NowherePoke said:
WYO1016 said:
WyoExpat said:
Fullback41 said:
Why not offer to a talented youngster with which you already have some ties? The potential reward far outweighs the risk of offering someone so young...
...unless, of course, that youngster happens to have played a game in Wyoming, then only offer if two or more higher-profile programs have already offered.
Already having ties to someone if those ties are based on growing up within the Wyoming Cowboys geographic fan base footprint are a disqualification in the eyes of many.
Alright, I'll bite. Humor me here: Who was the last player from Wyoming to start on an FBS football team?
Good point. There were some in-state mistakes made under previous administrations (Dimel/Koenning), but Wyoming HS players going to FBS programs outside of Wyoming has been a rare event in recent years. The last one was Wolfley in 2006 (BYU) and it's hard to criticize a staff for losing a LDS kid from Star Valley to BYU.
More critical is the fact that the FCS programs in the region (Montana, Montana St., Weber, UNC, Idaho St. etc.) haven't signed any Wyoming players either (there is one Wyoming HS player on all of those rosters combined).
In Football, where we have 85 schollies (and a high rate of turnover under DC) I am totally in favor of giving the benefit of the doubt to a Wyoming kid and I would really question the staff if there were players we didn't offer that were ending up at other FBS schools or even at FCS schools, but there are almost no examples of players that fit that profile in the last 5 years.
I do not think that "starting" is the correct point of reference. It is more correct to look at whether players are letter winners. This year's basketball team is demonstrating the importance of depth in spades.
I am all for a coach using scholarships as investments toward maintaining recruiting pipelines. Siblings and teammates are both fair game in my mind. Dimmel got some mileage out of signing all three Linebackers from Cedar Hill down in Texas one year. Maintaining goodwill within the premier program in the home state (Gillette) is also a legitimate use of a scholarship or two as well according to my standard. It is not like we only sign can't-miss guys.
Within the last 10-or-so years there have been a handful of Wyoming kids that made their way into the NFL via teams other than U.W., and some of those teams were in the MWC. The pipeline from Gillette and Cheyenne to CSU particularly irks me. Nebraska and Colorado seem to offer kids in Wyoming that go on to start for them before UW offers too often as well. Right now, CSU's volleyball team is getting too much mileage out of a Fornstrom girl out of Laramie County (Cheyenne Central grad but old Pine Bluffs family name) for my taste.
This is basketball, but how many players can walk on to Michigan State's basketball team and stick? I assume that a guy has to have athleticism and be able to play in order for that to happen. Wyoming's 2010 Gatorade football player of the year (out of 2A Big Horn High where Wyomingites insist the competition is too minimal for a player to develop game skills) successfully tried out for the Spartan basketball team. He had a big frame. Did either the football or basketball program go out of their way to try to get him to go to Laramie?
For basketball, the all-time miss was James Johnson out of East. I do not care what people said about academics, he led Wake Forest (in the ACC with Duke, North Carolina, and Georgia Tech) in scoring for his first two years before being taken in the 1st round of the NBA draft after is Sophomore year. If I remember correctly, he was a contemporary of Adam Waddell.
I think it is wise to offer scholarships strategically and to take chances to the extent the program can. I just think that the burden of persuasion imposed on kids coming out of Wyoming is disproportionately high relative to how they have proven to perform once they get their chance. I do not expect multi-year stars that eventually go pro. To me, players that grow into solid, mature players off the bench/sideline are worth getting into the program too.