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The 2015 Football Commitment List


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Yep ................ VERY little information.

Hell this topic has way more information that any of the recruiting sites .................. It is scary

None of our coaches have connections to the recruiting services. They don't even bother to notify the services of commitments through any of the back channels. As a contrast, look at PJ Fleck at WMU, who has an "inside guy" that bumps his recruits up to three stars after they commit.

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None of our coaches have connections to the recruiting services. They don't even bother to notify the services of commitments through any of the back channels. As a contrast, look at PJ Fleck at WMU, who has an "inside guy" that bumps his recruits up to three stars after they commit.

If this is in fact true, it is not a good thing. These kids follow recruiting nowadays. It is a big to do like the NFL draft. What better way to advertise that nobody wants to play at your school? That is a terrible recruiting decision.

Say whatever you want about PJ Fleck, but the recruits know that they are lighting it up in recruiting because of these services and kids want to go be a part of it.

How would you feel if you were being recruited by Akron and when you looked them up on the recruiting services that they are currently ranked about 40th in 1-AA? Sign me up!!

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None of our coaches have connections to the recruiting services. They don't even bother to notify the services of commitments through any of the back channels. As a contrast, look at PJ Fleck at WMU, who has an "inside guy" that bumps his recruits up to three stars after they commit.

One more thing....no inside guy is bumping up his players ranking. They went from 1-11 to a bowl game with great young talent. He is killing bowden in recruiting and with results on the field.

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Yea. I am speculating that we have a fraction of the recruits all other schools have. Is there reason to think otherwise?

Everyone was upset last year that we only had 13 recruits. At the end of the day, with greyshirts and late commits...we ended up with 18. I'm not as worried about it as you. I prefer quality over quantity: and quality is better assessed by coaches than by BS star rankings. For goodness sake, most of the recruiting "services" can't even agree on the grade of a player.

The quality of players Bowden has brought in are 10x better than what we had in the two coaches before. We have less to be concerned about than BS numbers on some recruiting services website.

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We will be fine I'm sure .............. When Coach Stroud was down a few weeks ago, his answer when I asked him how things are shaping up for the 2015 class, he told me that they were "about done" and working on a couple of kids from Florida ....................... We also discussed the Bowden and staff philosophy and that they would much rather have three solid kids with no stars than one 5 star kid that has his ego inflated by some recruiting service.............. Zach the Zip is correct in that the UA Coaches have no time or trust in the recruiting services and pay no attention to "stars"

Coach Stroud said in his 25 years of coaching, he has seen far more "no star" kids develop and succeed than he has "multi star" kids

These recruiting service guys are pure vultures and if you're not attending their camps and don;t pay to have a profile for your kid ............... forget it.

Hell one of those services had my son rated as a 4 star ................... Until I wouldn't pay him the $3000 for his "services", which was basically a data base of email addresses, form letters for emails etc, and a computer generated schedule to email and make calls to Coaches.

Dude said, "All I do is talk to Coaches all day about kids and am very successful at getting kids scholarships" ................. When I asked him why I would pay $3000 to get email addresses when I can go onto the school web page and get those.......... Dude says "those email addresses are the school email addresses and the coaches don't look at those much, I have their personal email addresses and phone numbers: .............. Right LOL ............ Never heard from the dude again after that.

When my son emailed his film around and reached out to Coaches via social media, there was plenty of dialogue with Coaches and offers ............... Coach Stroud called him the same day he sent his film, and offered him.

I'm pretty confident in the Coaches ability to see talent and am pretty sure that the tenure of some of these Coaches tells you that they must do a pretty good job to be around this long

C'mon Spring ball !!!!!

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Great post Jrship. Thanks for taking the time. One of the biggest reasons unrated and 2 star players succeed in the NFL is due to weight training in college. There is some stat out there how top recruits like Clowney gained only minimal weight during their time in college, but a unranked NFL draft picks gains 40, 50...pounds. I've noticed how impressed you are with what is currently going on in that department. This provides me hope.

