We spend so much time on recruiting, but we rarely take time to look back. This series examines every class for the past five coaches- Manny, Richt, Golden, Shannon, and Coker. As Mario’s first class enters Year 4, what are the trends he needs to avoid if he wants to break the cycle?
Of course, bad coaching and development played a massive role in our downfall. But for this exercise, I wanted to focus on pure talent acquisition. That’s why I use NFL numbers. The NFL has the most standardized and competitive talent-evaluation process in football. It’s also really hard to get there- only 2% of CFB players and only 22% of four-stars make the league. And far fewer are able to stick around. As expected, our NFL decline mirrored our decline on the field.
Next up is Al Golden’s first full class, the Class of 2012. Let’s start with the numbers:.
Four-year winning percentage- 59% (+3)
Total signees- 32
NFL players- 7
NFL games- 502
Day 1 Picks- 1
Day 2 picks- 1
Pro Bowls- 0
FIVE STARS
Duke Johnson (Miami-Dade, FL)
Jelani Hamilton (Broward County, FL)
Tyriq McCord (Tampa, FL)
Deon Bush (Miami-Dade, FL)
Ereck Flowers (Miami-Dade, FL)
THREE STARS OR BELOW
Danny Isidora (Miami-Dade, FL)
Dwayne Hoilett (Palm Beach County, FL)
Robert Lockhart (Palm Beach County, FL)
Earl Moore (Tampa, FL)
Jacoby Briscoe (Lafayette, LA)
Preston Dewey (Austin, TX)
Gray Crow (Clearwater, FL)
JaWand Blue (Palm Beach County, FL)
Jontavious Carter (Cordele, GA)
Rayshawn Jenkins (St. Petersburg, FL)
Taylor Gadbois (Atlanta, GA)
Vernon Davis (Miami-Dade, FL)
Antonio Crawford (Tampa, FL)
Danny Dillard (Venice, FL)
Larry Hope (Miami-Dade, FL)
Nate Dortch (Fort Myers, FL)
Gabe Terry (Palm Beach County, FL)
Josh Witt (Broward County, FL)
Jake O’Donnell (Philadelphia, PA)
LaDarius Gunter (Montgomery, AL)
David Thompson (Miami-Dade, FL)
WHAT HAPPENED: This was Golden’s first full class, and the first class in the history of CanesInSight.com. It was a mammoth 32-person group, and in some ways, it was successful. If you exclude the Butch/Coker transition class, these guys played more NFL snaps than any class of the post-Butch era. Given the looming NCAA/Shapiro investigation, this was an impressive accomplishment. Golden landed a killer safety duo in Deon Bush/Rayshawn Jenkins, a Top 10 pick LT in Ereck Flowers, and an all-time offensive weapon in Duke Johnson.
But there was also a lot of dead weight. As we go over the list, we can see both the impact of the Shapiro scandal and Golden’s own limitations. We struggled to land blue chips, with only eight of the 32 enrollees ranking as four stars or better. We also had trouble recruiting nationally due to a shoestring budget and bad press. Half of the 32 players in this class were from South Florida. Those players significantly outperformed the national players, with 31% of them making the NFL (compared to 12% for everyone else in the class).
There were some bad evaluation misses in 2012. Northwestern WR Amari Cooper famously had interest in the Canes, but the staff seemed more focused on Homestead WR Herb Waters. Daytona Beach Maitland DL Leonard Williams also liked the Canes, but a delayed recruitment pushed him across the country to USC. Local products LB James Burgess, Jr. and @Coach Macho's own DB Fabian Moreau didn’t get offered. And OC Jedd Fisch, who would eventually develop into a good recruiter at Arizona, made some poor evaluations at the position with Preston Dewey and Gray Crow. Both struggled with athleticism and overall tools at the ACC level.
One of the biggest issues in this class was the Al Golden Football Camp. Golden placed a huge premium on in-person evaluations at his summer camp on Greentree. The problem was that these evaluations had a very low hit rate, as he and his staff struggled to differentiate the future NFL players at the camp (like Memphis first-round QB Paxton Lynch and Western Kentucky second-round OL Forrest Lamp) from guys like Jake O’Donnell and Vernon Davis.
