Zips look outside of Ohio for 2014 talent

[ZachTheZip]

http://www.ohio.com/sports/zips/ua-footbal...talent-1.443806

A good breakdown. Scout, Rivals, 247Sports, and ESPN have us with six incoming recruits. I have us with seven, thanks to the addition of LS Hayden Grover. Add greyshirt Anthony Lauro, and that's eight.

I think we have 20 or 21 scholarship players graduating after this season. Less than half way to a complete signing class, and no new commitments since August. The early JUCO signing period is from December 18th to January 15th. National Signing Day is February 5th.

[zipproud]

http://www.ohio.com/sports/zips/ua-footbal...talent-1.443806

A good breakdown. Scout, Rivals, 247Sports, and ESPN have us with six incoming recruits. I have us with seven, thanks to the addition of LS Hayden Grover. Add greyshirt Anthony Lauro, and that's eight.

I think we have 20 or 21 scholarship players graduating after this season. Less than half way to a complete signing class, and no new commitments since August. The early JUCO signing period is from December 18th to January 15th. National Signing Day is February 5th.

This is a nice article about the W. PA kids. I had a chance to see Kincade play when I traveled to Darlington to see Malik Hooker from, New Castle. I wanted to see him since he is a OSU recruit and thought it would be a great opportunity to see Kincade as well. New Castle was a much better team, just the athletes compared to a bad Blackhawk team (The paper that day had NC as a 30+ point favorite) so I wasn't expecting much and figured I would be home early. Blackhawk was kept in the game by Kincade. He single handedly gave his team a chance to win the game, a game that was a shootout and came down to the last drive. The thing I have to disagree with is that Kincade struggles under pressure and on the run. The kid was fearless, he was under pressure every pass and seemed willing to stay in the pocket and take the hit. When he did take off he threw the ball well on the run, but always seemed to stay committed to the pass. This kid is going to be great when he has protection, he seemed to check down and read very well. Even when his team got down nobody left the stadium. I mentioned it to what was probably a local fan, and he said with Chandler we always have a shot. Nice compliment to the young man, and the guy was right.

I also took in the Beaver Falls play-off game this weekend, Boxen is a beast on both sides of the ball and Cottrill who they said just came back from an injury, just appears to be very athletic in the way he moves on the field. I wish he was at full strength so I could have got a good evaluation on him. The team Beaver Falls played was weak but these two kids are going to be nice pick ups for the zips.

[legendofzippy]

According to 11W, we've also made an offer on Lonnie Johnson (IN).

Lonnie Johnson

[Zipgrad01]

I find it amazing that we have a newspaper article done about recruiting and it gives us zero details about any other prospects except the ones that we have long known about. Why are our recruiting targets and their interest always so unknown? It is almost Thanksgiving and we have no idea who 3/4 of our class will be or even who we are going after. It is beyond frustrating.

[ZachTheZip]

It is almost Thanksgiving and we have no idea who 3/4 of our class will be or even who we are going after. It is beyond frustrating.

First, you don't know who 3/4th of out class will be because we haven't landed them yet. You want them to predict the future and tell us who will commit?

Second, we're going after just about every D-I prospect you can name. The offers are out there. Absolutely nobody from Ohio wants to play for Akron.

[Zipgrad01]

First, you don't know who 3/4th of out class will be because we haven't landed them yet. You want them to predict the future and tell us who will commit?

Second, we're going after just about every D-I prospect you can name. The offers are out there. Absolutely nobody from Ohio wants to play for Akron.

Almost every other school has interviews with kids that arent commits gauging their recruiting interests, how they liked their visits, etc... We have none of this. I dont expect them to be able to tell us exactly who our class is by now, but we have no idea who is even interested in coming here.

If this is indeed true that absolutely nobody in Ohio wants to play for Akron this far along into Bowdens tenure then we are in trouble. We will NEVER consistently win if we have to rely on getting the majority of our best talent from out of state. I find it odd that recruiting interest in NE Ohio supposedly spiked after Bowden took over and started to rebuild relationships. Now, nobody wants to play here even though the program is showing signs of improvement. This seems odd to me.

[skip-zip]

Almost every other school has interviews with kids that arent commits gauging their recruiting interests, how they liked their visits, etc... We have none of this. I dont expect them to be able to tell us exactly who our class is by now, but we have no idea who is even interested in coming here.

