Cowboys pick up a kicker commitment

[MrTitleist]

From the Laramie Boomerang:

Texas two-step

By Bob Hammond
Boomerang Sports Editor

Argyle (Texas) Secondary School senior Ben Parks is not your typical place-kicker/punter.

The rugged 6-2, 195-pound Parks has grass stains on his pants. And those stains come from his outside linebacker position where he recorded 98 tackles, had six quarterback sacks and forced four fumbles in helping the Eagles to an overall record of 10-3 and to the Texas Class 3A Region I semifinals this past season.

Those numbers were good enough to get the Argyle team captain selected as a second-team All-District 8-3A performer as a linebacker for the second straight year. The previous year as a junior, Parks had 62 tackles and five sacks.

And since the University of Wyoming has become “Linebacker U.” in recent years, it only makes since that the Texas prep star verbally committed to UW head coach Joe Glenn and the Cowboys on Monday night.

Although Parks hits like a ton of bricks, his value to Glenn and Wyoming lies in his strong right leg where the Cowboys are looking for someone to replace Billy Vinnedge, who handled all of UW’s kicking chores — field goals, PATs, kickoffs and punts — this past season.

Wyoming still has place-kicker Jake Scott and punter Nick Landess on the roster, but they will need some competition. And Parks is expected to provide that.

This past season Parks hit on 11 of 17 field goal attempts, including a 46-yarder, converted 60 of 63 PATs, averaged 37.8 yards on 30 punts and knocked over 50 percent of his kickoffs deep into the end zone.

Parks, who has been handling Argyle’s kicking chores ever since he was a sophomore, finished his high school career by kicking 23 of 35 field goals, including a long of 49 yards his junior season, and 149 of 161 PATs.

Not only was Parks a two-time, first-team All-District 8-3A selection as both a place-kicker and punter, but he’s a two-time Associated Press first-team All-State pick as well.

“Wyoming called and offered me a scholarship about a month ago, but I didn’t accept at the time because I wanted to get up (to Laramie) and see what the school was like,” Parks said of the recruiting process. “I went on an official visit two weekends ago, loved the school, loved the coaches and all the players. They were really cool with me and helped me fit in.

“I then got to meet with the associate dean of the engineering department — Professor (Richard Joseph) Schmidt — and he was great. He laid out a whole course plan for petroleum and chemical engineering, which I’m interested in.

“The town was great, a small-town feel like where I’m from. I felt like it would all be good for me. I really think Coach Glenn is going to have a good team coming up and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Parks also had a scholarship offer on the table from the Air Force Academy and was being recruited by Texas Tech, Iowa State and North Texas as well.

Wyoming reportedly has received 15 verbal commitments for its 2008 recruiting class. The national signing date for football is February 6. The Cowboys reportedly have seven scholarships left to give.

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UW FOOTBALL VERBALS

(2008 Recruiting Class)

Adam Barry (6-2, 208), quarterback, Moorpark (Calif.) High School.

Eric Benson (6-2½, 185), safety, Corona del Sol High School in Tempe, Ariz.

Matt Birkeness (6-4, 218), linebacker, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Chance Crawford (6-3, 218), linebacker, Fort Collins (Colo.) High School.

Jim Downs (6-6½, 260), offensive takle, Glenrock (Wyo.) High School.

Ben Durbin (6-2, 219), linebacker, Gilbert (Iowa) High School.

Ryan Handford (5-10, 176), cornerback, Santiago High School in Corona, Calif. — grayshirt that counts against 2008 total.

Dylan Kildahl (6-4, 230), defensive end, Highlands High School in Ault, Colo.

Kyle Magnuson (6-7, 306), offensive tackle, Concord High School in Elkhart, Ind.

Justin Morgan (6-2, 187), wide receiver, Chicago Mount Carmel High School.

Corey Orth (6-5, 235), defensive end, Buena Vista (Colo.) High School.

Ben Parks (6-2, 195), place-kicker/punter, Argyle (Texas) Secondary School.

Levi Salmans (6-7, 275), offensive line, Monarch High School in Lafayette, Colo. — grayshirt that counts against 2008 total.

Trevor Shaw (6-4, 240), defensive end, Poudre High School in Fort Collins, Colo.

Nick Williams (6-4, 260), offensive tackle, Highlands Ranch (Colo.) High School.

—

(2008 January Walk-on)

Darin McDonald (6-3, 195), wide receiver, Cherry Creek High School in Englewood, Colo.

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(2009 Grayshirts)

Josh Leonard (6-4, 230), defensive line, Helena (Mont.) High School.

Brad Marboe (6-3, 195), linebacker, Idaho Falls (Idaho) High School.