BEST PLAYER: Miami Norland RB Duke Johnson was a star before he even got to Miami, and he performed immediately. Some (including myself) thought he had even more NFL potential as a defensive back. But he was too electric with the ball in his hands to deny, and he finished as Miami’s all-time leading rusher.
.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: The highest-ranked players in this class mostly delivered, with five of the top nine going pro. But I’ll go with Jelani Hamilton out of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was a heavy, long-armed DL that looked the part but never made a ton of plays. The biggest issue in this class was DT. Golden’s early classes struggled at this position and left a huge void on the defense. These misses haunted his entire tenure, giving birth to the CanesInSight cliche, “Can he play DT?”
BEST EVALUATION: St. Petersburg (Admiral Farragut) ATH Rayshawn Jenkins was a do-it-all player who dominated at the private school level. He wanted to play offense in college and was vocal about it, even after he signed with the Canes. But Golden saw the size and range of an NFL safety. It was not a straight line of development at Miami, but when Jenkins connected with Coach Banda (now the safety coach of the Cleveland Browns) he made the leap.
LESSON LEARNED: This is becoming repetitive, but it rings true: bet on traits. Two things that a prospect can’t change much are his frame and his athleticism. Technique, weight, and strength can improve. One of the reasons our camp evaluations failed so badly is that we took so many guys who performed well but lacked upside. Even though O’Donnell was a miss, he at least had a chance physically. The real problem was taking smaller guys like Larry Hope, Nate Dortch, Vernon Davis and Antonio Crawford with limited upside.
Forrest Lamp was a two-way lineman at Venice that played basketball. Fabian Moreau was a 6', 180+ projected corner with electric offensive highlights. Paxton Lynch was a Deland, FL kid pushing 6’6 with a strong arm and speed. Guys like Dewey and Crow were neither athletic nor particularly big. There was no guarantee guys like Lynch and Lamp would succeed (they were two stars), but those are the kind of prospects you need to identify at camp. We consistently missed there.
CONCLUSION: If this class had 22 players instead of 32, it would be a really solid class. But I think the looming NCAA sanctions pushed us to oversign. Unfortunately, we missed on a lot of those evaluations. Overall, this class bumped up our four-year winning percentage by 3 percent and started a slow but steady upward trend in talent under Golden.
Of course, bad coaching and development played a massive role in our downfall. But for this exercise, I wanted to focus on pure talent acquisition. That’s why I use NFL numbers. The NFL has the most standardized and competitive talent-evaluation process in football. It’s also really hard to get there- only 2% of CFB players and only 22% of four-stars make the league. And far fewer are able to stick around. As expected, our NFL decline mirrored our decline on the field.
Next up is Al Golden’s first full class, the Class of 2012. Let’s start with the numbers:.
Four-year winning percentage- 59% (+3)
Total signees- 32
NFL players- 7
NFL games- 502
Day 1 Picks- 1
Day 2 picks- 1
Pro Bowls- 0
FIVE STARS
Duke Johnson (Miami-Dade, FL)
- 97 NFL games
- Third Round
- 15 NFL games
Jelani Hamilton (Broward County, FL)
Tyriq McCord (Tampa, FL)
Deon Bush (Miami-Dade, FL)
- 103 NFL games*
- Fourth Round
Ereck Flowers (Miami-Dade, FL)
- 105 NFL games
- First Round
THREE STARS OR BELOW
Danny Isidora (Miami-Dade, FL)
- 31 games (5th Round)
Dwayne Hoilett (Palm Beach County, FL)
Robert Lockhart (Palm Beach County, FL)
Earl Moore (Tampa, FL)
Jacoby Briscoe (Lafayette, LA)
Preston Dewey (Austin, TX)
Gray Crow (Clearwater, FL)
JaWand Blue (Palm Beach County, FL)
Jontavious Carter (Cordele, GA)
Rayshawn Jenkins (St. Petersburg, FL)
- 122 NFL games*
- Fourth Round
Taylor Gadbois (Atlanta, GA)
Vernon Davis (Miami-Dade, FL)
Antonio Crawford (Tampa, FL)
Danny Dillard (Venice, FL)
Larry Hope (Miami-Dade, FL)
Nate Dortch (Fort Myers, FL)
Gabe Terry (Palm Beach County, FL)
Josh Witt (Broward County, FL)
Jake O’Donnell (Philadelphia, PA)
LaDarius Gunter (Montgomery, AL)
- 29 NFL games
David Thompson (Miami-Dade, FL)
WHAT HAPPENED: This was Golden’s first full class, and the first class in the history of CanesInSight.com. It was a mammoth 32-person group, and in some ways, it was successful. If you exclude the Butch/Coker transition class, these guys played more NFL snaps than any class of the post-Butch era. Given the looming NCAA/Shapiro investigation, this was an impressive accomplishment. Golden landed a killer safety duo in Deon Bush/Rayshawn Jenkins, a Top 10 pick LT in Ereck Flowers, and an all-time offensive weapon in Duke Johnson.
