Courtesy of
@ClancyNoseBest This article is inaccurate. A lot of these guys were not flips. We pursued Kemore Gamble late. Randy Russell was effectively pushed out and not pursued back. Am I so toasted that I don’t remember it correctly???
The battles on the recruiting trail between in-state rivals have resulted in numerous 'flips.'
247sports.com
OK, so it's time to analyze the Gaytors Flipz Machine article from Luke Stampenis.
First, I'll start by saying that I'm not really bothered by a "decommit". Kids can choose to go to whatever college they like the best. Now, this is not a denial of reality when (a) a kid is a serial decommitter or (b) there's a bunch of underhanded BS going on with another school trying to get a kid to decommit. The business of committing and decommitting can get ugly. Fair enough.
Second, in keeping with the "free will" argument above, we have to think about how long a kid can be decommitted from Miami before he constitutes a "steal" when he commits to another school such as UiF. After observing this recruiting game for over 30 years, I think it is undisputed that a "simultaneous" decommit/commit can be considered a flip. Not only does the new school get a commit, but the school that suffers the decommit has no reaction time in which they can start recruiting another player. The replacement may happen eventually, but it is certainly a blow.
Anything beyond a month, though, really should not constitute a "flip" or "steal". These kids are allowed to change their minds, they are allowed to do what they want, and when they spend more than a month on the "open market", even if they end up at a school "we thought they would go to", these kids have risked losing the "sure thing" at the first school and have started looking around at multiple schools in the meantime.
Finally, it should be noted that there are really 2 kinds of decommits we have seen at Miami over the past few years. One is the "committed too soon/used the Miami offer to generate interest from others" decommit, and the other is the "Golden/Richt sucks, I need to do something now before I really figure out who the new coach will be". And, yes, it takes time to build relationships with new coaching staffs, so I'm not blaming these kids, though I would have loved it if they stuck with Miami.
On with the show.
2015
---Stampenis mentions Jordan Scarlett, who is a
true Gaytor Flipz. Decommitted from Miami and committed to Florida right before National Signing Day 2015. Even if it was rumored earlier, we have to remember that Golden finished out 2014 with 4 consecutive losses, which really damaged our 2015 and 2016 recruiting efforts. Legit Flipz, with a valid reason (Golden sucked).
---NOTABLE OMISSION: Notice how Stampenis does not claim Jordan Cronkrite, who flopped at UiF. However, Cronkrite is
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz, as nearly 5 months passed between his UM decommit and his UF commit. I note the omission because it's not the only one. The only truly interesting aspect with Cronkrite is that he decommitted before Golden's 2014 year-end swoon. Maybe we can call Cronkrite a true Gaytor Flopz.
2016
---Chauncey Gardner is a
true Gaytor Flipz, another casualty of Golden's 2014 year-end tank job. Jawaan Taylor is also a
true Gaytor Flipz, but he was kind enough to wait until Golden was fired after the Clemson debacle. Nothing to see here.
2017
---Stampenis mentions 3 Flipz candidates, and omits 1 Flipz candidate. The only
true Gaytor Flipz is Kadeem Telfort, who was smart enough to jump ship BEFORE Golden's Clemson debacle. Kemore Gable is right at the edge of the definition, as he went a month as a free agent, thus he is
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz. Finally, you have CJ Henderson,
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz (4 months between) and another notable omission, Brian Edwards, who is
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz either (3 months between). It is important to sort this stuff out, as Gaytor fans tend to build up the Flipz argument when Miami continues to recruit decommitted kids. Makes no difference. Makes it a "loss" rather than a "flipz" or a "steal".
2018
---Ah, yes, the Randy Russell year. What is funny about Randy is that he isn't even listed on the Signing Class on Rivals. Yeah, but Randy's a "Gaytor for Life", right? Yeah, most of the Gaytors who read Stampenis' article have no active memory of Randy Russell. Anyhow, I'm going to count ol' Randy as a
true Gaytor Flipz, as he picked UiF a couple of weeks after decommitting from Miami.
2019
---Now we come to the tragedy that was Richt's final season, where he just didn't seem to have the fire or stones, unless it was making sure that his son kept getting paychecks (Coach Richt, how could you have missed this final important lesson from your mentor, Blobby Bowden?). So, Jesiah Pierre decommitted in the summertime, but he went nearly 2 months before committing to UiF, so
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz. Then we have the pair of 2019 kids who left when Richt was fired. Michael Tarquin was the first
true Gaytor Flipz as Richt flamed out in 2018, and then Kingsley Eguakun was the second
true Gaytor Flipz of December 2018.
2020
---I'm only dignifying Stampenis' inclusion of Leonard Manuel because he decommitted around the same time as Tarquin and Eguakun. However, we ALL KNOW that Leonard Manuel is an academic-nonqualifier-in-waiting, and it took him a month to find an idiotic Mullet to take a chance on him, months before Mullet white-knuckled the middle part of 2019 due to multiple academic nonqualifiers (and toss in a few criminals and homesick mama's boys to boot). It will be interesting to see if Mullet "stands by his Manuel" after the last few months, but we are talking about the same guy who has a "less than 100%, but I'm still calling it zero-tolerance" policy on violence against women. Still,
NOT a true Gaytor Flipz.
7 true Gaytor Flipz
6 NOT true Gaytor Flipz (2 of whom Stampenis selectively omitted)
7-6. Sounds like a typical Mullet W-L record.
But, yeah, 7 Gaytor Flipz in 6 years is something that I believe Manny should address, and will address. Even if 5 of them were due to UM "dead coach walking" syndrome. And the other 2 are Randy Russell and Kadeem Telfort. So, you know, not big losses.
that chick was my first crush. Lol