Did the Tennessee Volunteers "win" National Signing Day?
by Joel Hollingsworth on Feb 4, 2010 7:06 AM EST
in Rocky Top Talking Points
Email
PrintTalking Points for 2/4/10, with links and excerpts below the jump:
- Did Tennessee "win" National Signing Day?
- Are we getting too carried away with recruiting?
- Is defensive back Eddrick Loften better than Michael Huff, a Thorpe Award winner?
- Just who is Justin Wilcox, besides Tennessee's new defensive coordinator?
- Oh, and there's a basketball game tonight against LSU and Tasmin Mitchell.
USC, Tennessee survive craziness of coaching carousel - Matt Hayes - College Football - Sporting News
Dooley was hired on Jan.15, and had all of one day to convince eight mid-term enrollees, including potential starting quarterback Matt Simms, to stick with their commitment and sign with the Vols. He then had to address a fractured program (and the remainder of the recruiting class) falling apart because of a coaching search that included too many public rejections—and one seemingly odd hire. Dooley wasn't Tennessee's first choice, nor the second or even third. You could argue that he was, more than anything, the panic choice. And now look: If this remarkable recruiting recovery is an indicator of things to come on the field, maybe Tennessee found the right guy. It's way too early and recruiting rankings are notoriously overblown, but you have to start somewhere. And considering where the Vols were three short weeks ago, what Dooley and his staff accomplished is staggering. "It's shocking because of name recognition," said Sporting News recruiting expert Brian McLaughlin. "How many of those big (recruits) knew of Derek Dooley at Louisiana Tech?"
Signing day notes - CBSSports.com
Winners Tennessee: Never mind Derek Dooley’s closing job. The recruiting class just became that much better. A Boise television station reported Tuesday night and ESPN said Wednesday that Boise defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox is headed to Tennessee. Wilcox is one of the young up and comers. He was a short timer at Boise after his unit shut down Oregon and TCU on national television. The 33-year-old has coordinated the Broncos D for the last four seasons. Boise led the WAC in scoring defense and total defense in each of those four seasons. The Oregon grad also worked at Cal before for three years as linebackers coach before coming to Boise for the second time in 2006.
Twitter / Steve McDuffie : Herbstreet just said The V ...
Herbstreet just said The Vols won Signing Day. And The QB was one to watch.
Adams: Despite upheaval, class maintains dignity " GoVolsXtra
The program has lost at least six games in three of the last five seasons and has had three different head coaches in 15 months. Yet it hasn't lost its allure to recruits from all over the country. . . . . I'm not suggesting that a 100,000-seat stadium, state-of-the art facilities and great tradition right all wrongs. But they combine for a wonderfully large safety net.
Receiver U wide open for business " GoVolsXtra
New coach Derek Dooley tried to downplay recruiting rankings and any individual projections for his hastily assembled first class, but with at least one position that combination was hard to ignore. Headlined by Justin Hunter and Da'Rick Rogers, the program formerly known as Wide Receiver U lived up to its billing, perhaps landing the best haul of targets in the nation during Wednesday's National Signing Day. "I think every year you're always looking for game-changing, play-making offensive weapons," Dooley said. "You're looking really for every position, but certainly when it gets down there in the fourth quarter and it gets tight, usually the guys on the perimeter, or a running back, quarterback, receiver, those are the guys that go and win the game for you.
Dooley tempers talk of top 15 signing class " GoVolsXtra
Led by Dooley, the Vols finished the day with 25 signees, ranking ninth, 11th and 15th nationally by Rivals.com, ESPN and Scout.com, respectively. Still, Dooley tried to temper the enthusiasm during his signing-day press conference at Neyland Stadium. "I think it's a little bit jumping the gun to get so excited for signing day even though I think it's a great event for the fans," he said.