But there was also a lot of dead weight. As we go over the list, we can see both the impact of the Shapiro scandal and Golden’s own limitations. We struggled to land blue chips, with only eight of the 32 enrollees ranking as four stars or better. We also had trouble recruiting nationally due to a shoestring budget and bad press. Half of the 32 players in this class were from South Florida. Those players significantly outperformed the national players, with 31% of them making the NFL (compared to 12% for everyone else in the class).
There were some bad evaluation misses in 2012. Northwestern WR Amari Cooper famously had interest in the Canes, but the staff seemed more focused on Homestead WR Herb Waters. Daytona Beach Maitland DL Leonard Williams also liked the Canes, but a delayed recruitment pushed him across the country to USC. Local products LB James Burgess, Jr. and @Coach Macho's own DB Fabian Moreau didn’t get offered. And OC Jedd Fisch, who would eventually develop into a good recruiter at Arizona, made some poor evaluations at the position with Preston Dewey and Gray Crow. Both struggled with athleticism and overall tools at the ACC level.
One of the biggest issues in this class was the Al Golden Football Camp. Golden placed a huge premium on in-person evaluations at his summer camp on Greentree. The problem was that these evaluations had a very low hit rate, as he and his staff struggled to differentiate the future NFL players at the camp (like Memphis first-round QB Paxton Lynch and Western Kentucky second-round OL Forrest Lamp) from guys like Jake O’Donnell and Vernon Davis.
BEST PLAYER: Miami Norland RB Duke Johnson was a star before he even got to Miami, and he performed immediately. Some (including myself) thought he had even more NFL potential as a defensive back. But he was too electric with the ball in his hands to deny, and he finished as Miami’s all-time leading rusher.
.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: The highest-ranked players in this class mostly delivered, with five of the top nine going pro. But I’ll go with Jelani Hamilton out of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was a heavy, long-armed DL that looked the part but never made a ton of plays. The biggest issue in this class was DT. Golden’s early classes struggled at this position and left a huge void on the defense. These misses haunted his entire tenure, giving birth to the CanesInSight cliche, “Can he play DT?”
BEST EVALUATION: St. Petersburg (Admiral Farragut) ATH Rayshawn Jenkins was a do-it-all player who dominated at the private school level. He wanted to play offense in college and was vocal about it, even after he signed with the Canes. But Golden saw the size and range of an NFL safety. It was not a straight line of development at Miami, but when Jenkins connected with Coach Banda (now the safety coach of the Cleveland Browns) he made the leap.
LESSON LEARNED: This is becoming repetitive, but it rings true: bet on traits. Two things that a prospect can’t change much are his frame and his athleticism. Technique, weight, and strength can improve. One of the reasons our camp evaluations failed so badly is that we took so many guys who performed well but lacked upside. Even though O’Donnell was a miss, he at least had a chance physically. The real problem was taking smaller guys like Larry Hope, Nate Dortch, Vernon Davis and Antonio Crawford with limited upside.
Forrest Lamp was a two-way lineman at Venice that played basketball. Fabian Moreau was a 6', 180+ projected corner with electric offensive highlights. Paxton Lynch was a Deland, FL kid pushing 6’6 with a strong arm and speed. Guys like Dewey and Crow were neither athletic nor particularly big. There was no guarantee guys like Lynch and Lamp would succeed (they were two stars), but those are the kind of prospects you need to identify at camp. We consistently missed there.
CONCLUSION: If this class had 22 players instead of 32, it would be a really solid class. But I think the looming NCAA sanctions pushed us to oversign. Unfortunately, we missed on a lot of those evaluations. Overall, this class bumped up our four-year winning percentage by 3 percent and started a slow but steady upward trend in talent under Golden.
