Class of 2010: Musings

Well, here we are just over a month after Signing Day for the Class of 2009 and things are really rolling with early verbal commitments in the class of 2010. As of yesterday, 138 Class of 2010 prospects had already made verbal commitments to Division I schools.

Here are some thoughts on where things stand as of March 10.

Texas

As usual, Texas leads the pack with 19 early verbals, all of them from in-state prospects.  This is a remarkable number, even by Texas standards.  It includes such blue-chippers as quarterbacks Connor Wood and Case McCoy (Colt’s brother), LB Aaron Benson, offensive linemen Dominic Espinosa and Trey Hopkins, RB Traylon Snead and a deep group of defensive backs (including a super one in Ahmad Dixon), defensive linemen and wide receivers.

There is no questioning that this is an outstanding group, however all of the early verbals beg the question as to whether Texas is sort of putting themselves in a corner by limiting their flexibility to sign some of the remaining in-state supers down the road.

For instance, does landing Traylon Shead negatively impact them with Lache Seastrunk? At the end of the day, will choosing to offer Snead early until waiting to further evaluate him against such other in-state backs as Ben Malena and D.J. Jones backfire?

Texas landed four quality receivers, however perhaps the top receiver in the state, Darius White, is not one of them and they did not pursue another highly touted prospect in Mike Davis, who subsequently committed to LSU. Will these recruiting decisions backfire?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but there are perils to receiving commitments from so many prospects who are just in the middle of their junior year.  Just look at the mess that Joe Paterno at Penn State got himself into several years back when he really got the ball rolling in terms of offering juniors. 

A lot of these so-called junior all-americans ended up in a sort of stall pattern and not developing as the Nittany Lions would have hoped.

Why?  Simply because we are talking about college offers going out to prospects based on sophomore and junior film, when they have yet to turn 17-years-old.  These kids are, for the most part, still maturing. 

Early rankings and ratings of these prospects are just a “snapshot” of where things stand at a certain period of time. And trust me, as I spend a lot of time talking to coaches and rating prospects, there is a tremendous amount of movement in the rankings and ratings of prospects from these early junior year “snapshots” until they sign on the dotted line in February of their senior year.

A lot can happen in a year.  Some kids will continue to mature and get bigger and stronger. Other kids will stop growing. Some kids may get lazy after committing and regress as prospects. 

Some kids may be injured. Some kids will exceed expectations at camps and combines.  Some kids won’t. Some kids will have great senior years, others won’t. Some kids will decommit to other schools.

On the other hand, there are advantages to the Texas strategy. First, as all of the early verbals are from Texas the risk of  decommitments is mitigated. Moreover, the Texas staff now has 19 Class of 2010 prospects who will be recruiting other top high school kids to Texas, many from the Class of 2011.

Landing so many early verbals also allows the Texas coaching staff to focus more on three things:

1. The small handful of elite prospects they are still recruiting for the Class of 2010.  They can give these kids the sort of “bespoke” attention that most other schools, who are still evaluating 2010 prospects, cannot provide.
2. Getting a head start when it comes to evaluating and recruiting Class of 2011 and 2012 prospects.
3. Most importantly, they will be able to spend more time coaching their current players.

Notre Dame

The Fighting Irish are off to a nice start with three early verbals, including one of the elite prospects in the nation in California LB Chris Martin. Martin could team up with a certain recent signee from Barack Obama’s alma mater to form one of the most dynamic linebacker duos in the nation.  I have him ranked as the best linebacker in the nation.

What is really scary as that Notre Dame also leads for my third-ranked linebacker, Californian Anthony Barr, who happens to be the son of former Notre Dame player Tony Brooks and nephew of Reggie Brooks. 

Whether Barr ends up as a college linebacker, however, is still up in the air.  He had a tremendous season as a running back and with his size and athleticism could also play on the defensive line or at TE. He’s a splendid prospect and would be a huge get for the Irish.

