clevezip Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 Football linemen from Can't Roosevelt, St. Vincent-St. Mary make college decisions AKRON, Ohio - Curtis Black has defied the odds. The Can't Roosevelt senior played one year of high school football yet has earned a Division I scholarship. Black, the son of Roosevelt boys basketball coach Cameron Black, has made an oral commitment to Akron and will sign a national letter of intent on Feb. 1, football coach John Nemec said. Black, a 6-4, 325-pound offensive guard, did not play high school football until last fall when he decided to go out for the team as a tribute to his best friend, Ryan Anderson. Prior to that he had played basketball, averaging 10 points and 11 rebounds in each of the past two seasons. His older brother, also named Cameron, starts on Bowling Green's basketball team. http://highschoolsports.cleveland.com/news...lege-decisions/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akzipper Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 Congratulations, you took one away from us. I don't expect this to be the norm however. He is a hometown boy for you guys. 88-62 Let me know when you have teams worth talking about... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKSportsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 What about that Avis Commack from FSU? Is he indeed transferring to Akron? Will he have to sit a year? Avis Commack Scout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 What about that Avis Commack from FSU? Is he indeed transferring to Akron? Will he have to sit a year? Avis Commack Scout He will not have to sit out, as he has graduated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy_ua_00 Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 What about that Avis Commack from FSU? Is he indeed transferring to Akron? Will he have to sit a year? Avis Commack Scout He is indeed coming here. I talked to him via twitter, he said hes playing db and ready to strap on the pads and get started Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZipsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 He will not have to sit out, as he has graduated. I do not believe he is being offered a scholarship. Coach Bowden does his homework when it comes to situations like this one, and then makes the decision based on what he feels is best for the team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKSportsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 I don't care if he gets a scholly. If he's coming here to play then I'm all about it. I pay my own tuition bill. ha. I understand what you are saying. This is a short term "potential" boost but certainly an exception not the rule. I say potential because if his off field problems continue I'm not sure we have gained anything from his services. Risk vs. Gain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 Why not offer him a scholly? He only has one year to play, right? We've got more than enough schollies available. And I remember reading somewhere that he was going to play corner? No way! Not at 6'4", right? I've never heard of a corner being 6'4". Gotta be a safety. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZipsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 Why not offer him a scholly? He only has one year to play, right? We've got more than enough schollies available. And I remember reading somewhere that he was going to play corner? No way! Not at 6'4", right? I've never heard of a corner being 6'4". Gotta be a safety. It is my understanding that he is not being recruited to play at Akron. With the legal issues pending, it just doesn't seem like the best fit for the team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 New offer: JUCO C Xavier Ruben Coach Bowden's priority right now seems to be the offensive line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jalapeño Zippy Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 New offer: JUCO C Xavier Ruben Coach Bowden's priority right now seems to be the offensive line. Makes since. OL was awful last year. Thanks for posting ZTZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyzip84 Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 Makes since. OL was awful last year. Thanks for posting ZTZ. I'd go so far as to say it's been the most obvious weakness of the team for the last THREE years. I'm sure Coach Bowden didn't need to look at much film to draw the same conclusion. Couple that with small returning numbers at OL and it makes perfect sense that he'd go hard and heavy after both long-term (HS) and short-term (JC) prospects here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xu9697 Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 Why not offer him a scholly? He only has one year to play, right? We've got more than enough schollies available. And I remember reading somewhere that he was going to play corner? No way! Not at 6'4", right? I've never heard of a corner being 6'4". Gotta be a safety. Though it is rare, Boston College has had two corners in the last few years who were 6'4. Lenny Walls is the most prominent, but Jim Noel has played there as well (and played safety). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Walls Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 New offer: WR Bruce Natson from Boyd Anderson HS in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. Currently committed to Utah State, but coach Bowden looks to pull him away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZipsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 New offer: WR Bruce Natson from Boyd Anderson HS in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. Currently committed to Utah State, but coach Bowden looks to pull him away. There's a great recruiting story that both Coach Bowdens tell about recruiting against each other for a DE at that same high school - Boyd Anderson (and it happens to be my alma mater as a weird coincidence!). Our Coach Bowden won, and the guy played at Auburn. I read it somewhere years ago - will try to find it. Mitch Richmond who played 10 plus years in the NBA was from Boyd Anderson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZipsFan Posted January 17, 2012 Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 There's a great recruiting story that both Coach Bowdens tell about recruiting against each other for a DE at that same high school - Boyd Anderson (and it happens to be my alma mater as a weird coincidence!). Our Coach Bowden won, and the guy played at Auburn. I read it somewhere years ago - will try to find it. Mitch Richmond who played 10 plus years in the NBA was from Boyd Anderson. Found it --- Recruiting is a lowdown, dirty game By Terry Bowden, Yahoo! Sports February 5, 2007 Wednesday is National Signing Day. As the day approaches, I am reminded of how vicious recruiting can get in these final days before an athlete has to decide where he wants to go to school. I often am asked if I miss coaching and would ever like to get back into the game. And to be quite honest with you, it's getting harder and harder to find reasons why I'm not back in already. Regardless, there is one aspect of the job that never gets old and quite often gets out of hand – and that is recruiting. Invariably it seems that every year in the final days before signing day, after all the nice things have been said, it quite often comes down to negative recruiting. You know what I'm talking about. After a year of courting a high school recruit, a coach has said about every nice thing he can say about his school, and with a week or so left there's nothing left to do but rip the opposition. "You don't want to go to State, the girls are ugly. You don't want to go to Tech, the guys are all in jail. You don't want to go to the University, they don't drive nice enough cars." You know the drift. So for the first time in print, here's a true story of one of the best (or should I say worst) examples of negative recruiting I ever experienced. It was 1994, after my second year at Auburn. We had just completed a two-year run, going 20-1-1. Although we were finishing up probation from the prior coaching staff and had not been able to go to a bowl or compete for the national championship, the fact that we started my tenure at Auburn with 20 straight victories was getting us into the homes of some of the best players in the country. It was the last week of recruiting, and the No. 1 defensive player in the state of Florida was named Martavius Houston. He was a defensive back from Boyd Anderson High School in Fort Lauderdale, and he had the choice of going to any school in the country. However, by this final week he had narrowed his decision down to two schools. He was either going to go to Auburn and play for me or he was going to go to Florida State and play for my ol' man, Bobby Bowden (I'm sure you've heard of him). Per NCAA rules, the head coach is allowed only one official home visit. I strategically looked at the calendar for the best chance for me to go into his home and hopefully close the deal. I decided to have my home visit from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. He had a basketball game Friday night, which would keep him busy, and he had no more official school visits left for the final weekend. I made up my mind that Thursday night was do-or-die time with this recruit. I booked the flight to Fort Lauderdale and rented a nice Lincoln Town Car in order to impress him when I drove up. As I met him and his mother on the front porch, I immediately hugged his mom and told her how much I loved her and turned to Martavius and said, "Son, you're going to win a Heisman Trophy at Auburn University." I followed them into the house and proceeded to sing his praises – nonstop – for an hour and a half. I said, "Son, you are the No. 1 recruit on my list, the best player I've ever seen, I'm going to make you my star, I'm going to make you my captain, and you're going to win two Heisman trophies at Auburn. Only Archie Griffin at Ohio State has ever done that." The more I talked, the bigger his eyes got, and the more he started leaning off the front of that chair. As most coaches will tell you, when you get a "leaner" you need to seal the deal right then and there. I wanted to stick my cell phone in his face and say, "you call that Bobby Bowden right now and tell him you don't want to go to FSU, that you want to be an Auburn Tiger." However, high school coaches do a great job of prepping these young men by telling them not to get pressured into making a decision in front of the head coach but instead to wait until they can be alone with their family and loved ones so they can make a rational decision. So although he didn't verbally commit right there, I believed I had done the best selling job ever – I knew I had him. As we walked back out onto the front porch, before I said goodbye, I turned to his mom one last time, hugged her neck and reminded her how much I loved her. Then, with all the sincerity I could muster, I looked that young man directly in the eyes and said, "I have never told anybody this before, but you're gonna win three