It is a fascinating development over the last twenty or so
years to monitor recruiting. What used to be a press release in February – with
maybe some tidbits in local newspapers along with SuperPrep magazine – has become an industry to itself.
Along with the proliferation of recruiting information has
come a different feeling at times among fans; it’s like reading all of the NFL
pre-draft hype then hoping ‘your team’ gets who you think is the best. Except
college football programs don’t entirely get to dictate who comes; there is no
pre-set order of selection.
Recruiting is different. So too is the information that
becomes available. The number of Football Bowl Subdivision programs competing
for just a few elite athletes at each position makes the competition fierce;
and part of that is the information we hear regarding recruits. There were a
few ‘key recruits’ Oregon did not sign in this most recently completed
recruiting cycle. Along with that has come plenty of misinformation.
These are some tidbits I picked up about each recruit along
the way.
Miles Battle –
There were reports that he was ‘close’ to committing on Thursday before signing
day and that he backed out for various reasons. This is what the coaching staff
believed, but there was more to the story than the Oregon side of this. On the
night before he was set to commit, knowing reports were out there that he would
commit to Oregon the next day, Ole Miss, who had set Battle as a top priority,
sent in SIX coaches for his last in-home visit. It was during this visit that
Battle began to think that Ole Miss might be the best place for him. They had
been pursuing Tommy Bush and knew he was going elsewhere, so they went all in
on Battle.
Oregon liked Battle and wanted him for this class; he was
one of those to whom Mario Cristobal referred when talking about some players
at the WR position that he did not get; but Battle and family were awed by the
amount of coaches Ole Miss sent and really began to see him playing in Oxford
that night.
Michael Ezeike –
Another player who had once been committed to Oregon, the Ducks were one of the
first elite programs to offer Ezeike as a wide receiver playing a flex type
role rather than telling him they envisioned him as a tight end. He was raised
in Los Angeles and there were only two teams that always topped his list.
Oregon and UCLA. There were times others came in and joined the fray, but those
were the two constants.
When Chip Kelly arrived at UCLA, he made an impressive pitch to Ezeike that resonated well with he and his family. When they sold him on the idea that he could play the same way other schools envisioned; he was in. He made a last trip to USC and enjoyed it, but there was really little here Oregon could have done differently. They put as much effort into getting him back into the fold as possible; he just liked what Kelly brought to UCLA. Early on in his recruitment, Ezeike called UCLA his ‘childhood dream school.’ Once Kelly gave him a better vision for his role with the Bruins, it was essentially over.
When Chip Kelly arrived at UCLA, he made an impressive pitch to Ezeike that resonated well with he and his family. When they sold him on the idea that he could play the same way other schools envisioned; he was in. He made a last trip to USC and enjoyed it, but there was really little here Oregon could have done differently. They put as much effort into getting him back into the fold as possible; he just liked what Kelly brought to UCLA. Early on in his recruitment, Ezeike called UCLA his ‘childhood dream school.’ Once Kelly gave him a better vision for his role with the Bruins, it was essentially over.
Devon Williams –
Of course this is the one everyone wants to understand better. There is not
much to understand here. But it is also where getting information from
different sources can be tricky. The thought that Williams lied or played the
Oregon coaches is plain silly. The young man and his mother went to the Las
Vegas Bowl on their own dime rather than take an official visit. Yes, she lived
in Vegas at the time, and yes it is a pretty easy trip over there, but they
still chose that over official visits elsewhere.
The difficult thing about sources, sometimes they hear
exactly right, but then someone changes their mind. This is what happened here.
Anything else lobbed out there is simple frustration and bitterness.
On Sunday, when Williams went radio silent, just about everyone had been hearing the same thing; that Williams had made his decision and that it was Oregon. USC sources were saying that, Oregon sources were saying that, national reporters from all of the major services were saying the same thing; they believed and had heard Williams would be a Duck
At 2:40am PST Wednesday, the last I heard is that those close to him
felt Oregon would be the choice. But when Williams made the late visit to USC,
he just had a simple change of heart. He has had some tough circumstances in
his life and moving nearly a thousand miles away started to weigh heavily on
him. Yes, he had friends in Eugene, but when you’ve been moved around and never
felt stable, it can be tough to make that move.
Look, it is easy to get enamored with any school; especially
when there are friends there; but when that final day arrives, and you have to
sign on the dotted line, sometimes the nomadic life is too much to overcome and
you want to just feel some sort of peace in stability. Williams had a guardian
in Lancaster that felt as if USC was the better place for him. That really hurt
Oregon’s chances.
I know this, there was little more that this staff could
have done to turn this in their favor (short of violating rules in such an
obvious way as to lose him anyway). Prior to that visit to USC last weekend,
earlier in the week, bleary-eyed and needing to get back to Eugene to host a
final weekend of official visitors, Mario Cristobal and Michael Johnson spent
the entire day with Williams. They made every effort to convince his guardian,
mother and Devon that Oregon was the best fit.
Sometimes 17-year old’s change their minds at the last
minute.
Willie Taggart Effect
I am going to make this non-premium because it is one of those
things that really matters little now that he has left. When Taggart was hired
in December 2016, some USF folks reached out to us to talk about the hire.
Because we had never really had to cover an entire staff changing, it was crucial
we start to understand him better and to see what he was all about as a coach.
As part of that, we got some negative feedback from those at
South Florida. Now, much of it was the kind of stuff we pass off as ‘sour
grapes’ after having gone through so much turmoil as a program; they did not
want to be a stepping stone. Some of the stuff I was told really was just sour
grapes. I was told that the only good hire he ever made was one that was ‘given’
to him by Jim Harbaugh.
Well, we know that is not true because he assembled one of
the best overall coaching staffs in the entire nation. So, I took the rest of
the criticisms lightly.
But one I never took lightly – and proved prophetic – was Taggart’s
affinity for ‘stars.’ Not stars like Deion Sanders, but recruiting stars. He
knows as well as anyone that results on the field matter and that some players
are over-rated, but he absolutely wanted his name tied to the truly elite
players he was recruiting. He did not put much effort into two and three-star
players; he wanted players ranked four and five-stars. This is why he did not
have the ‘layered’ approach to recruiting that Cristobal has put into place; he
did not want other coaches to get credit for ‘his’ recruits.
Down the stretch, this really hurt Oregon for a lot of
players. Very few remaining coaches had developed a strong enough relationship
with those other players; and attempting to re-establish a relationship against
the coach who was negative recruiting his former employer proved far more
difficult than can be understood.
At the end of the crazy cycle, Oregon got much better at the
offensive line (average size: 6-5, 332 pounds), brought in three really good
linebackers (MJ Cunningham, Adrian Jackson and Andrew Johnson), two elite
safeties (Steve Stephens and Jevon Holland), an elite corner (Verone McKinley
III) an elite tight end (Spencer Webb), a critical piece of special team
(Karsten Battles) an elite QB (Tyler Shough), two very good receivers (Isaah
Crocker, Jalen Hall), another receiver (JJ Tucker) who saw his stock fall after
missing most of his junior season due to injury; they improved the defensive
line (Andrew Faoliu, Sione Vea Kava) and added additional depth at DB with JUCO
product Hakai Woods and a late commitment from Kahlef Hailassie and two running
backs with plenty of potential (Travis Dye, Jamal Elliott).
Could the class have been a bit better? Absolutely, but
given the circumstances surrounding early signing day and the recent departure
of a head coach who took a lot of players with him; this was really a pretty
good day for the Oregon coaching staff.