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Smokey and the bandit
"It's challenging, but that's what you're dealt with, so you can't whine, and you can't complain," Dooley said of the past weeks' obstacles. "When I took the job, I didn't go, 'Well, that's not fair.' You know what you're getting into. There's nothing you can do to look back and say, 'Gosh this,' or, 'Gosh that.' I'm happy with the class that we got. There's going to be challenges in everything. We're going to have challenges in a game. Welcome to life. You have challenges. Things don't always work out the way you want it, and so you just figure out your solution to the next thing. That's what we try to do. "There's challenges, but there were some advantages. Let's don't lose sight that we got some guys who weren't interested in this place for other reasons. James Stone's a classic example. For every time you complain about, 'Well, we lost this guy,' well, we also got rewarded, too. It all evens out. It really does."
Missing football due to academics was humbling experience for Dixon " GoVolsXtra
Hohenberger (Eddrick Loften's high school coach) said Loften is also the best defensive back he's ever coached. That group includes Oakland Raiders safety Michael Huff, who won the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation's best defensive back at Texas in 2005. Hohenberger said Loften is a better prospect than Huff was when he left Nimitz for Texas in 2002. "It's not even close," Hohenberger said.
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Wiedmer: Emotions too dependent on 18-year-olds
But to prove it's everywhere, especially in the South, consider this newspaper's Web site. During a 24-hour period between Sunday evening and Monday evening, UT beat writer Wes Rucker's story on Rogers attending Sunday's Tennessee-Florida basketball game drew 4,321 hits. In second place was the obituary section with 1,936 hits. The third-most read story was a second Rucker recruiting story.
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Wilcox heads to UT
Wilcox has earned a reputation for outside-the-box thinking -- something that's been encouraged for years at Boise -- and the Fiesta Bowl win over TCU last month was the most recent example. Wilcox redesigned the Broncos' base into a version of the 3-2-6, and the new look held the previously-undefeated Horned Frogs to 272 yards and 10 points. "His ability to be multiple was a factor, but it wasn't the determining factor," Dooley said. "His core was the difference. There's a lot of guys that can go out there and draw that stuff up. They can move this guy here, put that guy here, and then they go clinic around the country, and everybody says he's a guru. But a good coach, there's a lot that goes into it. How does he communicate? How does he teach? What are the expectations you're going to set? How does he react when a guy is not performing well? What does he do when it gets tough? What does he do when things happen and don't go his way? "There's so many other intangible values that I look for in a coach more so than, 'He dropped that end, and boy, that was a good scheme right there.' We can watch somebody else and get that."
Dooley says Wilcox 'right person' for Vols " GoVolsXtra
Notable: While working with the Broncos over the last four seasons, the team went 49-4 and Wilcox capped his stint there by shutting down high-powered TCU in a victory at the Fiesta Bowl. Boise State ranked third in the nation in points allowed while rolling to a perfect 14-0 record last season.
Vols get defensive with Boise State coordinator Wilcox " GoVolsXtra
"It’s an unbelievable opportunity," Wilcox said. "I’m really humbled to be considered and for coach Dooley to offer me the job. Boise State is an incredible place and I really wasn’t looking to leave there. All this happened pretty fast. "But after talking with coach Dooley and a couple of the other coaches, and getting a feel for the way he wants to model the program and a lot of the philosophies he has, I just felt like it was a great opportunity at an unbelievable place in terms of the tradition. I think it’s just one of those things that was too good to pass up and I’m excited to be here."
Prince gets tough assignment against LSU " GoVolsXtra
Prince, in particular, should; he'll play his share of defense against LSU's do-everything forward, 6-foot-7, 245-pound Tasmin Mitchell. It could prove to be the key matchup for 14th-ranked UT (16-4, 4-2 SEC) against the Tigers (9-12, 0-7) at the Maravich Assembly Center tonight (TV: ESPN2, 9 p.m.). Mitchell leads LSU in scoring (17.9 points per game), rebounds (9.6) and 3-point shooting (.321).
25 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Old Smokey Sez
Answer to question # 1. No, but I do think we did finish in the top 10., #2 Recruiting is a lot of fun to follow, and is a very important life line to our program. #3 I don’t know but time will tell. #4 Justin Wilcox ran Boise’s defence for 53 games and went 49-4 with 2 BCS wins , looks good to me. #5 Go Vols, Whup the Tigers, Old Smokey
volman
1. Did Tennessee “win” National Signing Day?
Moral victory.
2. Are we getting too carried away with recruiting?
Nah, it’s fun to speculate who will be our Brian Dardens and John Rattays of tomorrow.