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Thanks Dr Z ........ Not that I am any Bear Bryant, but I have been Coaching for quite some time and the old phrase "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" is SO true !!!

As you have seen (sorry to keep beating the horse) from me, I firmly believe that the strength and conditioning program is absolutely in the top three most important aspects of a successful program. Look at the successful programs and dig deep to understand their S&C programs and you will see. It is something that, in my opinion, is so overlooked by fans because that is not what is seen on game day.

I have seen the difference in my own son throughout his high school career alone. He has put on about 40 pounds from his freshman year and his speed and quickness has gotten better each year. As it is only high school I know, but there is a HUGE emphasis on the S&C program at Buford High School. The off season and summer program is 100% comparable with any college program at any level. They are base lined, tracked and recorded throughout the off season to record the gains. Workouts are structured more around the position and the lineman workouts are different from the skill position workouts based on the need (fast twitch muscles, recovery time needed etc.) ................. it is a true science and the UA Coaches were blown away by the football IQ that my son has regarding workouts, film study, defensive schemes ETC. In speaking with many of the guys that are a year or two above my son when they come back, they say that the transition into the next level is certainly not easy (game speed, size etc.), however they seem to transition much easier than kids from other schools............... Not that Buford is all that (there are many great high school programs), the point is the importance.

It is nice to see that Coach Gildersleeve has already sent my son his workouts (strength and agility), mapped out for him until he arrives at Akron........ A few of his buddies that are committed (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee) have all been told to "train" and they will get on the program when they arrive................ Not UA !!!

Good things coming .............. I'm excited to see how he does at the next level. Not a multi star guy (or even A star LOL), but without being bias, I know he will outwork the majority. As alot of the interior D-Line is scheme based (gap control) at UA, his job will be to keep the LB's clean of O-lineman getting to the second level.

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Only JC guys have signed so far I believe. High school national signing day is first week of February. ...... If the 8 listed commits are solid and sign along with the "super six" and 2 JC guys, That's 16 currently not counting gray shirts (not sure the number that counts toward 2015)

Does that sound correct ? We will be fine

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Only JC guys have signed so far I believe. High school national signing day is first week of February. ...... If the 8 listed commits are solid and sign along with the "super six" and 2 JC guys, That's 16 currently not counting gray shirts (not sure the number that counts toward 2015)

Does that sound correct ? We will be fine

Sounds right to me. We definitely have some greyshirts from last year too. But I don't think either site is showing "signed", just commits.

I'm not sure I buy into these conspiracy theories about guys bumping up stars, but Its beyond dumb and stubborn if Bowden, Amato, and the clan don't contact these sites regarding commits. It looks bad. Look at the rankings. For the most part, the better teams in the conference are up top, and the bottom teams are at the bottom. Good perception is important if you're trying to improve your program.

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Guys…..I am not concerned about stars or rankings associated to players……...I am concerned that we only show 2 recruits signed in total!!! On the one site is shows we have NONE!

You don't trust my list?

Who cares about how many commits they have listed. Kids tweet out their commitments on their own now. No need to announce through a site that charges you for the privilege to announce and then turns around and charges fans to see the report.

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Sounds right to me. We definitely have some greyshirts from last year too. But I don't think either site is showing "signed", just commits.

I'm not sure I buy into these conspiracy theories about guys bumping up stars, but Its beyond dumb and stubborn if Bowden, Amato, and the clan don't contact these sites regarding commits. It looks bad. Look at the rankings. For the most part, the better teams in the conference are up top, and the bottom teams are at the bottom. Good perception is important if you're trying to improve your program.

How is it beyond dumb and stubborn? If coaches are putting any stock in "recruiting sites" they should be looking for a job sitting with the fans. Same thing with recruits. If they're putting any stock into what school they want to commit too, they also should be looking to sit in the stands with the fans.

These sites have ZERO meaning or substance except to bored reporters trying to fill up space in articles and fans.

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How is it beyond dumb and stubborn? If coaches are putting any stock in "recruiting sites" they should be looking for a job sitting with the fans. Same thing with recruits. If they're putting any stock into what school they want to commit too, they also should be looking to sit in the stands with the fans.

