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talent - recruiting

7

7220Fan

Well-known member
I just want to throw this out there. Not looking to start anything but kind of just sayin...

Whether you watched the game live Saturday night or watched it on t.v., I think it was pretty obvious, at least it was to me, that Fresno St. had a lot more talent on the field than we did. Their kids seemed to be taller, faster, stronger, and bigger than ours. I am not saying that we don't have a lotta heart because I think we do and our kids try to do the best that they can. I am just saying that physically, it looked to me that they were alot more talented.

With that being said, I did some investigating on my own and came up with a couple of things. As far as recruiting goes, I went back and looked at our past history of the kids that we have. I used Rivals recruiting base and also ESPN recruiting base to get some information. If the information I got is wrong, I apologize now, but this was basically all I could find. I know alot of the information is not published but this was.... :

The starting 22 on the field for the Pokes Saturday night:

17 out of the 22 were NOT offered a scholorship from a FBS school.**(some were getting interest from some but as far as offers go, WYOMING was the only FBS school)

0 out of the 22 starters were offered a scholorship to a BCS school...**(I found that Eddie Yarbrough was but believe he did not start)

Blair Burns - LA-Monroe
Brett Smith - NM St. and San Jose St.
Jake Jones - AF
Kyle Magnuson - Bowling Green and Toledo
DJ May - Idaho

These were the only starters that I could find on those 2 recruiting sites that showed they were offered a scholorship from a FBS school.

Like I said, if the information is wrong, I apologize.... but this kind of tells me something! Again, I am not busting on the kids or their hearts but ...... well, just sayin. And for all those out there that say, "its really hard to recruit to Laramie".... I say that is just another excuse!!! Todd Mcshay at ESPN was talking a couple weeks ago about one of Oklahoma's defensive guys. He said that the kid has had to wait for 3 yrs to play because of who was in front of him. Mcshay said that if the kid had gone to another school and started when he was young and racked up a bunch of stats, the kid would be a 4th or 5 round pick this year. Because he didn't, he will probably have to sign with a NFL team as an un-drafted free agent. My question is why aren't those type kids being pushed to Laramie by our coaches? Its not that hard of a sell!!! Get lost in the shuffle at OU or go to UW and be a star. Rack up the stats and get your name out there, the NFL will hear about you! Not too difficult.... if you can sell!...... just sayin!
 
Did Luke Ruff not play Saturday night? I know he was offered by Kansas State. And had Ole Miss offered him he would have taken the offer. They recruited him a lot but never offered him.
 
And I know Jason Thompson wasn't starting but wasn't he offered by Washington and a couple of other Pac12 teams?
 
Brett Smith almost got an offer from BSU before they went after Jimmy Laughrea instead. I'm sure there are many others, but yes I see your point. There are a lot of guys on this roster that UW competed with Big Sky schools to get. Star ratings are cool and all, but the real measuring stick is the offers a player receives. If you're after a kid with 5+ Pac-12 offers, chances are he is legit. If you go after a kid whose only offers from Northern Arizona and Idaho, its gonna be tough to compete at a high level.
 
J-Rod, I absolutely agree. Beaver, on ESPN and Rivals, they don't show Luke being recruited or offered by anyone except Wyoming.
 
BeaverPoke said:
And I know Jason Thompson wasn't starting but wasn't he offered by Washington and a couple of other Pac12 teams?
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Not as a QB.

...I think those teams made a mistake not offering him as a QB as he is raw but has a ton of potential
 
If you take a look at the offers we have made every season since HCDC took over, we ARE going after high caliber players that have AQ offers. The problem is that they are taking those offers, not ours. It's not like we're going after mediocrity, but when you can't land the blue chips you have to take what you can get.
 
WYO1016 said:
If you take a look at the offers we have made every season since HCDC took over, we ARE going after high caliber players that have AQ offers. The problem is that they are taking those offers, not ours. It's not like we're going after mediocrity, but when you can't land the blue chips you have to take what you can get.
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Yep, I've seen offers to high profile recruits (4-5 stars even), but they go to some other school. So it's not like we haven't been trying to get the high profile recruits, it's just that they choose other schools. That said, they have recruited some "diamond in the rough" type players, like Smith, Thompson, Wick, May, Muhammed, Alexander, and some others.
 
