South Florida Recruiting - An Outsider's Thoughts (long)

UM has shown a lot of love to the local guys. Golden showed them love too. They camp at Miami get their first offers from us and still act like other universities are better for them. Many of these kids want to leave the area to play football and that has happened even when we was great. It's South Florida get used to it.

Golden was terrible at recruiting South FLA. He spurned local studs to recruit developmental guys from elsewhere.

Often times we were kid's first offer...CAUSE NOBODY ELSE IN THE COUNTRY WOULD OFFER THE KID.

Dennis Turner, Nate Dortch, Danny Dillard, Larry Hope?
 
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we are not that far way from being able to match up with Alabama's two deep. We are very close on defense. We need three better OL and no injuries. I believe we are there
 
We need to determine what type of identity we want our team to have and recruit to that. Alabama and Clemson do this very well. There is obviously a lot of talent from south Florida and we need to land those recruits, but we need to be ready to go get someone else if that doesn't pan out. I am watching a National Championship game with very few players from the state of Florida, so I think we can occasionally go out of state and get what we need. The worse part of our team this year was our OL and they are mostly from FL. I rather have an Art Kehoe Canadian OL than our current one.

Miami has the type of defensive players they want to run Diaz defense. Our DL isn't there yet, but with guys like Joe Jackson and the work Kool does I think we will be fine. It is also great to have 3 linebackers all with Alabama size.

Looking at our offense is where we have the most issues. Our OL isn't good at run or pass blocking and frankly were mostly overrated coming out of HS. Richt needs to implement a fast pace offensive with zone read elements. Our WR and RB aren't built for power, I guess the pop warner leagues are all about speed. Let's recruit a dual threat QB with size and have him run a past pace offense with passes to RB, WR and TE and sprinkle in the QB runs. We won't out Alabama the Crimson Tide, but we can out Clemson the Tigers and do it at a level to beat Alabama.

Yup. Our identity needs to fit in with the landscape of South FLA football. I've been saying this for years.

Kids would love to come here and play in that scheme.
 
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we are not that far way from being able to match up with Alabama's two deep. We are very close on defense. We need three better OL and no injuries. I believe we are there

Easy there. LOL
In a two deep, not 85, where are we lacking?

We have no where near the depth Bama has. Not a single guy on our OL would start on their team. Despite our DL having a better year I don't think any of those guys start for Bama. It is difficult to win a game when you don't matchup in the trenches.
 
we are not that far way from being able to match up with Alabama's two deep. We are very close on defense. We need three better OL and no injuries. I believe we are there

Easy there. LOL
In a two deep, not 85, where are we lacking?

Everywhere. C'mon now. Takes the O&G glasses off and look at it objectively. LOL

They've been signing top classes year in and year out but you think we're close to their depth?
 
If not....Im fully on board with hitting other targeted areas.... (Jacksonville, Atl Metro, Tx (Kul, Banda), Louisiana, Cali) to supplement our losses in s.florida

This right here. The kids we are getting out of Jacksonville lately have been BEASTS and NO DRAMA. Lock that area down and make it UM territory. I know it's always gonna lean Gator, but the talent coming out of there is only going to increase as that town grows.

I from Miami but I live in Jax now but I'll tell this there a ton of fuggin' CANEZ up here, UFags and Female Smackin' U don't have it on lock like they used too
 
Thar was long but it was well written and i loved it ........I also think the current regime is starting to do all of the things U listed........Great Post......
 
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Kinda crazy when you think about the fact that most of our best/most important players right now are from outside of the Dade/Broward lines.

1. Corn
2. Pinckney
3. Richards
4. Njoku
5. Kaaya
6. Norton
7. Jenkins
8. Shaq
9. Herndon


That's all fine and dandy but we cannot make a living like that. It's okay to supplement kids from other areas. We've always done that. But we still need to get a hold of South FLA recruiting to build quality depth. We need to identify kids that can legitimately play in the ACC and sign those kids. They don't all have to hold offers from Bama, UF, FSU, etc. Golden was TERRIBLE at this. He'd ignore kids that had offers from Clemson, Pitt, UNC, Syracuse, VT, etc...to sign a kid who's best offer came from Akron.

You need to recruit like you wanna win the ACC first. Then once you start dominating the ACC, you become highly ranked which makes it easier to recruit the big-time kids. South Florida kids are all around the country right now making plays for other universities. We didn't recruit some of these kids cause they were an inch too short or 12 pounds too light. Well we're in no place to turn down great players because of minor shortcomings. We can do that when we become a top-10 team but right now we need to stockpile ACC level talent for depth purposes. Kids like Juwan Dowels, Chris Lammons or Ronnie Hoggins should be covering kicks for us and contributing in our Nickel/Dime packages. They might not be future NFL players but you don't NEED a bunch of future NFL players to win the ACC and start improving your rank and national image.