Heisman trophies at Auburn. You'd win four, but you're gonna be in the NFL by then." As I turned to leave, a long black, stretch limousine pulled up in front of the house. A little, short driver with one of those driver's caps and half-jackets on got out, walked all the way around the back of the limousine and opened the back door next to the curb. Out stepped my ol' man. He had scheduled his official visit for 7:30 p.m. on the same night. As he waddled up that sidewalk wearing that silly-looking safari hat and those red/yellow/green sunglasses that he always wears, my eyes got as big as saucers and my jaw dropped. My ol' man stepped up on the porch, said hello to that mama, shook Martavius' hand, turned to me, patted me on the head (in front of both of them) and said, "Terry, when you get home, your mama wants you to call her." That's all he said! You talk about dirty recruiting – it doesn't get any dirtier. Nobody has ever been "who's your daddy-ed" worse than that. I mean, who do you want to play for – BOBBY – or terry? I'm sure every coach out there has his war stories to tell. I just thought you'd like to hear mine. Incidentally, Martavius Houston had a great career at Auburn University. Terry Bowden is Yahoo! Sports' college football analyst. For more information about Terry, visit his official website Updated on Monday, Mar 12, 2007 10:31 am, EDT Email to a Friend | View Popular Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 About to put up individual threads for our verbal commitments in the interest of being able to discuss them without having the conversation get lost in the mess this thing has become. I will continue to update this thread with new Zips offers. I will no longer post when an offer chooses another school, but I will update the main list to reflect the change because I am still curious as to who we have lost recruits to since it gives us an insight to areas we are recruiting, the teams we must compete against to get recruits, and more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2012 OK, so that was more work than I anticipated. But it's done. I laid out the basics, with a height/weight, and the standard recruiting site profiles for all of our recruits in their own threads. Every one of our recruits has more info than that available on the web, but I'm going to take a break. Please, please fill in the threads with any info you have on the verbals. The threads are meant for discussion of the recruits, so talk about them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jalapeño Zippy Posted January 18, 2012 Report Share Posted January 18, 2012 ZTZ, thank you for taking the time! Much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zip Watcher Posted January 18, 2012 Report Share Posted January 18, 2012 Thanks for the effort ZTZ. I'll try and pin any that end up being verbals. Any moderator can also edit titles for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2012 Thanks for the effort ZTZ. I'll try and pin any that end up being verbals. Any moderator can also edit titles for you. Thanks. Signing day is two weeks from today, and hopefully we'll see a few more verbals during that time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roo Posted January 19, 2012 Report Share Posted January 19, 2012 I am a fan of the single thread idea and def appreciate your effort. Now with all the pinned recruit threads, I am lost on when we got them and who is new. If it isn't too much to ask, when the first page of this thread is updated is there anyway to add a date to the day you updated the commit list? I know you are doing a lot as is but would be much easier to follow that way. The pinned threads have their place, to discuss each recruit on a single page, but it would def help those that want a quick overview! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted January 19, 2012 Report Share Posted January 19, 2012 So I see you've got Avis Commackk listed as already enrolled. However, NewZipsFan, who really seems to have some good info, doesn't believe Coach Bowden is recruiting Avis to play here, due to his pending legal issues. So, does anyone know the story here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachTheZip Posted January 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2012 So I see you've got Avis Commackk listed as already enrolled. However, NewZipsFan, who really seems to have some good info, doesn't believe Coach Bowden is recruiting Avis to play here, due to his pending legal issues. So, does anyone know the story here? Commack said he was transferring to UA over winter break. Whether he makes it onto the football team is up in the air, but I do believe he went through with the transfer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckzip Posted January 19, 2012 Report Share Posted January 19, 2012 I know I will be bashed for this, and I know it takes a few years to truly evaluate a recruiting class, but this really looks like Coach B is just trying to fill schollies. I understand that recruiting rankings don't mean everything. What I take most serious is offers from other schools. Not interest, but real offers. Many of our recruits have Akron as their only D1 offer. That isn't good. We are taking away recruits from YSU..really? I know coach B got started late and has to catch up, but I would rather he save schollies to have the max 25 next year or more since some enrolled early, rather than give them out to undeserving players. JMHO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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