 

[cbeditor]

Wyoming actually had an offer out to another kicker when Parks committed. His name is Jordan Mannisto and Chris Sailer, a kicking/punting guru and the only player in NCAA history to earn All-American honors as both a kicker and punter, ranked Mannisto 13th in the nation and No. 1 among uncommitted high school prospects.

Here's a URL to an article about the situation.http://wyoming.scout.com/2/713020.html. Makes you wonder if Wyoming would consider recruiting two kickers/punters this season.

 

[Fullback41]

To cbeditor - Don't you hate being right all the time. You wondered aloud back in December whether UW would be wise to offer to 2 kickers. Do you have a crystal ball or have you made a deal with the devil?

Any chances Mannisto or the SD kid would de-commit and reconsider UW knowing we won't go after them while they are committed? or are we just out of luck?

We got caught young on the O-line last year, could this have a similar effect? Was Parks going to be good enough to start as a true freshman? This Parks de-commit has me more upset than the Marboe one because there is so little room for errors with kickers and he screwed us out of several good options by waiting until the last minute to change his mind. I hope we play Baylor in the next couple of years and send a stud to take his head off. Baylor now ranks up there with Utah, Boise St, CSU, NM, and Syracuse as teams I hate, they must be destoyed.

 

[cbeditor]

TKoehn,

Haha...Actually I just went out on the street one day and bought a Magic Eight Ball from some guy with a pitchfork and a red cape. Don't know what was up with him, but this thing has been working wonders for me ever since.

I actually based my whole position on that issue solely on stats. I had no idea Parks would flake out a week before Signing Day. Mannisto put up better numbers and I wondered if it wouldn't be nice to just have them both. At the time, they were two of the highest-rated recruits of the class.

The scary thing is this: It was kind of obvious that UW coaches were using the offer to Mannisto as a pressure point with Parks. They seemed to think that an offer to another kicker would be just enough motivation to get Parks to pull the trigger. Now that it's backfired in their faces, you have to wonder if Parks committed a bit before he was ready.??? Mannisto told me he would still have considered committing if Parks' verbal hadn't taken his offer off the table. It would have been nice to have both. Instead we have neither.

You bring up a good point about youth, though. I've heard Glenn and Co. are not happy with Jake Scott, and I think Parks would have played right away--if not at both kicker and punter, at least at one or the other.

And to answer your question about Mannisto or this SD kicker possibly de-committing, it's now offically a no. The Pokes offered and got a commitment from Austin McCoy, a kicker/punter from Winter Haven, Florida, this weekend. I don't know what happened with the SD kid other than that I don't think Glenn likes to call kids after they've committed to other programs...unlike Baylor's coach.

Still, some people think coaches may have been a bit hasty with McCoy. There was a punter named Kienen Cullen who was very good and wanted to come here. And I've heard other names thrown into the mix as well. It seemed like they might have had blinders on with McCoy, but you can't really blame them with Signing Day being less than a week away.

I agree with you about Marboe. Parks' de-commitment was far more damaging. First of all, Marboe de-committed on his own, without any other coaches influencing him. Bur more importantly, he played LB, a position we recruit 4-5 solid guys a year. Plus he was grayshirting. We can recover from something like that, but where we're so thin at kicker/punter, it would have been nice to be able to count more on Parks' word. Plus Marboe gave coaches a little more notice and time to find somebody else if they wanted to.

 

[Fullback41]

I think we still have some scholarships left, IYO should they pursue Kienen Cullen as well? Also, what do they do with leftover scholarships, do they award them to older walk-ons so they become available again soon, change a grayshirts status, or just hold them? I am curious and have no idea what is the best strategy. Obviously, I would think they would look for kids that somehow fell through the cracks waiting on offers from BCS schools, but after that what do they do? I would also assume if you have a scholarship just sitting there available it wouldn't hurt to give it to a senior walk-on for one semester, but again, I'm guessing. Just curious.

 

[cbeditor]

Yeah, they have one left. But no, I don't think they should give it to Cullen--not that it would be horrible if they did, but I think McCoy can handle both punting and kicking duties, he's signed with the team, and we still have other punters/kickers on the roster from past seasons.

I don't know what you do with that extra scholarship, honestly. I would have liked to see them give it to Josh Burmingham, the grayshirt RB from Oklahoma that they got. Some people think he won't actually end up coming here next year, and I would hate to see us lose him because of a grayshirt--like the Brad Marboe situation. His highlight film was amazing. He's D-Mo-esque. I thought his film was the best of the day, and I couldn't believe it was coming from a grayshirt. He's a bit undersized still, but I think a redshirt could possibly do the trick in that regard. If everything works out, though, and he does come here after his grayshirt season, it will be better overall. So I can see why they're doing the grayshirt thing--especially with the RBs they still have on the roster.

I really don't know what they'll do with that extra scholly, but I like the idea of giving it to a senior walk-on. I think that'd be a cool thing to do.