashing UC's recruiting class without digging deeper and realizing the quality that UC actually got. UC doesn't have the benefit of having a "celebrated" recruiting class.

CollegeCard Wrote:I'll be honest. I checked out the Rivals Ohio Top 60 and when I saw only 3 or 4 UC commits I was a little concerned also. I'll take the Bearcat fan's word on it explanation wise though. It seems plausible that when you can only take a small class and the scholarships to hand out are at a premium, sometimes you just aren't going to find the guys you want at the positions you need in state.

For future years though...I'd definitely be concerned if I see MAC school names more often on the list than UC anymore.

Rivals rankings are garbage, I don't even take it seriously because they adjust their ratings to praise the big name schools. UC could recruiting 10 4 star athletes but they would become 2 or 3 star players when UC got them.

Cat's Claw, are you suprised that UC didn't bring in a JC QB? After watching a few Bearcat games last yr I am not really sold on Grutza at all. He seemed to regress as the season went along. I thought he played better against Penn St then he did against WVU for example



Jackson

UC has a redshirt freshman who will battle for the starting spot. I expect him to win it, actually. Strong arm, mobile, and has size. That is why they didn't get a QB in this class.

As far as getting players in state, UC went after speed this year. They hit Florida hard (for UC anyway).

As far as JFlight is concerned, he has no clue what he is talking about. Talk to anybody who has actually seen the UC recruits (go to Scout, Rivals has nobody following the UC program). They are all excited by the recruits, and feel that UC has really upgraded the team.

WR is a position they did recruit hard, unfortunately they lost their best WR recruit for this years class at the last minute. By then it was too late to try to get another guy in. Stewart and Barnett should fit in nicely with Goodman and Poland next year, as it is.

Jackson1011 Wrote:Cat's Claw, are you suprised that UC didn't bring in a JC QB? After watching a few Bearcat games last yr I am not really sold on Grutza at all. He seemed to regress as the season went along. I thought he played better against Penn St then he did against WVU for example



Jackson

Jackson, we actually did have a JUCO QB (Nick Davila) playing behind Dustin. He has arguably better arm strength and many of us were criticizing Dantonio for not going with him. He'd usually see mop-up duty in garbage time against a prevent defense.

The one time he was in for "hot" action was vs. Pitt in the second quarter, and did not do well at all. Coaches say he had to learn the system, and Nick accepted the backup role. He'll be in the thick of it, along with the guy MLB mentioned.

There will actually be two RS QBs, Craig Carey being the better of the two. Makes a total of four guys fighting for the spot, so there'll be good competition.

This class is far from solid.

Cincy's class ranked 8th in the Big East and 101st Nationally. Solid, if you play in the Sun Belt

Rivals has no clue, they don't even have a guy who follows UC. Scout has UC ranked 66th, and the UC scout site has a publisher who follows UC football recruiting very closely.

This class was recruited from need. I like that we are deep in positions that need numbers. We got size and speed where needed. When you have 8 to 10 lineman I do not think you are going to get high ratings.
We did not have a Qb or many running backs that tend to get you points.
This class is not finished either. We still will most likely sign a kicker and catch someone who gets grades late, plus give one to an earned walk-on most likely. I like the fact we have Cincy kids, Ohio kids, Calif kids, Fla kids along with the border states and East Coast. Dantonio is doing it the right way. Almost every kid was an honor roll student etc.

CatsClaw Wrote:

CollegeCard Wrote:I'll be honest. I checked out the Rivals Ohio Top 60 and when I saw only 3 or 4 UC commits I was a little concerned also. I'll take the Bearcat fan's word on it explanation wise though. It seems plausible that when you can only take a small class and the scholarships to hand out are at a premium, sometimes you just aren't going to find the guys you want at the positions you need in state.

For future years though...I'd definitely be concerned if I see MAC school names more often on the list than UC anymore.

Rivals rankings are garbage, I don't even take it seriously because they adjust their ratings to praise the big name schools. UC could recruiting 10 4 star athletes but they would become 2 or 3 star players when UC got them.

This is true....rivals rankings are geared toward making the O$U's look good..in fact if I'm not mistaken, Rivals is the one that is run by basically O$U alums and so every player O$U is after is automatically 4 star...if O$U looses the kid to anothe school he mysteriously drops to 2-3 star....it's all a fricken sham

What some of these services do is look at who is recruiting the kid and that helps them make their star assesment...i.e....if UC is looking at a kid along with Toledo he MUST be no better than 2 star.....but if O$U is looking at a kid then he's at LEAST a four star....hey, since we know he MUST be good if the Suckeyes are prepared to pay him, then why even go watch the kid play...let's list him as 4 star and move to another kid....

This is the mentality of some of these services...so who cares what they say.