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- Dec 22, 2011
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Just stop and think about what you are saying for a minute.I don't think anyone is refusing the acknowledge what happened with Marshall, but that is the reality with top prospects and somehow we were able to overcome it with Taylor and Williams. That aside, the issue in past years was not just missing on the Surtain, Campbell, etc. It was the fact that our CB board was always small, and seemingly would explode after the early signing day when we miss out on top prospects. Fair or not, accurate or not, it gives the impression that we are consistently scrambling at the end. Losing guys like Jaden Davis and Asante Samuel when we did not start recruiting them until it was too late reinforces this. We don't know how much of this is on Rumph vs Diaz, but I can't imagine it helps recruit guys where the person you will be working with most is not that involved in the recruitment.
Flash forward to this year, what happened with Marshall happened. If my bubbie had balls she'd be my zeidi and if UF didn't drop a bag Marshall would be committed to Miami. But the reality is, we now have one guy on the board for a spot where we really need a guy who will be ready to contribute early, and this need is a result of past years' failures. Part of that is due to the pandemic, part is it seems like a down year for CBs in SFL, and part is we just had a small board at the beginning.
I think everyone wants Rumph to succeed and be part of the story of Miami returning to the mountaintop, but questioning his ability to recruit and stack a room is 100% fair after four years of evidence. He does have a number of 4* guys in the room now. He really needs them to develop and start getting drafted in the top 3 rounds to overcome some of the other recruiting deficiencies.
We didn't "overcome" anything with Taylor. It has been made clear multiple times, he didn't want the money. And if he did want the money, we would not have overcome anything.
And on the "CB board was small" nonsense, it needs to be broken into two components. First, we didn't lose SoFla blue-chippers over "CB board was small" issues. People can't name a SoFla blue-chipper that we missed for lack of an offer. Now, once you get down to 3-stars, yes, we may have made some wrong calls on projections. We may have taken some kids and missed on others. Honestly, what do you think the alternative is (outside of offering every 4 and 5 star CB in the country, regardless of geography)? If we offer a ton of 3-stars, what do we do, take the first 2 or 3 who commit?
As for your examples (Jaden Davis and Asante Samuel)...
Jaden Davis:
Receiving an offer from your hometown team is always a great moment, and this was no different for Davis.
“Receiving a Miami offer was crazy I remember it was spring of my sophomore year. Coach Banda spoke to me over the phone. Just to receive an offer from the hometown team was just amazing.”
Miami has put two men in charge of recruiting Davis, sending both Mike Rumph and DeMarcus Van Dyke out on the trail.
“They are both great guys and I have built a great relationship with them. They talk to me more about family and life than football.”
Asante Samuel:
First, Miami was in the FINAL TWO, and he eliminated Alabama, LSU, and Ohio State before choosing between UM and F$U. IN APRIL 2017 (and for the record, when Samuel picked F$U over UM, Jimbo was still the coach).
Second, Miami made a SECOND "late push" along with South Carolina. IN DECEMBER 2017.
So let's not confuse this as a "we recruited him late" situation. We recruited Samuel early and often.
So, again, once we put aside the false impressions about what really happened, please feel free to get specific on what needs to change. I still fail to see how a "large board" changes things, but if you want to chase DBs in California, I guess we could try to hire Mullet.
Sure, we could start offering kids huge bags, to compete with the SEC scumbags. And spare me the bubbie comparison. Marshall got paid. It sucks. But if you can separate the money from, you know, the actual recruiting, you could admit that Rumph and Banda and Van Dyke actually did a great job of RECRUITING Marshall. Not a great job of paying him, but a great job of RECRUITING him.
All I'm talking about is that Rumph haters will DISMISS any evidence of improvement or change. They will complain about things that happened 4 years ago.
You can't blame Rumph for Marshall having UM #1 (when ignoring money).
You can't blame Rumph for "only" offering Jaden Davis as a sophomore.
You can't blame Rumph for making a SECOND recruiting pitch to Asante Samuel, even though our first pitch failed.
If you think our CB board is "too small", then we are really talking about 3-star kids, and yes, I would like to see Miami do a LOT MORE to identify CB talent by talking to area coaches. If anything is "too small", it's some of these kids. ****, Samuel was 5'9" and 160 pounds when we were recruiting him. If you use "size" as a prerequisite on CB recruiting, you might miss some kids who have late growth spurts, so we need to start targeting the kids who have dog-like effort in covering WRs, even WRs who are bigger than them.
I'd love to have tall CBs who weigh 200 pounds, but so does everyone else, especially the SEC schools that pay for that.
We need to find more Honey Badgers. And then coach them up. And pray that they keep growing.
Look, I'm not criticizing any one particular poster. But at least I provide a specific solution, and I don't just talk about generalities like "recruiting better".
PS, I would like to point out that all of this complaining is about Rumph's RECRUITING, because his coaching has been excellent, the defensive backs AND the entire defense has been highly ranked for his entire tenure. If you want to focus on positions that have actually LOST US GAMES, let's look at the QBs, the kickers, and the OL.
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