catdaddyp

Wow. Baseball, Men’s Soccer, and Swimming & Diving raised more money than football. Can’t say I saw that coming. Weight room seems a bit of an afterthought.

All great news! Hoping to make the spring game to get an in person look. I was going to attend the Rivals camp in Cincinnati tomorrow to see some of the top area talent, but going to pass this year as the weather is iffy and I don’t want to make long(ish) drives back to back weekends. Keep the intel coming!

Here are the updated HS/JUCO rankings at Rivals. The majority of players that still need ratings at this point are JUCOs. I know we still aren’t done with 2023, but how is everyone feeling now? Im in the process of going back in the system and updating previous years for comparison, but keeping track of all the current movement has taken up most of my free time. Forgot to add that these rankings still include some verbal commitments that will not sign with their respective teams. So the rankings may change some in the coming weeks.

Not that I’ve seen. I thought we were bringing in Jackson as a DT. According to his JUCO profile he was a DT at 285lbs. Now he’s listed at 250lbs and a DE. If he’s playing DE I’m not sure if we’ll bring in another DE.

Here’s his practice film. At the very least, he looks better than a couple guys that have moved on since JoeMo’s arrival. Sorry, didn’t mean to respond twice. Meant to edit. User error.

Potentially a PWO for us too. Unless I’m missing something, it doesn’t look like he saw any game action last year.

Offers out to Arizona State IOL Danny Valenzuela and Cincinnati OL AJ George. We had AJ George and his younger brother Mitchell George (2025 target) in on a visit this past weekend.

It’s quite a class. Nice mix of young talent and guys with college experience. The overall athleticism and potential has certainly been increased. Not everyone will pan out (no class will ever hit 100%), but this class complements the 2022 class well. We also know at least one more DT and OL will be added. Probably another DB too.

Offer to Memphis DB Tyrell Raby.

Figured this one was coming. He said Akron was his leader going into his visit. Gage is a tackling machine.

And another one. DT Matt Lawson from Fresno State.

Offer out to Princeton DT Nate Martey. Looks like a guy that could give us some immediate help.

Thats fair. Always a concern with JUCOs. Although, I really like Nunnally. Not sure why he didn’t have more offers, but that could be due to a slew of reasons when it comes to JUCO. On the bright side the two DEs look to be pretty versatile and could allow us to play more multiple fronts this year. Not to add any more fuel to the fire, but we’re probably not done adding JUCOs to this class.

Why do I even keep a list with all these stealth offers. 🤣

Recent CB offer Marion Ponds committed to Ball State. He doesn’t have it listed on his Twitter, but I’m almost certain he took a visit to Ball State this past weekend.

Gotta love that discus throwing! Hopefully we landed a diamond in the rough. He had other offers so we weren’t the only ones pursuing him, but his JUCO stats don’t exactly jump off the page. Jackson’s teammate Elijah Davis has nearly 7 minutes of highlight film in which Jackson can be seen in a number of plays. That EMCC defensive line was legit. A bunch of those guys are signing D1.

Another situation a bit off kilter. Listed as DT 6’4” 280lbs on the JUCO roster, yet I can’t seem to find any JUCO film, only film from his senior year in HS. Impressive HS film though. Now to catch him up to speed at the FBS level.

Not sure what the situation is with him. Looks like he committed to Arkansas Pine-Bluff and was on their roster, but his Hudl film shows JUCO as does his commitment image to us. Guess I could ask him. In any case, seems like another solid roster addition.

Definitely one to be excited about! The biggest issue will be hanging on to him. Looks like he’ll be doing one of the Rivals camps which will get his name out there. Colleges often pay Rivals for their camp film. Yasin should only improve and pick up more offers from here. Wasn’t at all expecting this commitment.

Looks like we got our first 2025 commit before a 2024. IOL Ameer Yasin.

Turns out Miller did visit and was offered

Agreed. We should expect our HS recruiting class to always fall somewhere around 15 commitments. JUCOs are likely to be added when unexpected depth issues arise. We’ve only offered 3 out of the 30 2024 MAC commitments. That’s not to say those players aren’t good enough to play here because many of them definitely are, but our staff knows what they want to add to this program and that may not always 100% align with what other MAC schools are looking for. I think the early commitments have gotten great advice. Go ahead and commit to a school you’re comfortable with and can always entertain other offers. That would have been frowned upon a decade ago, but the game has changed. The transfer portal players take up about half the spots that were formerly used for HS prospects and it’s more important than it’s ever been for HS kids to assure themselves they have a spot. The upper echelon players have the luxury of waiting it out when probably about 80% do not. Nearly every MAC school should have 4 to 5 2024 commitments by the end of May. We may not have landed any yet, but the time is coming. It usually goes in waves. Certainly nothing to worry about, but fun to track.

Toledo commit Hyajah Miller posted that he is visiting Akron this weekend (as are some of his high school teammates) but has since deleted the tweet. Not sure what that was about. To my knowledge he does not currently hold an offer from us.