3. Is defensive back Eddrick Loften better than Michael Huff, a Thorpe Award winner?
Is the what better than the who now?
4. Just who is Justin Wilcox, besides Tennessee’s new defensive coordinator?
Another coach from the WAC. Whee!
5. Oh, and there’s a basketball game tonight against LSU and Tasmin Mitchell.
J.P. Prince in the “key role”? Oh joy. Try not to throw any punches tonight, J.P. Thanks.
Sorry, obviously woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning…
Lou Brock loves Lamp.
Wayne Chism is #3 in the SEC in defensive rebounding %
behind Cousins and Varnado
Nationally (including 1-AA) he is #55, which puts him in the company of Ed Davis at UNC which is higher than even Luke Harangody.
(stats via Pomeroy)
On LSU:
Among their 7 straight losses to open SEC play are 5 double digit losses, a nine point loss to South Carolina, and one close loss against the second worst team in the conference (Auburn). Tasmin Mitchell is a good player, but this is not a game that we should be sweating in the final five minutes…and that’s the last time this year we’ll get to say that.
You know, I feel comfortable with Pajamas in our toughest defensive role
I think that when he’s fully focused, he’s our best defender. What focuses you better than trying to defend the only scoring threat on the opposing team?
Also can’t wait for football season! And this isn’t a knock on the b-ball team, who I love watching. Just want to see how all these guys (players and coaches) will shake out.
by Incipient_Senescence on Feb 4, 2010 10:01 AM EST reply actions
Miami Hurricanes linebacker Arthur Brown returns to Kansas
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/colleges/um/story/1459302.html
There was a lot of talk in the past few weeks of rankings of players coming out of high school, and the emphasis we as fans put on that. He was the #1 recruited linebacker in ’07, but never seemed to pan out at Miami. Wonder if this will affect Bryce at all?
"We've got weapons, we've still got weapons... That's terrible, I apologize."
- Bruce Pearl
I wonder if this
is any indication of Bryce’s ability? Seems like his brother’s hype hasn’t panned out yet. Might be his situation at Miami. I just wonder how much of an effect guys like Brian Butler have on swaying “experts” into picking their kids #1.
I'm not worried about Bryce's ability at all, the kid can play.
"We've got weapons, we've still got weapons... That's terrible, I apologize."
- Bruce Pearl
Are we getting too carried away with recruiting?
I think y’all know my answer. For those who don’t – recruitig seriously creeps me out. Where else is it socially acceptable to talk about the measurables of 16 and 17-year old boys?
Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 4, 2010 12:35 PM EST via mobile reply actions
a lot of them don't pan out
but it doesn’t mean all of them don’t. so much depends on how they fit the system and how hard they are willing to work.
That is all true
But it’s still a logical step for a college football fan. Just like an NFL fan following closely the guys their staff is targeting in free agency. The creepiness comes from it being high schoolers instead of professionals.
by Incipient_Senescence on Feb 4, 2010 12:40 PM EST up reply actions
Right, but here's the problem
The NFL Draft consists of college players that everybody’s seen play for three or four years. They’re on TV every week and we know them.
NFL free agents are obvious well-known.
High-school recruiting is so borderline ridiculous because nobody actually knows anything about these players. The people who are paid to scout them don’t even know. They’re just guessing, frankly. And their guess is most of the time based on who’s recruiting them, making it an extremely self-fulfilling prophecy. And I don’t mean offense to anyone by this, but all the individual fans who act like they know something about these players are just flat-out making stuff up. They’re either going by what their ridiculously overpriced and pointless recruiting newsletter says or they’re just making stuff up. A few of them might have actually gone to see one or two of these players play a game, but that’s really even worse and creepier. And they still don’t know what they’re seeing, since the players are going against the same crappy competition that’s giving the professional scouts such problems.
Not to mention, at least with NFL prospects in the draft, the kids are legally adults. Most of the high school kids are still technically minors, which injects an even bigger level of seediness to all of the proceedings.
And even with all of that, the degree to which the NFL Draft is followed is a pretty big joke in and of itself.
