So here is where Dabo and company prove their metal. I always thought one of the major bonuses about hiring Dabo was that he was going to be a solid recruiter. If you can recruit then at least you have the talent to compete every year. I thought we did an adequate job salvaging the recruits last season but nothing spectacular. But after a year in place, I want to see some home runs this year.
Dabo has a staff that has a proven track record of recruiting talent. Napier was an excellent recruiting coordinator. Fat Brad for all his flaws does have good connections in-state but I'm not sure how important that really is in modern college football. Its important but not paramount. His son is the recruiting coordinator and so far I have not been particularly impressed.
We have failed on a lot of in-state backyard talent this year and that never sits well with me. Byrnes has been a disaster and we are paying for screwing up Lattimore's recruitment. Somebody made somebody angry, blah blah blah. We lost Miller, Willis, and Lattimore. So Davis needs to prove himself to me somewhat and land some big fish. Steele, Brooks, and Harbison are all solid if not special recruiters who take the job seriously so I am expecting big things. I am interested to see how Pearman does, he is in charge of recruiting some O-Line talent we desperately need.
Right now it seems like we are going to hold on to our 18 commits so far which is very good news. We have battled back against Georgia to secure Crawford and Beasley which is big. Darius Robinson is still flirting with Auburn but we should be able to hold out. This is good news because in recent years we have been subject to a great deal of poaching from other teams.
South Carolina is putting together another solid class unfortunately. We really want Mack to go somewhere else and Quarles almost jumped ship. If Lattimore goes somewhere else then I'm not too worried. Still cant believe we lost Gilmore and Holloman last year.
Our big battles now are with stealing Max Garcia away from Maryland despite a better journalism school?? Max--journalism is dead...come to Clemson. Also the battle for Justin Parker continues to rage, we led but not so much anymore...We need a big time LB and I dont want to wait another year. We have a shot with RB White and maybe Ethan Farmer (cross your fingers). Im hoping Dabo can be an insane closer for us and we can turn in a stellar class to get some momentum back in the program.
If not I think we need some hostesses. This is scary but really pure genius. Employing girls to shadow players on facebook, texting, go to some games and then leave them high and dry after they commit. Thats a UT Wild boy for yah...
How ya doin? Like your site. My name is thedabokoolaid, I'm a clemson blogger and a friend of Block-C. I recently started my own Clemson blog called Rally Death Valley. I would love to ad you guys to our blogroll and to get on ya'lls. Feel free to check out the blog at http://www.rallydeathvalley.com and give me a shout either here or at zinktb@yahoo.com. Thanks for your time, GO TIGERS!
ReplyDeleteWe had hostesses. They were called the Bengal Babes, then the Tiger PAWS, then Bowden got rid of them.
ReplyDeleteI do not see this class being Top 20, nor do I see us landing a single big fish outside of possibly Parker.
Even two years ago, we werent in good shape with the boys at Byrnes now, so I held no illusions about pulling them in. ML was the only one who thought about staying in-state.