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Reviewing the Classes: The Class of 2013

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BoxingRobes said:
If we're going to count Beau Sandland...cant we count the National Recruiting Ccordinator / TE Coach (he was doing WRs at some point in there)

Isn't Timmy Jr. at FSU now coordinating passing games?
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Tim harris sr was on al goldens staff. Jr was coaching at booker t washington at that time.
 
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For the record, I believed In gus Edwards when he was at Miami. I must Say it’s insane what he’s become in the nfl though. We mishandled that and hate the he got hurt his last year at Miami
 
BoxingRobes said:
Some of these players that played some snaps on the fringe of NFL rosters didn't do a **** thing for us.

AQ Muhammad, Jermaine Grace, Beau Sandland, Gus Edwards (infamously?) didn't do much of anything here for a variety of reasons.

9 NFL players quickly gets to 5, and from those 5 only 3 had anything that looked like a career in the NFL (3 DBs). Kamalu and Coley were good players here, but not even a cup of coffee in the NFL. Smoke and mirrors kind of class that might look like a decent class on paper with the volume of players that took snaps, but a closer inspection shows a far more flawed group of players.

Thought the best evaluation of the class was Kamalu. Which, starts to track. Golden, since his days at Temple, could find these developmental defensive linemen. Olsen Pierre, Kamalu here...trying to find his next Muhammad Wilkerson. We'd also miss on a ton of higher rated prospects that were similar in projection (Jelani Hamilton, for example), but you could see what they were trying to go for.

This was an overall good year in recruiting, even the underwhelming players at the top of the class ended up in the NFL to some degree. But we missed on seemingly EVERYBODY, and if we didn't miss on them, they were straight up not interested in us. As Memnon said, this is the dark times for the University of Miami...where our "successes" would be mild successes at Temple. Brutal.

Just as an aside...another team to follow at this time of our look back is Penn State. Another program with a CLOUD over them that didn't end up in College Football **** for the next decade.

Nationally, this is also when the Penn State pedo scandal really hit them hard. They would still land Hackenberg and Adam Brenenman (QB1 and TE1 in the nation) and they both will go down as two of the bigger busts of the past 15 years at their position. James Franklin would take over in the very next season and within 3 seasons, once again be a Top 10 team in the nation.
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I could and would make the argument that Penn State got off (pause) far more easily than we did. It still sickens me to think that boats and hoes were more egregious sins in the eyes of the NCAA, ESPN and the other media minions than running a decades long pedo camp at the DC's house while covering up years and years of questions, reports and claims in order to protect that KMart suit wearing MFer worshipped by so many hill people of Central and Western Pennsylvania. I don't need to pick apart what the NCAA wrote, said or claimed to have done/punished PSU to know that the black eye we carried via POS Shapiro was far bigger and shinier than the one Pedo State walked around with. It's actually really bizarre.

Talk to any Penn State lifer fan. They'll talk about the integrity of the program, loyalty, hard work, the Paterno way, LB U, Matt Millen, DJ Dozier, and the teams of the 70's the never got their natty....all while ignoring the Sandusky Camps and subsequent cover up. And don't you DARE bring it up....oh no. That was one man...one very bad man who did all of this (allegedly) while his wife knew nothing of it and JoePa was made out to be a sacrificial lamb.... and those comments are from the 15% of their fans that won't turn their nose up at you and walk away when you mention it as if YOU were the person who did something wrong. It's like they (PSU fans and most of the media) just think it's disappeared (poof, it's gone), like it never happened.

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DMoney said:
We definitely didn't get enough out of them, which is a theme with every class in this era. D'Onofrio was the worst offender. It's a shame we didn't get to see AQM and Grace in Manny's defense.

But there’s a false narrative out there that NFL players only matter if they make Pro Bowls. It's just mathematically wrong. Less than 25% of four stars make the NFL at all. So if you have an entire class of four stars, and produce 25% NFL players, that's average. These guys were 53% for the entire class. If you include only the nine four stars, they made the NFL at a 78% hit rate.

The last 25 years have been dark days for the program. But if we're talking solely about talent acquisition, the Golden Period was a relatively bright spot even with "the Cloud" and a ton of mistakes. It only got worse after that.
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Several things; while this is an outstanding review, some data is actually incorrect:

1. Ur numbers are skewed. It’s not that less than 25% of 4-stars make the NFL, it’s less than 25% of 4* are drafted to the NFL. Making it vs. being drafted r not synonymous; there’s a ton of former 4* that become UDFA, but 22.1% are actually drafted.

2. U’re crediting Beau Sandland getting drafted to the NFL as if he was drafted coming out of The University of Miami. Sandland was an absolute bust here, & transferred to a more appropriate FCS program in Montana St. He entered the NFL from said school, not Miami.