If this is indeed true that absolutely nobody in Ohio wants to play for Akron this far along into Bowdens tenure then we are in trouble. We will NEVER consistently win if we have to rely on getting the majority of our best talent from out of state. I find it odd that recruiting interest in NE Ohio supposedly spiked after Bowden took over and started to rebuild relationships. Now, nobody wants to play here even though the program is showing signs of improvement. This seems odd to me.

That seems odd to me too.

But frankly, I don't care where the recruits some from, as long as they can play. I don't know why that seems so important to some people. What benefit exists for us if a player comes here from Cleveland or from Florida, other than the "boost" in attendance from his mom and dad and a few friends who can attend home games?

[LZIp]

I agree with the few posts above me.

Lonnie Johnson would be a great get. I believe he is a 4 star WR who decommitted from OSU because he was like the 4th WR in their class and he wanted a chance to get better playing time. He is taking visits to schools like USF(horrible) WMU (just lost to EMU) and Cincinnati. This sounds like a guy we might have a chance to get.

How does everybody think the recruiting class is going to end out? I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar amount of transfers as last year. I still think they are needed.

[Zipmeister]

First, you don't know who 3/4th of out class will be because we haven't landed them yet. You want them to predict the future and tell us who will commit?

Second, we're going after just about every D-I prospect you can name. The offers are out there. Absolutely nobody from Ohio wants to play for Akron.

About 47 guys on this list would disagree with you.

[K92]

Absolutely nobody from Ohio wants to play for Akron.

According to Wikipedia, Rittman is a city in Medina and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of Ohio.

[LZIp]

^^ I wish he didn't want to play for us.

[K92]

^^ I wish he didn't want to play for us.

Damn you, LZip. You almost made me swallow my gum.

[Zipgrad01]

That seems odd to me too.

But frankly, I don't care where the recruits some from, as long as they can play. I don't know why that seems so important to some people. What benefit exists for us if a player comes here from Cleveland or from Florida, other than the "boost" in attendance from his mom and dad and a few friends who can attend home games?

I dont care where people are from either, but it is almost a given that if you cant get a decent majority of your local grown talent you are screwed. If we cant get some of the better players in our own area, what makes you think that we will get some of the better kids in other states? If we think that we will build a consistent winner from a majority of out of state recruits we are in trouble.

[ZachTheZip]

About 47 guys on this list would disagree with you.

Thanks. I was not aware that we were just going to re-sign all of our current players and call that the class of 2014.

[Zipmeister]

Thanks. I was not aware that we were just going to re-sign all of our current players and call that the class of 2014.

You are welcome.

[Zipmeister]

I dont care where people are from either, but it is almost a given that if you cant get a decent majority of your local grown talent you are screwed.

The good news then is that just about every team in the MAC is screwed.

I dont care where people are from either, but if we think that we will build a consistent winner from a majority of out of state recruits we are in trouble.

Pulling the middle of your post out leaves this interesting non sequitur.

[lance99]

I dont care where people are from either, but it is almost a given that if you cant get a decent majority of your local grown talent you are screwed. If we cant get some of the better players in our own area, what makes you think that we will get some of the better kids in other states? If we think that we will build a consistent winner from a majority of out of state recruits we are in trouble.

I respectfully disagree,

You do understand that there are 7 BCS/FBS schools in this state? That is not including the smaller schools in this state. Since the move up back in the 80's, every coach that was here said what you are saying.

You just cannot recuit local and think that you can get to be an top level program in this state, just not happening.the only school that I know of here in the area that could get away with that would be Mount Union.

You want top local talent? We actually kind of had Mr. Football as an recuit a couple of years ago(there was a whold thread about it), and we all saw how that turned out.

You go find the best players anywhere. Bottom line

[Captain Kangaroo]

The assertion that we're in some sort of recruiting peril is laughable. Bowden didn't get the HC job at UA until late December, and had a solid Year #1 recruiting class. Year #2 added a ton more talent. Now he has 7 kids committed in early November of Year #3, and people fret? Seriously?

And the people that whine about the local HS kids...give me a break. We have Grice, Bickley, Brumbaugh, Pratt...Lane, Pittman and Moore will be playing next year...we do fine locally. And the kids from Florida and southern Ohio are panning out just fine. Pennsylvania too.

Fretting over Zips recruiting in November is flat-out insane. Fretting over not getting local kids is worse. What has Bowden done, or not done recruiting-wise, to not have faith in the guy? The internet recruiting sites generate nothing but a sea of Chicken Littles.