And if that’s the case, the degree to which National Signing Day is followed would make it perhaps the silliest and most pointless day in all of American sports, that is if it weren’t so borderline unethical and creepy.
Just my opinion.
Bingo.
That’s exactly why it creeps me out (that, and it’s technically not their profession). With the NFL and free agency, it’s different.
Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 5, 2010 5:25 PM EST up reply actions
Yes we do.
There’s no denying that. I mean, there’s nothing at all wrong with keeping up on who is committed and who’s a potential commit and all that, but when you get a rather large number of people who spend all day at work trying to hide their bi-minutely refreshes of Rivals, it crosses a line.
The big problem – and you see it with both college and pro football – is that the schedule and the complexity of the game lend themselves to tremendous amounts of idle speculation. That’s why fantasy football can be such a huge deal – you have a whole week to do nothing but wonder how the upcoming games are going to play out. It’s such an exciting product that we spend Monday and Tuesday talking with everybody about what happened in the games, which feeds into discussion about the next weekend.
Recruiting is much the same, but on an annual scale rather than a weekly scale. And once you get past the considerable noise involved with recruiting rankings, it really is one of the best predictors for team success out there. Teams with more talent will, on the whole, beat the teams with less talent. It’s not an overwhelming disparity, but it’s definite.
Agreed, but by the same token a few other maxims hold as well:
- Better prepared teams have a better chance to win most weeks.
- Better schemes (think Mike Leach, not Charlie Weis) have a chance to succeed where others won’t.
- People will talk themselves into thinking their team has a chance against a superior opponent when they don’t due to idle speculation.
I do agree that the correlation between talent and results should be and is strong, but there’s so much that happens developmentally that predicting what a 17-year old will do on any given evening, let alone for the next 3-5 years of his life, feels and has always felt like a fool’s errand to me. Then again, I have this same argument every season, so nothing new here.. :)
Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.
by Chris Pendley on Feb 5, 2010 5:29 PM EST up reply actions
Oh, agreed.
And I don’t hold that 17-year old talent is necessarily the reason for success. There’s also a lot of cross-correlation involved; those teams with the ability to get the VHTs are also the ones with the best facilities, money, coaching, etc. It’s the cross-correlation I look at: by gauging the talent pool being brought in, you get a fairly good read on the organization as a whole. It’s a great ‘first guess’ for a team’s future success.
After that, then you whittle down the exceptions to the rule, like Virginia Tech and Boise State.
High Hopes
There is a lot of truth in what you say nirwin, but things are a lot different now than it was way back 40 + years ago when Old Smokey played, Coaches back then had to depend on word of mouth or go see these players to see how good they were befor offering them a chance to play for there school. But now a picture is worth a thousand words, these coaches and recuritors look at a lot of video tape on these players, but still a lot of these 5* players never make it of the bench, and a lot of walk on’s end up makeing all americans. It’s not always the size of the dawg, but size of the fight in the dawg. GO VOLS !!!!!!,Old Smokey
volman
Glad you guys could bounce back
I’m a UCLA Bruin who’s just dropping by to congratulate you on a great signing day and wish you all the best. You’ve got a great program and some of the best fans anywhere. I hope we get a chance to return the hospitality at theRose Bowl before too long.
Meanwhile, we’ll take care of Kiffin for you and make his life sheer hell. He’ll be run out of town on a rail.
Dooley closed pretty strong.
but whatever victory you had may very well be Pyrrhic given what Florida did.
What you're seeing is team spirit. It's like the Holy Spirit, but more powerful.
-Hank Hill
Given what Kiffin did to us,
there’s really no context that takes away from what Dooley managed to do. It’s still very early, obviously, but we can’t help but be pleased with what’s transpired so far.
by David Hooper on Feb 4, 2010 11:21 PM EST up reply actions
That seems a little
negative. Gator here, just stopping by to congratulate ya’ll on a rather impressive showing. All things considered the Vols did very well, and there’s no way to know who “won” signing day till you get them on the field. Here’s to hoping that Dooley can bring back the program to where it belongs…
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
SHOP THE ROCKY TOP TALK STORE
Animated Drive Charts
RTT Classics
FanShots
Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.
Recent FanShots
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
