- Joined
- Nov 2, 2011
- Messages
- 5,085
Earlier in the year I supported not going after Quincy Wilson & Treon Harris. Quincy's clips just never impressed me at all, and I felt like Treon coming to UM and not winning the starting QB job was too big of a risk to take.... I felt that not having him would not be as bad as the fallout from Ice & the Luke faction of South Florida that would've made it a Ryan Collins thing had Olsen or Kaaya beat him out.
FSU taking Treon was masterful. Although Quincy/Cook/Lane fell apart, there's no doubt in my mind that Quincy was also a very vocal critic of Miami ALL YEAR LONG in the ears of these kids (and now, perhaps, Lane/Cook trickle to JC Jackson, etc.). Whether he convinced them to go to UF or not, he DID constantly stay in their ear about how much Miami "sucks", etc..... you can see this in the public on Twitter, and no telling how bad it was on an every day basis. I'm sure his father did too. There is no way that doesn't have an effect on these kids... you can see how easily swayed Cook (3 different commitments) and Lane (I'm following Cook) are, and these are supposedly the Alpha players. I vastly underestimated how much of a group of followers kids in SoFla are, I thought they had a more alpha, I'm-an-individual mentality, but I think I was wrong.
I hate the idea of taking kids who I don't think can play here, but after seeing this season unfold I'm more convinced than ever that 1-3 slots in every class should be utilized by identifying kids - as early as their FR and SO years - who are vocal, charismatic leaders in South Florida, and attacking them with everything we have early - whether they can play here or not.
It's much more palatable, for me, to break the "community" ice this way rather than dealing with all the scumbag handlers, and I think it's likely more effective too. If the kids can't play, you bring them here and give them a million shots in practice and it will become apparent that they can't hack it, so no one can cry foul when they don't win a spot. In the meantime you help sew up a REAL feeling of "Miami wants Miami kids and they're going to win NCs by recruiting Miami HS football kids".
We seem to have a big problem right now in that certain people in the community don't think it's cool to come to Miami, or that Miami doesn't want "Miami kids". We have to change that somehow, and I can't see us getting in bed with the mentors under the current setting.
FSU taking Treon was masterful. Although Quincy/Cook/Lane fell apart, there's no doubt in my mind that Quincy was also a very vocal critic of Miami ALL YEAR LONG in the ears of these kids (and now, perhaps, Lane/Cook trickle to JC Jackson, etc.). Whether he convinced them to go to UF or not, he DID constantly stay in their ear about how much Miami "sucks", etc..... you can see this in the public on Twitter, and no telling how bad it was on an every day basis. I'm sure his father did too. There is no way that doesn't have an effect on these kids... you can see how easily swayed Cook (3 different commitments) and Lane (I'm following Cook) are, and these are supposedly the Alpha players. I vastly underestimated how much of a group of followers kids in SoFla are, I thought they had a more alpha, I'm-an-individual mentality, but I think I was wrong.
I hate the idea of taking kids who I don't think can play here, but after seeing this season unfold I'm more convinced than ever that 1-3 slots in every class should be utilized by identifying kids - as early as their FR and SO years - who are vocal, charismatic leaders in South Florida, and attacking them with everything we have early - whether they can play here or not.
It's much more palatable, for me, to break the "community" ice this way rather than dealing with all the scumbag handlers, and I think it's likely more effective too. If the kids can't play, you bring them here and give them a million shots in practice and it will become apparent that they can't hack it, so no one can cry foul when they don't win a spot. In the meantime you help sew up a REAL feeling of "Miami wants Miami kids and they're going to win NCs by recruiting Miami HS football kids".
We seem to have a big problem right now in that certain people in the community don't think it's cool to come to Miami, or that Miami doesn't want "Miami kids". We have to change that somehow, and I can't see us getting in bed with the mentors under the current setting.