[Zipgrad01]

I respectfully disagree,

You do understand that there are 7 BCS/FBS schools in this state? That is not including the smaller schools in this state. Since the move up back in the 80's, every coach that was here said what you are saying.

You just cannot recuit local and think that you can get to be an top level program in this state, just not happening.the only school that I know of here in the area that could get away with that would be Mount Union.

You want top local talent? We actually kind of had Mr. Football as an recuit a couple of years ago(there was a whold thread about it), and we all saw how that turned out.

You go find the best players anywhere. Bottom line

And every coach here since the 80's gotten squat for the really good local players. How did that work out for them?

I never said that we have to "just recruit local". That is suicide. However, in order to be CONSISTENTLY good, we need to have success recruiting the best local players. I am talking about the kids going to WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, Northwestern, Iowa, MSU, Cincy, etc... We arent in Idaho. We are in NE Ohio. There is no reason that we should get outrecruited for local talent by BG, OU, Miami (Oh), etc.. but we have been for years. Without a doubt I believe that we should get the best kids that we can from all over the country, but we arent a program that can consistently recruit nationally, ie.. Michigan and Notre Dame.

[Zipgrad01]

The assertion that we're in some sort of recruiting peril is laughable. Bowden didn't get the HC job at UA until late December, and had a solid Year #1 recruiting class. Year #2 added a ton more talent. Now he has 7 kids committed in early November of Year #3, and people fret? Seriously?

And the people that whine about the local HS kids...give me a break. We have Grice, Bickley, Brumbaugh, Pratt...Lane, Pittman and Moore will be playing next year...we do fine locally. And the kids from Florida and southern Ohio are panning out just fine. Pennsylvania too.

Fretting over Zips recruiting in November is flat-out insane. Fretting over not getting local kids is worse. What has Bowden done, or not done recruiting-wise, to not have faith in the guy? The internet recruiting sites generate nothing but a sea of Chicken Littles.

I dont think it is fretting. It is more like frustration that we have zero idea what is going on with recruiting compared to almost any other school in the country.

You mention Grice, Bickley and Pratt. Where else were they going to go play? They had offers from nobody else. I am talking about the local kids that have offers from multiple D1 schools, including small BCS programs. When we start consistently getting those kids, we will know that our program has truly turned the corner.

[Jalapeño Zippy]

I am talking about the local kids that have offers from multiple D1 schools, including small BCS programs. When we start consistently getting those kids, we will know that our program has truly turned the corner.

Something that is not being taken into consideration is that many families/recruits in this area don't often choose Akron when they have other options because Akron is not viewed as a destination. Many students want to go away to school if given the opportunity. Bowden has done a great job of countering this by trying to instill some local pride in HS coaches and players but it is going to take time. He has to take chances on kids, build relationships with coaches and show that he can win. When all of that happens, you will start to see some more interest from the local talent. Right now he needs to get the best players he can that fit in the systems he and his staff are running and not worry about where the talent is coming from.

[Captain Kangaroo]

I dont think it is fretting. It is more like frustration that we have zero idea what is going on with recruiting compared to almost any other school in the country.

But that's just life in Akron...

We lost CJ Mizell early in the season...arguably our most notable 2013 recruit...and his absence was a complete mystery for multiple weeks. Could you imagine at Ohio State if their #1 recruit disappeared for weeks and his whereabouts were never mentioned?

Years ago I used to meet with Brookhart's staff. They were very open to discuss anything. Ianello - the polar opposite.

Maybe I'll start that back up again. Bowden's guys seem to be foreword-thinking enough to understand our site can be a plus to the program.

[LZIp]

But that's just life in Akron...

We lost CJ Mizell early in the season...arguably our most notable 2013 recruit...and his absence was a complete mystery for multiple weeks. Could you imagine at Ohio State if their #1 recruit disappeared for weeks and his whereabouts were never mentioned?

Spot on. We deserve better.

[Hilltopper]

Pratt was looking for a D-1 basketball offer. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, he switched his focus to football. The week after Bowden was hired I saw George Van Horn at the JAR during a BB practice. He mentioned that they were scrambling for football recruits. I mentioned that Pratt might be worth a look. Bowden showed up at GHS the next day.The rest is history.

[a-zip]

Spot on. We deserve better.

Based on attendance, why would they think anybody cared.