By no means am I saying sign a bunch of lower tier guys. I'm talking about the kids who have offers from the like of South Carolina, Tennessee and the majority of the prominent ACC schools. You can win the ACC with kids like this, along with some big-name kids sprinkled in. That's how Clemson got to where they are today. That's how Louisville came up when Strong was there.
Pinkney is really a dade guy, wouldn't you say? Agree on the rest and the general point.

Oh I don't know. I thought he was from up the road.
He was born in Carol City and moved to Jacksonville. Dude's a Carol City guy in his soul. Sure carries himself that way, anyway.
 
Kinda crazy when you think about the fact that most of our best/most important players right now are from outside of the Dade/Broward lines.

1. Corn
2. Pinckney
3. Richards
4. Njoku
5. Kaaya
6. Norton
7. Jenkins
8. Shaq
9. Herndon


That's all fine and dandy but we cannot make a living like that. It's okay to supplement kids from other areas. We've always done that. But we still need to get a hold of South FLA recruiting to build quality depth. We need to identify kids that can legitimately play in the ACC and sign those kids. They don't all have to hold offers from Bama, UF, FSU, etc. Golden was TERRIBLE at this. He'd ignore kids that had offers from Clemson, Pitt, UNC, Syracuse, VT, etc...to sign a kid who's best offer came from Akron.

You need to recruit like you wanna win the ACC first. Then once you start dominating the ACC, you become highly ranked which makes it easier to recruit the big-time kids. South Florida kids are all around the country right now making plays for other universities. We didn't recruit some of these kids cause they were an inch too short or 12 pounds too light. Well we're in no place to turn down great players because of minor shortcomings. We can do that when we become a top-10 team but right now we need to stockpile ACC level talent for depth purposes. Kids like Juwan Dowels, Chris Lammons or Ronnie Hoggins should be covering kicks for us and contributing in our Nickel/Dime packages. They might not be future NFL players but you don't NEED a bunch of future NFL players to win the ACC and start improving your rank and national image.

By no means am I saying sign a bunch of lower tier guys. I'm talking about the kids who have offers from the like of South Carolina, Tennessee and the majority of the prominent ACC schools. You can win the ACC with kids like this, along with some big-name kids sprinkled in. That's how Clemson got to where they are today. That's how Louisville came up when Strong was there.
Pinkney is really a dade guy, wouldn't you say? Agree on the rest and the general point.

Oh I don't know. I thought he was from up the road.
He was born in Carol City and moved to Jacksonville. Dude's a Carol City guy in his soul. Sure carries himself that way, anyway.

I thought something was up! The way he carried himself was 100% Dade County.
I would always watch this kid and think "he carries himself like he's from down here."
Particularly with that little hand gesture he does 100 times a game.
 
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I'll add one more to solutions: Forget about the **** fence(especially fans). Its hard to sell ice to an Eskimo. Go sell the city of Miami nationally. Once Miami (the city as much as the school) becomes a destination for national recruits, then that will carry more weight with the local guys as well. There is a reason why some many nfl guys from across the country live down here. We ****ed on Golden about his New Jersey pipeline, but he had the right idea and was a pretty good recruiter if nothing else.
I think this is the answer here.

Except for the fact the staff would get CRUCIFIED if they went this route. Not saying I disagree with the suggestion but it's a losing proposition long term imo.
 
We have been doing that though. We always have.

We've always had kids from Cali, Jersey, Georgia, Texas, etc.

Can't fill the whole roster with kids like that though.
 
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I agree with the premise - especially that winning is the biggest factor - but if it were just a "business decision" issue (vis-a-vis the shortest path to the NFL), well, even our darkest years have produced legit NFL talent.

But those guys are consistently undervalued, which means less guaranteed money when they're drafted. They make it in the NFL because of their talent. We haven't been getting the most out of them in college or helping their draft stock. Two guys you mentioned-- Gunter and Howard -- went undrafted. Guys like Olivier Vernon and Calais Campbell should have been Top 10 picks.

I think that's changing, but it will take time to shift the perception.

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying that. So you're talking about "business decision" as in - "this team has the winning %, media support, scouting bump, etc. to take my talent and turn it into $$$." That I can agree with. And I think the turnaround starts with this draft class, honestly.

Kaaya will get drafted (not 1st round or anything but if he gets drafted at all he'll be the highest drafted QB from Miami since....when? Dorsey in the 7th? That's still a big deal, IMO)
Elder should go 1st round
Njoku and Coley should go within the first 3 rounds

Then look at the young guys like Richards, our LBs, JoeJack... The 2016 class should get PAID.

it's not just about putting players in the NFL as a program. Your coaches need to be able to say "I've put XYZ in the NFL and XYZ are making 50M+ w/ multiple pro bowl appearences." That's why kool can go across the country and get a top 5 DE. Rumph and Banda don't have any Dbs in the league yet

Richt has put a lot of players in the league but a lot of recruits want their position coaches to have a proven track record. It looks like it's about to pay dividends in 2018 with Hartley recruiting that OOS Te
 
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Miami's best players are from OOS or outta Dade/Broward because they have missed on Dalvin Cook, Skai Moore, Calvin Ridley, T McFadden, Travonte Valentine, etc.
 
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