There are a couple of other sons of former players who are being heavily recruited.  At one time it looked as though Notre Dame’s top recruiting target at quarterback would be Jake Heaps out of Washington. 

Heaps, however, reportedly did not impress onlookers at the San Antonio U.S. Army Combine in early January and word is that Notre Dame may be looking in another direction. 

Other quarterbacks who have been offered include the fast-rising Blake Bell (at present my top-ranked QB in the nation), Devin Gardner, Austin Hinder and a certain Nick Montana.

Montana, the son of former Irish great Joe Montana, is a fast-rising prospect who plays for the same program that sent Jimmy Clausen to Notre Dame.  He has probably improved more than any other junior QB in the nation over the past year as he has started to fill out and mature.  As a consequence, once his junior film made the rounds the offers came rolling in.   Word is that Notre Dame is making a big push to land him and that the Irish are now the prohibitive favorite.

Georgia WR Tai-ler Jones is another prep star who has a father (Andre Jones) who played at Notre Dame.  He currently has over 30 offers and is one of the most “reported” prospects on various web sites.  He must have a great PR man.  Every year there are three or four kids who I see updates on every time they receive an offer.  This year, Tai-ler is one of those kids.

The other two Notre Dame verbals are outstanding Illinois lineman Christian Lombard, one of the nations best, and local stud WR Daniel Smith (South Bend Clay).

What could really be downright scary for Notre Dame this year is their offensive line recruiting.  It is a great year for top-flight offensive linemen from Catholic Notre Dame feeder schools.  Seantrel Henderson (St. Paul Cretin-Durham) is the best in the nation, but the Irish may have a better chance at landing the nearly as good Brandon Linder, out of a program that is just loaded with D-I prospects this year - Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas.  Matt James out of Cincinnati St. Xavier is another stud who the Irish  could and up battling Ohio State to land.

The Best Quarterback in the Nation?

It is still early, but there has been a lot of movement in my quarterback rankings the past month as I review film and get a feel for the top prospects.  At present, my number one ranked prospects in the nation is Blake Bell (6-6, 215, 4.7) out of Wichita Bishop Carroll in Kansas.  He is a tall and athletic quarterback who only moved to the position as a junior after playing WR as a sophomore.  He has great height, a cannon for an arm, can make all the throws and has the athleticism to flush out of the pocket and make plays.

Others quarterbacks to watch out for include the talented dual-threat QB Devin Gardner out of Inkster, Michigan.  He is a tremendous athlete but needs to work on his throwing mechanics.  Weren’t we saying the same thing about Terrelle Pryor two years ago?

Philip Sims out of Chesapeake Oscar Smith High in Virginia seems like he has been around forever.  He has a great arm but will need to work on his drops as he plays in the shotgun.

The aforementioned Jake Heaps and Nick Montana may lack the stature of some of the other QBs and may be accused of playing against poor competition (Heaps) or being system QBs (Montana), but they have thus far pretty much done everything asked of them and have very impressive film.

Early verbals Connor Wood and Case McCoy (both Texas), Trey Burton (Florida), Scotty Young (Texas Tech) and Paul Jones (Penn State) also rate near the top in this years QB class.

Some others include athletic QBs Terrance Broadway, Blake Sims, Robert Bolden, Jeffrey Godfrey, Anthony Gonzalez and Christian Green, and pro-style QBs Austin Hinder, Pete Thomas, Jesse Scroggins (my favorite “sleeper”; watch for him to move up), Zach Lee and Tyler Arndt.

Last but not least is Sherman Oaks (CA) Notre Dame QB Ryan Kasdorf.  He earns my Kyle Boller award for coming out of relative obscurity to emerge as a star.  Boller did not start until his senior year in high school.  Kasdorf started as a junior after playing JV ball as a sophomore, and he put up HUGE numbers for one of the best programs in California. 

Kasdorf completed 69 percent of his passes (171-248) for 3,291 yards and 36 touchdowns.  What I do not understand is why he has yet to receive an offer.  Somebody offer him!  He is outstanding!

I’ll have more tomorrow.