Thoughts on the First Class of the Richt Era

[DMoney]

I understand the frustration. This feels like every Signing Day for the past fifteen years. Byrd and Williams are studs at positions of need. It's a bottom-line business and those are bad losses.

But as much as it sucks, I understand how it happened. Williams is a country kid who tweeted "Go Ducks" when Miami offered. He got an SEC offer and jumped on it. Byrd, like Alex Collins, seemed to prefer the culture of a college town to the urban life of Miami.

Here's the bottom line: Richt is not an unproven commodity like Coker, Shannon or Golden. He has been a recruiting machine for 15 straight years. While we’ve been sniffing glue on Signing Day, he’s been smoking cigars. He didn’t forget how to recruit on the plane ride to Miami.

There’s a difference between making excuses and having perspective. This is a transition class where the prior coach was fired for poor performance. We finished 20th in the country. For comparison, Florida finished 21st last year. Butch Jones, the guy who stole Byrd and Williams, finished 24th in his first year. Golden was 33rd. Harbaugh was 37th. The second class is where you see the recruiting bump.

Transition class or not, we signed some future millionaires. These aren't guys you have to sell yourselves on. Coach Kool says that Joe Jackson is the best DE in the country and I agree with him. All three LBs are killers. We signed the best receiver in Dade (Mullins), Broward (Bruce) and Palm Beach (Richards). These are the elite South Florida playmakers that we've been missing for years. Jack Allison is a 6'6 All-American with a cannon. Travis Homer is the best RB in the state and one of the youngest players in the class.

If I told you after the Clemson game that we could fire Golden and keep all of these guys, everybody would've been thrilled. We also added some nice pieces around them without absorbing mediocre talent. A small class this year sets up a monster in 2017.

Finally, we made important geographical gains. Palm Beach and Jacksonville have been death traps for us. This year, we swept the top three players in Palm Beach and landed two stars from the Jacksonville area. We signed more top 50 players from Florida than any other school in the country, including UF and FSU. The elite national kids will come with a full year to develop relationships. Remember, Richt’s best players (Gurley, Green, Stafford, Murray) were from outside the state of Georgia.

The only thing that gives me pause is that we dropped guys like Desmond Phillips and James Wiggins who could’ve helped us at WR and CB. Hopefully, a full year to evaluate in Dade will correct those problems.

This is an obvious statement, but everything will come down to coaching. Richt has more than enough talent-- both inside the program and in this class -- to win early. If he has success on the field, he will compete for recruiting titles. The closest model would be Florida in the mid-2000s. Zook left behind good talent and a quarterback, Urban landed a solid transition class and a killer second class, coached the **** out of them, and the rest is history.

Signing Day mornings have been tough for us. But the evening is a time to reflect on the guys fulfilling their lifetime dreams. I cannot wait to watch these guys perform in the orange and green.

 

[Dev]

well said... well written... and i hope its well taken...

paper victories don't mean ****

now its time to grind...

 

[WatchItBurn]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

 

[AHURT12]

NICE POST

 

[GaCane1213]

Well said. The most important thing in this, is to turn around the perception on Miami. We are negative recruited against due to the lack of production in wins and fan support. We now have a competent coach who knows how to win. All the staff needs to do is coach these boys up and the kids will be lining up to come play here again and the fans will come to SLS. We need to win games in 2016. That would go a long way in curing a lot of this.

 

[Ziggy]

Always good hearing your thoughts D-Money... and I agree with everything you said and we should be excited about the Swag16 class! Anyway you give a more detailed recruiting analysis commit by commit. Love hearing your thoughts! Go canes

 

[canes732]

Great write up I'm very excited about this upcoming season and not ****ed about anything we got a great coach and some ******* Alpha type players leaders we need to get back

 

[canes732]

Go Canes

 

[GaCane1213]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

I understand what you are saying....but there is a difference between taking tier 2 players and taking the RIGHT tier 2 players. There is a lot of talent down here. We should be able to cherry-pick the best of it and still have room for the top tier guys from all over to come.

 

[caneinpsl]

If I told you after the Clemson game that we could fire Golden and keep all of these guys, everybody would've been thrilled. We also added some nice pieces around them without absorbing mediocre talent. A small class this year sets up a monster in 2017.

This says it all.

 

[RepTheGables]

Great write-up!

 

[SFbayCane]

Again, for me its all about the efficacy of this class. Franchise mentioned it in his thread, but the amount of elite talent we landed in such a small class is definitely noteworthy.

 

[chevyboy79]

Well said...and I'm getting tired of all the fake fans and their whining...considering the circumstances we have a great class of players who all will contribute and several will be stars...at the very least I see one player that we reached on (Tre Johnson) but I hope he proves me wrong...ITS ALWAYS BEEN ALL ABOUT THIS U! STOP WHINING!