3. We had 9 composite 4*’s in the class of 2013, & only 4 were drafted: AQM, Burns, Coley, and Elder. These were also the only players drafted into the NFL from the class of 2013.

4. Gus Edwards is another player who, again, went to another school, produced as a RB1 there, & entered as a UDFA from Rutgers.

If u truly breakdown the class of 2013, unfortunately we only got real bang for our buck from Elder, Burns, Kamalu, & Coley.
-Coley is low key fringe b/c when he was healthy, he was arguably one of the best in the conference; the problem was that when was non-existent.
-Gus showed flashes, but either disappeared, was too busy making dorm room dance videos, or got injured.
-Grace & JRock were way too inconsistent, w/ Grace being a tweener that Golden tried to dirty bulk up, while Jamal was a tweener that was two slow to play S & two small to play LB.

Then we had guys like Bond who didn’t make it in after NSD due to grades, eventually transfered to OU & became a solid LB getting drafted in the 6th Rd, iirc; while Derrick Griffin chose b-ball over football.

All in all, between the classes of 2012 & 13, both looked great on paper (both Top 15 overall classes, & both top 2 classes in the ACC), but whether it was evaluations, player development, fit, w/e, both failed to live up to expectations.
 
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BoxingRobes said:
Ya b. Youre right. Forgot Ice was actually a position coach here.

Come to think of it, he got Mark Walton here...

@bshaw28
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dont you do it man. lol

Yea Ice sr is a legend....think he should of stuck in the college ranks but atleast he got to lead a college program in his hometown he was the head man at florida memorial.

I think Jr and Brandon Harris will be solid coaches if they stay on their trajectory.
 
Gransapo said:
Two different programs: Pedo State loved football so much they protected a child molester. Our presidents starting with FF Foote and continuing with Troll Shalala and finishing with freak Frank wanted to end football - two intentionally and one negligently. None of these geniuses realized how a great football program is the best advertising you can have.
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those people didn't understand that this university was there to not embarrass our football program -- and that's precisely what they did
 
brock said:
For the record, I believed In gus Edwards when he was at Miami. I must Say it’s insane what he’s become in the nfl though. We mishandled that and hate the he got hurt his last year at Miami
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Gus had some bad luck in college.

FR & SO - he was behind Duke Johnson (no shame in that). JR - was going to start, then had season ending injury. RJR - coaching change hurt him. RSR - started at Rutgers, who was literally dead last in offense for 5 years in a row (hard to look good in that offense).

But his luck went the other way in the NFL and he's had a really nice career. Happy for him.
 
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DMoney said:
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.

Four-year winning percentage- 61% (+2 from the prior year)
Total enrollees- 17
NFL players- 9
NFL games- 373
Day 1 Picks- 1
Day 2 picks- 0
Pro Bowls- 0

FOUR STARS

Al-Quadin Muhammad (New York City suburbs, NJ)
  1. 93 NFL games
  2. 6th Round
Stacy Coley (Broward County, FL)
  1. 7 NFL games
  2. 7th Round
Kevin Olsen (New York City suburbs, NJ)

Artie Burns (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 90 NFL games
  2. 1st Round
Beau Sandland (Los Angeles, CA)
  1. 7th Round
Corn Elder (Nashville, TN)
  1. 35 NFL games
  2. 5th Round
Stan Dobard (New Orleans, LA)

Jamal Carter (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 29 NFL games
Jermaine Grace (Broward County, FL)
  1. 24 NFL games
THREE STARS OR BELOW

Ufombu Kamalu (Nigeria/Atlanta, GA)
  1. 15 NFL games
Gus Edwards (New York City, NY)
  1. 80 NFL games
Alex Gall (Cincinnati, OH)

Sunny Odogwu (Nigeria/Baltimore, MD)

Hunter Knighton (Philadelphia, PA)

Ray Lewis III (Orlando, FL)

Alex Figueroa (Washington DC)

Walter Tucker (Broward County, FL)

WHAT HAPPENED: This was the most depressing signing day ever. The week started poorly when we missed on South Plantation RB Alex Collins. His mom tried to steal his signing papers, but he followed through with Arkansas. Then on signing day, we missed out on local OLB Matthew Thomas and Fort Pierce DT Jaynard Bostwick. The CanesInSight forums were melting down. When WR Stacy Coley put on the SWAG hat and signed with Miami, it felt like pure relief.



It turns out this class was pretty good. A whopping 53% of the signees made the NFL. For perspective, less than 25% of four stars make it across the country. This class included three players from the New York City metro, two players born in Africa (Odogwu-Nigeria and Edwards-Liberia) and a third who grew up in Nigeria (Kamalu). In an effort to make up for a weak signing day, Golden signed three lottery tickets with questionable grades in DE Devonte Bond, WR Derrick Griffin and ATH Ryheem Locksley. None made it on campus.