These sites have ZERO meaning or substance except to bored reporters trying to fill up space in articles and fans.

No matter what your opinion is of them, there are a lot of people who pay close attention to those sites. Like I said, for the most part, the top programs in the MAC are at the top of their lists and the bottom programs are at the bottom. Do you think that is a coincidence? Do the coaches think they are bullshit? Who cares. Play along. WMU has been ranked the top of the league the past two years. The just had Jarvion Franklin (A TRUE FRESHMAN RB) win MAC OPOY. The sites aren't worthless. Frankly, and no disrespect, but nothing I've seen so far makes me think our coaching staff is smarter on the recruiting trail than every other coach in CFB.

I'm not freaking out like a-zip. I'm actually not freaking out at all, but lets not act like the sites are worthless.

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The reality in college football recruiting is that it is more about players marketing themselves to coaches than it is about coaches looking for hidden talent. The recruiting sites are nothing more than entrepreneurs capitalizing on an opportunity. Almost every parent wants to give their kid the edge with recruiting and these guys all promise that. It is an easy sell, to some degree. Who wants to feel like they aren't doing everything they can to put their kid in the best position for the best offers? The truth is that recruiting coaches will generally look at the videos sent to them, whether its from a paid site or from the kid himself, posted to YouTube. Why on earth would a coach want to take the advice of a website that is acting as a paid advocate?


Bowden addressed the lack of commits showing up on websites in his last press conference and said they already had 12 kids onto he roster already who counted towards the 2015 recruiting class.




Remember, the coaching staff cannot comment on high school commits until signing day, so unless we happen to pick up the story via a news source or Twitter, we don't know who has committed

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Sad thing is that I was contacted (didn't reach to them) by 4 different services ................ They all did the same thing and pitched the same "I have the inside track with all the major college coaches" ........... Total BS

When I looked at their "services", they included a very nice package of email addresses, templates for sending emails, suggested phone conversations guidelines and a nice organizer function to keep track of contacts, schedule of when to email (weekly emails), a couple would assign a "recruiting coach" that was supposed to walk "hand in hand" through the "high pressure" recruiting process.......................... All this for a bargain price of about $3000 ................................ So I was curious (not to waste my money, but to understand the scam). Turns out from a couple of folks I spoke with at a camp and at a school visit, who were hooked, that the most traffic that either of their kids received was from D3 and NAIA schools and ZERO communication from any D1 schools. And one was was "rated" as a 3 star by the service they wasted their money on.

All of the small schools with low to no recruiting staff or budget utilize these services, but not one ............... NOT ONE of the D1 schools that were/are recruiting my son said that they pay any attention to these services.

If a parent really wants to give his/her sons or daughters the best opportunity for a scholarship at the next level ............... Help them to put together the system to go to the school sports web sites, find the email addresses of the recruiting coordinators and position coaches and send highlight film attached to an email to those coaches. Set up your email templates and follow up email templates and come up with a system to keep track of when each school was emailed, next follow up email date, any correspondence with coaches etc .......................... This can all be done for the simple cost of your time !!! My thought is that for an opportunity of $150 to $200K of college education, that seems like a pretty prosperous use of your time !!! .................. You and your kid need to be prepared for rejection, no responses, consistent emailing and follow up etc. Your child also has to be willing to pick up the phone and initiate dialogue with Coaches

Far to many people are easy prey to these services because they either have no idea where to start and what to do, they aren't willing to invest the time or think that it is the high school coaches job to do that.

Rivals, Scout and the other guys create great buzz but if you don't pay for the profile and subscription ................ Forget about it

Sorry ........... That's my rant on these paid services.

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Bowden addressed the lack of commits showing up on websites in his last press conference and said they already had 12 kids onto he roster already who counted towards the 2015 recruiting class.

12 players already on the roster. So the six transfers, the two newly signed JUCOs, and four greyshirts?

Add to that the eight-ish high school recruits, and you're very close to a full class.

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