 

[bxcanesbomber]

Dope... my feelings exactly Wiggins and Phillips would've helped but other then that I like this class next season will be fun

 

[WatchItBurn]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

I understand what you are saying....but there is a difference between taking tier 2 players and taking the RIGHT tier 2 players. There is a lot of talent down here. We should be able to cherry-pick the best of it and still have room for the top tier guys from all over to come.

I think you are too caught up, like many of our past coaches, on really small differences between players that bc of recruiting services get magnified. I think Butch Davis is the best example, but really Howard and JJ started the trend. They didn't give a **** what stats you put up, what ur highlight tape looked like. If you had a better 40 time. Blah blah. They knew that if you are a good football player down in South Florida, you can play anywhere at the highest level. What matters is if the kid wants to work hard.

There is not much difference between most of these dudes. Yea, if you get a Cam Newton or Andre Johnson type freak that's different, but for most of the P5 level kids from South Florida are very close athletically. I'd rather have a team full of 3 star SoFla kids who hate losing, desperately want to beat people up, and love to be coached than put all my eggs in the basket of an All American who ends up taking the cash and running, leaving u with ur **** in ur hands and no depth.

No depth means no competition which hurts your program. The issue with losing Byrd wasnt that he is some Darrelle Revis type player, or Tim Tebow level transformative. The issue is we had no backup plan, and good players who could have helped us here now aren't.

 

[404Usernamenotfound]

Nice read money

 

[HurricaneU]

A lot of work to do. A lot of gaps to fill. Need to start hitting more on certain positions.

But how many programs would kill to have a "transition" class that looked like ours?

Allison, Homer, Mullins, Joe Jackson, our entire cot**** LB crew - best in nation maybe, etc.

 

[GaCane1213]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

I understand what you are saying....but there is a difference between taking tier 2 players and taking the RIGHT tier 2 players. There is a lot of talent down here. We should be able to cherry-pick the best of it and still have room for the top tier guys from all over to come.

I think you are too caught up, like many of our past coaches, on really small differences between players that bc of recruiting services get magnified. I think Butch Davis is the best example, but really Howard and JJ started the trend. They didn't give a **** what stats you put up, what ur highlight tape looked like. If you had a better 40 time. Blah blah. They knew that if you are a good football player down in South Florida, you can play anywhere at the highest level. What matters is if the kid wants to work hard.

There is not much difference between most of these dudes. Yea, if you get a Cam Newton or Andre Johnson type freak that's different, but for most of the P5 level kids from South Florida are very close athletically. I'd rather have a team full of 3 star SoFla kids who hate losing, desperately want to beat people up, and love to be coached than put all my eggs in the basket of an All American who ends up taking the cash and running, leaving u with ur **** in ur hands and no depth.

No depth means no competition which hurts your program. The issue with losing Byrd wasnt that he is some Darrelle Revis type player, or Tim Tebow level transformative. The issue is we had no backup plan, and good players who could have helped us here now aren't.

This boils down to how these coaches evaluate the local guys here. The previous staff wasn't even looking at Romeo Finley or Henry Miller....the fact that this staff got onto them, although we missed on Miller, gives me hope that we will find the right guys to play here. Lets all hope that this staff's evaluation skills are much better than the previous one

 

[Cans4life]

I don't think he forgot how to recruit. But it IS different recruiting at Miami than it is at a $EC school where bagmen close the deal for you.

I would like to see Richt offer and accept commitments from the tier 2 south florida players, and leave room for a few studs on signing day. You mentioned Wiggins for example. Perfect example here. Chasing stars at Miami has never been the way. U can build a top 10 team with all the south florida kids the Big 3 doesn't want: see Louisville for proof. Point being, Miami is at it's best when we build depth by recruiting a ton of athletes from our backyard, regardless if they have 5 stars next to their name. Depth is much more important than winning NSD when your depth is a bunch of SoFla savages.

I'd like to see an approach more akin to Howard, JJ, and Butch. This way, you don't put all your eggs in the basket of a kid who may end up getting a bag of cash to leave you at the alter.

If Richt isn't an idiot, which I don't think he is, he will have learned his lesson this cycle. Hopefully next year we don't push out the Wiggins, Phillips, etc. of the class.

 

[BoxingRobes]

Great post.

I don't come away from Signing Day 2016 with a bad taste in my mouth like I had in previous classes under Golden, Shannon, and the back end of the Coker years. The class is really good with a lot of future pros and All-Conference players. We're missing some filler. We missed on CB and came up short at DT and OL. However, the skill guys, edge players, and linebackers are elite nationally and will play on Sundays.

I would have liked some depth to the class, and we were seemingly lined up to have that, but, realistically, you don't land these 50/50 types in mass quantities in your first 30-days of recruiting class.