Signing Day Leftovers
February 03, 2006 11:42 AM | General
February 3, 2006
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| Rich Rodriguez |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rich Rodriguez stepped to the podium Wednesday afternoon to begin going through the list of West Virginia football recruits when he noticed that nearly every seat in the team meeting room was occupied.
“We’ve got more people here than we normally do for our regular season press conferences,” Rodriguez said. “It’s amazing that recruiting has taken on the life that it has.”
It has taken on such a life that you’re reading another story about it three days later.
“I like the character, the temperament and the attitude of the young men we signed,” Rodriguez said. “We’re pretty excited about that.”
The coach admitted that West Virginia’s Sugar Bowl victory over Georgia only had a marginal impact on this year’s recruiting class. The true benefits of the victory will be felt in the coming years.
“Usually by January most of the recruiting pieces have already been fit,” he said.
West Virginia signed only 15 players this year and with another small senior class next year, Rodriguez expects a similar-sized group for 2007.
“This is the smallest class I can ever remember being a part of and next year we won’t be able to sign 25 because we’ve only got 14 or 15 seniors,” he said.
Although offensive line and the defensive secondary were two big priority areas, Rodriguez believes immediate help might actually come from wide receivers Wes Lyons or John Maddox.
“You can get a guy to learn certain things to help you immediately and obviously with the two wide outs in the class, if they can learn quickly they have an opportunity to play right away,” he said.
Defensive backs Boogie Allen, Ryan Brinson, Greg Davis and Robert Williams might have an opportunity to get into the mix early because West Virginia employs four corners in a lot of its defensive packages, according to Rodriguez.
Because West Virginia didn’t use all of its allotted visits, the coach said his staff will continue to look around for late qualifiers and players that may have fallen through the cracks on signing day.
“There are possibly one or two out there that didn’t sign and maybe one or two that might qualify later this spring,” he said. “We didn’t come close to using our number of total visits because we tried to use our visits for only those guys where there was a serious interest.
“We hope we don’t lose anybody but you never know,” Rodriguez added. “You may have a young man in your program and he sees that he’s not going to play that much and he might decide to transfer to another school.”
There is also a possibility of a junior college player or two that might pop open as well.
“We brought in a couple of junior college guys that qualified late in the past and they wound up helping us,” Rodriguez said. “We have that in mind and we’ll see what happens.”
Briefly:
“I’ve been doing this for 21 years and you think kids are coming and they lie to you,” he said. “Adults lie to you – you get lied to a lot in recruiting. Our coaches, to my knowledge, don’t lie to anybody – and not that coaches would but some of them do. But nonetheless, a lot of that goes on in recruiting and it is part of the business. That’s why I’m so excited about the guys we signed. None of the guys we signed lied to us.”
“If there is a West Virginia student-athlete that is as good as anyone we’re recruiting from out of state and has all of the things we need to win the Big East and have success I will recruit them first and foremost because I know they won’t get homesick,” he said. “I know their hometowns and I understand their area.
“But he’s got to be in a position of need and he’s got to be a player who we feel is good enough to win a Big East championship with. In this year’s class it wasn’t as good a year I think in the state for those kinds of players.
“Plus, if there was a player but he’s not at the right position it’s hard for us to fit him in there,” Rodriguez said. “It’s hard for us to go out there anywhere and find a fullback that is better than Owen Schmitt in our opinion. And Owen Schmitt is just a sophomore. So if I sign another fullback to a scholarship at West Virginia I’m shortchanging another position.”
The coach said his primary objective is getting the best football players and the best fits for his program.
“Some people have accused us of trying to get the best players in the state to walk on,” he said. “No, I’m trying to get the best players period. Then if we don’t have a scholarship available we’d like for them to have the opportunity to walk on. I’d like to have all in-state guys if possible.”
“Nobody wanted Pat as a quarterback but there are a lot of guys out there right now that would love to have him as their quarterback,” Rodriguez said.
“Some of those guys that are four-star and five-star recruits are can’t-miss prospects and have great success,” he said. “But some can’t play dead in a western. Some of them don’t have the right attitude or commitment. And some of those two-stars – they give everybody at least two stars – if a guy commits to USC they automatically give him another star whether he’s any good or not. If he commits to a Mid-American school he’s a two-star, which is the lowest you can get.”
Make no mistake Rodriguez would love to have a recruiting class full of five-star players if they’re five-star players in his mind.
“Shoot, if we had a chance to evaluate them and see if they had the right kind of attitude I’m sure most of them would work out pretty good,” he said. “But let’s take these recruiting rankings for what they are. They are not going to get you a first down.”