WYO1016 said:
If you take a look at the offers we have made every season since HCDC took over, we ARE going after high caliber players that have AQ offers. The problem is that they are taking those offers, not ours. It's not like we're going after mediocrity, but when you can't land the blue chips you have to take what you can get.
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This is true too.....the intent has been to get those guys. Recruiting is becoming a shadier game with every passing year. Even when Wyoming seems to have finally closed in on a big recruit, here comes some Pac-12 school to talk down UW (and they do) and offer them at the last second. Its not an easy game, and often it takes a good eye for talent to find diamonds in the rough like Brett Smith.
 
This comes up every so often, and I think that we just need to realize that until we start winning 10+ games per season, we're not going to get amazing recruiting classes. Laramie and Wyoming in general is NOT an attractive destination in a vast majority of recruits' eyes. We have pretty nice facilities, decent staff, an alright stadium, but it's still Laramie, Wyoming. A small town that gets freezing cold in the wintertime, and where your best chance to get non-Cowboy clothes is Wal-Mart.

Some people like to bring up how Boise's been successful, but I don't think those people have actually been to Boise. Don't get me wrong, I love Wyoming, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Most highly skilled football recruits are city kids - and if they're not, they're likely to have plenty of big time schools way closer than Laramie.
 
I think this is another one of those situations as well, When try to find a diamond in the very deep unappreciated rough for every position on the field and sometimes we find them. Is it that hard to recruit to Laramie? Probably for some people sure but let's take Leonard Washington for example.

He played for USC granted basketball is different than football so this is kind of a bad comparison but in the end the breakdown is the same. For USC he played 2 years 08-10 during that time he played 958 Mins of game time.

He played for Wyoming in 11, He put up 859 Mins so did we get a Diamond in the rough or are we so willing to accept low quality talent that he seems like a star to us? I think he is a star I think he is a diamond in the rough but under no circumstance is every recruit going to be a diamond in the rough. 1 out of 10 will do something spectacular and the rest will just play the game they love.

I think we could recruit higher rated players but the school needs to win to get interest anything about a 3 star recruit. Until we win more then 8 games 2 seasons in a row in Football or 20+ wins in Basketball with a higher SOS no one will want to come here.

We get the kids that aren't the stereotypical size or speed for their position and we make it work.
 
Recruiting is so important in college ball. From top to bottom, more important that coaching. For instance, I think DC is shit, that's no secret. But if you were to give him the Alabama team and give Saban the Pokes, and they played 10 games DC's Alabama team would win 10 in a row over Saban's Wyoming team. Having said that, you don't see a whole lot of complaining when we lose to Texas or Nebraska. We get it. And we can't get the 3+ star guys in here so we have to fight it out for players with our conference mates, similar conferences and FCS teams. But that's who most of our games are against anyway. So it should be a level playing field for most of our games. So at our level (the MWC minus Boise) we're going for the same guys our competitors are going for. Then it is about the diamonds in the rough and coaching up who you land and keeping them once they arrive.
 
7220Fan said:
J-Rod, I absolutely agree. Beaver, on ESPN and Rivals, they don't show Luke being recruited or offered by anyone except Wyoming.
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I'm not talking about ESPN or Rivals. I'm talking about what actually happened. He was recruited by AFA K-State Ole Miss and Wyo

3 of those 4 offered. Ole Miss didn't. He would have gone to play at Ole Miss had he been offered.
 
Say what you want but in many cases the Rivals/Scout sites are fixed on the bigger conferences. Unless you are a recruit being followed by those schools the rating is scuded. Chris Pro.. was rated as a 3 star until he gave us his verbal then dropped down to a 2, a couple other guys in the past had the same thing done 3 to a 2 star when they signed on. Also you can look at every school around the country and scratch your head... case in point look at all top rated teams year to year and you will see 4,5 and 6 star reruits on every class and those teams finish with a 3-9 record or something close to it. The fact is you can't determine how good a kid is going to be by a star next to his name...
 
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