Some of the perceived “whiffs” turned out to be character flops. OLB Matthew Thomas looked like a can’t miss at Booker T. Washington, but he dealt with suspensions and injuries at FSU and never made an impact. Atlantic DT Keith Bryant plateaued as a high school junior. Well-traveled local DT Travonte Valentine struggled with grades and weight.

The real losses were kids who dropped us early. St. Thomas Aquinas DE Joey Bosa never considered us due to the state of the program. We were late to offer lifelong Canes fan Jalen Ramsey, a five-star DB from Nashville. He was the best player on the field a couple years later when we lost to FSU. Overall, this class lacked truly elite talent at the top.

CanesInSight was in full swing by 2013, and posters were begging the staff to offer LB Skai Moore (University School) and DT Deadrin Senat (Immokalee). Moore made All-SEC for South Carolina, and Senat was drafted in the 3rd Round out of USF. Eddie Jackson (Boyd Anderson) was a late-rising DB in Broward County, but Alabama somehow jumped on him before we did. He made two Pro Bowls for the Chicago Bears. Finally, Clemson continued to make inroads in Florida by landing former Cane commit DB Jayron Kearse (Fort Myers) and CB Mackensie Alexander (Immokalee). Both spent many years in the NFL.

This class is sad for another reason- Collins, Bryant and Ray Lewis III have since passed away.

BEST PLAYER: CB Artie Burns had an unusual recruitment for this era. He was a blue-chip Alabama commit from South Florida who actually flipped to the Canes. If we won more battles like that, these Golden classes would be in a different stratosphere. Burns was an elite hurdler (broke the junior indoor USA record in the 60M) and he led the ACC in interceptions in 2015. The Pittsburgh Steelers picked him in the first round.



BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: There is only one choice- QB Kevin Olsen. The brother of legendary TE Greg Olsen, Kevin already had the nickname “Baby Jesus” on this board before Malachi Toney turned six. His ranking is puzzling in retrospect- Olsen didn’t have the size or athleticism of his brother and his arm was only average. But we weren’t saying that at the time. One red flag that I did post about was his behavior after the Under Armour game. He struggled and pouted badly on camera after the game.

It turned out to be a sign of things to come. Olsen got a careless driving charge before he enrolled, earned multiple suspensions at Miami, transferred to Towson, got kicked out, and then picked up a rape charge (which he beat) at Charlotte. He appears to be doing better now working with his brother on TV.



BEST EVALUATION: There were two three-star hits in this class with RB Gus Edwards and DL Ufombu Kamalu. Unfortunately, neither made much of an impact here. Kamalu only had two years of eligibility, which were wasted in Mark D’Onofrio’s disastrous defense. Edwards ran high at Miami and never found his footing, even after he transferred to Rutgers. He really hit his stride playing with Lamar Jackson in the NFL, earning over $16 million in the pros.

What both guys had were legitimate physical traits. The athleticism was real, and both looked spectacular coming off the bus. That seems to be a theme with the three-star hits during this era.



LESSON LEARNED: Spot the character red flags at quarterback. Like Robert Marve a few years prior, Olsen had an early incident that proved to be a sign of things to come. One of Miami’s fundamental problems from 2005-2020 was bad character at quarterback. We had at least seven suspensions, and even our cleaner players liked to party too much. It took 15 years to find a no-doubt leader like D’Eriq King.

CONCLUSION: This class lacked A1 talent, as Golden continued to lose the prime-time battles. But he steadily added NFL players and raised the floor. This class wasn’t a leap forward, but it was a step in the right direction under the specter of NCAA sanctions.
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Happy that Artie is still drawing a paycheck in the NFL, but he was all potential and no production at Miami. His technique was terrible and either he wasn't coachable or the coaches didn't know how to correct his tendency to panic, grab and draw flags. I am not in agreement that he was the best of this recruiting class.
 
Memnon said:
FSU, UGA, UF & Tennessee were all recruiting him at LB.

Bama was too initially, but once DH visited Bama he made it clear to Saban that he really wanted to be a RB in college & had no desire to play Defense. Saban was just smart enough to acquiesce to that & guaranteed to him that he was going to let him be a RB.

Every other school just continued to pursue him as a LB. But Saban realized it doesn't matter how athletic a player is, if he doesn't wanna play Defense it's not gonna work.

Defense is a mentality & the last thing you wanna do is have a kid on that side of the ball that would rather be running it, especially at the LB position. You're setting yourself & the kid up for failure.

Plus, Bama also signed 5-star LB Rueben Foster that class, so they didn't really need an extra LB.
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They proved that point on the opposite end of the spectrum as well with Dylan Moses
 
Watched Kevin Olsen and RLIII get arrested outside of my Red Road apartment.

Those years had us finding countless ways to implode.
 
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