catdaddyp

Another one to watch.

I updated Kameron Cheatom’s profile. According to Cheatom, Moorehead’s staff re-offered in January. Looks like he took multiple visits to Pittsburgh, but was unable to garner an offer from them. Cheatom seems to be athletic, possess great size, and should fit into an edge roll. The majority of his highlights are rushing off the edge unabated, so he can certainly do that. We are currently ranked #82 according in Rivals team rankings for the 2023 class and Rivals only ranks the top 100 classes. New individual player ratings will be released in August. We will see how many players receive bumps.

I updated Williams profile. Even though coach Fess recruited Williams, I am guessing Williams will be a defensive back. He is an explosive athlete and often played in the box as a nickel or safety on defense, so he certainly did not shy away from contact at the high school level. He is a playmaker with the ball in his hands, but is raw as a wide receiver. There are only 3 highlights in his latest film of him throwing the ball as a QB and those passes do not demonstrate any reason why he would land at QB here. However, I have not seen him play live so maybe there is something I am missing? It could be that Williams falls into Fess’ recruiting territory and that is why Fess was the one who made the offer. Regardless where he lands positionally, I like this offer. Williams is a playmaker no matter where he is slotted and sometimes it is just a matter of getting players like that on campus and finding where they fit best.

Wow! Why not just add the whole PAC at that point? Go big or go home I guess.

Dengohe to James Madison, so he’s off the list.

He also has an offer from Temple, but I don’t know how much we should read into that. I don’t know anything about Temple outside of the hiring of a new coaching staff this past offseason. Maybe they feel the kid fits whatever scheme they’ll be running? I think our staff has done a really nice job of identifying and balancing our needs through the portal and prep route.

OL Marleo Neolien was on campus this past weekend, but did not pickup an offer. At least not yet.

Massive OT Jatavius Shivers decommitted from Vanderbilt yesterday. He carries an offer from Akron on 2/11/2022, but is expected to commit to South Carolina.

I suspect it was proposed as a package deal with USC and UCLA. Oklahoma State attempted to make it a package deal to move to the SEC with Oklahoma, but neither the SEC nor Oklahoma seemed to care too much about that idea. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Oklahoma State eventually make their way to the SEC by the time all the realignment is completed - whenever that may be.

Yes, the media contracts are a part of it and I believe the B1G is up for a new one soon, but it doesn’t have much to do with alumni on the West Coast.

I agree most people in the Southeast - especially with ties to the SEC - don’t care much about the move of Southern Cal and UCLA to the B1G. Outside of maybe something along the lines of “oh, that’s neat.” Like you mentioned, it’s all about revenue. And according to the revenue numbers from a few years back neither Southern Cal nor UCLA were in the top 20 in revenue for football or as an athletic department. Those numbers could have changed recently and certainly could change in the coming years, but if revenue is what this is all about then it’s a ho-hum move. Most B1G schools aren’t going to spend much time and money recruiting the state of California except in certain situations, so it doesn’t help in that department. Nor will Southern Cal and UCLA spend a ton of time recruiting the Midwest. I can’t speak to what dominoes will fall from here as it seems almost any possibility could turn into reality at this point. I’d guess there is some concern amongst the other P5 conferences, as well as the G5, in how the overall scope could affect them.

Agreed. I thought Maddox might commit on his OV this past weekend, but that didn’t happen - at least not publicly. JoeMo also offered Maddox’s little brother who I believe is a rising high school freshman.

2023 uncommitted prep prospects with offers: WR - Oluwakoleade Osinubi OT - Barrett Maddox OT - Cameron Jones OLB - Roosevelt Andrews ILB - Joe Ginnetti DT - Darold Dengohe DE - Abdoul Idriss

I’m not sure what happened. His absence surprised me as he looked pretty good with the backups in the spring game. His Twitter does not have him listed as an Akron football player anymore, so I’m pretty sure he’s gone. He’s from Florida so maybe he was looking to play somewhere closer to home? I haven’t seen anything related to portal activity, but all the recruiting services have been overwhelmed on that front lately.

Removed Singleton and Scippio.

Fairly recent offer to Troy OL transfer Toryque Bateman. Other offers from: Grambling State Bethune-Cookman Delaware State Mississippi Valley State Florida A&M West Virginia State Eastern Illinois Morgan State Tennessee State Townson Alabana A&M

https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/adrian-norton-276321 Toledo also offered. I did a little digging and got his Rivals profile updated. Sounds like he was a late bloomer. His film is impressive and he also camped at Akron, so our coaches were able to see him in person. I’m with you in the hope he works out. Seems to have what it takes physically, but so do most that are recruited to the D1 level.

https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/adrian-norton-276321 He seems to be a good one. Not sure how Norton doesn’t have more offers.

Big time target Barrett Maddox is on campus today. Something to keep an eye on. https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/barrett-maddox-277808

I created and updated Rivals prospect profiles with size, offers, and linked hudl video. Once I did that, the national reporters responded fairly quickly and now everyone but Lester Miller has a ranking. Looks like they forgot to give Bowen his 5.2-5.4 rating, but he is listed as a 2 star. I’ll continue to update their profiles as the year goes along, which will probably get a few of them ratings bump if they receive more offers. If anyone notices the players receiving more offers, please let me know. Due to the updates, Akron is listed as having the 67th best class for 2023. https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2023/all-teams/football Wasel = 5.6 - 3 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/steele-wasel-261890 Long = 5.3 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/maurice-long-294374 Mann = 5.4 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/jonas-mann-285528 Cravaack = 5.4 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/conner-cravaack-279676 Moore = 5.4 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/marcus-moore-280680 Bowen = ? - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/joshua-bowen-241562 Louis = 5.3 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/jean-louis-iii-280349 White = 5.3 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/catrell-white-276218 Lang-Taylor = 5.4 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/zayden-laing-taylor-285125 Miller = NR - NR https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/lester-miller-284649 Norton = 5.4 - 2 star https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/adrian-norton-276321

https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2023/lester-miller-284649 I can’t update his ranking or position, but I updated his Rivals profile. There’s also a write-up from a national reporter about playing cornerback at a Rivals Camp.

I trust the staff’s opinion, but Laing-Taylor doesn’t seem to excel in any area when watching his film. He definitely has the size to come in and contribute as a freshman, but not so much the skill. He looks to be best suited as a S. Ive lost track at this point, but does anyone know if he camped and earned an offer in person?

Some transfers are unknowns, but have the potential to excel. A number of the transfers have had success elsewhere and there isn’t any reason to believe that won’t carry over. I am with you in as far as tempering expectations in winning the MAC this coming season, but I do expect this team to be competitive in every MAC game and win their fair share. I also agree the offense will heavily revolve around success of the QB position. Moorhead has been successful almost everywhere he’s been and seems to have a strong staff in place. It all aligns to a solid year and little chance of finishing last place.

The same writer gave Akron an A- for the Moorhead hire. I guess he thinks it’ll take a much longer process to be competitive, despite the transfer portal changing the dynamic for rebuilds.

Wow, talk about a major publication missing the mark. Do better Athlon.