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Will Storey committed to the Beavers. He’s a local product and a zero star athlete by both major recruiting services. His only offers were Portland State and Washington State.

Beaver fans, we are now recruiting PSU and WSU players. Every other coach in America, except the aforementioned desperate cellar dweller and a DII school, believe this player is a miss.  Yet Mike Riley felt the need to not offer a walk-on opportunity, but instead to waste one of a dozen scholarships available this year on this borderline DI player. Even though Storey is not a walk-on, people are sure to bring up Mike Hass in this debate–realize there’s been 1 Mike Hass out of hundreds of OSU walk-ons.

I’ve never seen Storey play, but I do believe in odds, majority, etc when it comes to recruiting. If nobody wanted this player there’s good reason. Can you say Kameron Krebs? Why are we recruiting these guys. We have three top 25 finishes in a row and the best we can do is PSU and WSU caliber players? Earlier in the week we signed Donnell Welch, another zero star athlete with no offers. This one looks like an academic casualty since he had a lot of interest, but it makes you wonder yet again about our recruiting strategy.

The only thing I can deduce from these late offers and signings is that we’ve struck out with our entire A and B list and we’re now moving to C (Welch) and D (Storey). This is a really sad state of affairs, and the more C-level recruiting I have to watch the more bitter I become about the Heyward hiring. Robin Pflugrad was out there for the Beavers taking. When a program continually makes boneheaded decisions it’s just a matter of time before they catch up. I think last years recruiting class was so strong that we might not see the effects of this years atrocious effort until 3 years down the line when we have major depth/talent deficiency issues, but we will see it. With the rest of the PAC-10 coaches, outside of Paul Wulff, being top 25 recruiters, something needs to change and sooner rather than later.

On a more positive note, Devon Collier committed to the men’s basketball team. Craig Robinson hauls in another top 100 recruit (to dreaded Corvallis, no less, where “no top recruits want to play”). Collier’s offer sheet includes full rides from Duke, Connecticut, Pitt, Seton Hall, Syracuse, and West Virginia. Enough said?

31 COMMENTS

  1. Angry, hearing you talk about numbers makes me happy. Recruiting is a total numbers games, but few college football fans want to accept this. I even find Duck fans doing the same thing, talking about Unger or Chung or whomever. What many people won’t admit is that these players are the exception, not the rule.

    The best work I’ve seen done on this is by Matt Hinton. Here’s a couple of pieces on recruiting that he’s done.
    Hug your friendly neighborhood recruiting rankings
    Hug your friendly neighborhood recruiting rankings Part 2

    Keep up the great work.

  2. That is why Mike Riley is a coach and gets paid millions and you sit on your computer all day reading hype. One sentence sticks out in your article. It starts out with: I’ve never seen Storey play, Go look at those recruiting services position rankings from past years and you will learn a little more. Most of the top ranked players don’t pan out either. James Rodgers was also a nobody, as was Victor Butler!! You should follow the Yankees or Ducks with all that negative hoopla!!! Seriously, you are a fucking joke man. Rip on a reruit before he even finishes high school. Your hobby sucks. Keep up the good work on wordpress.com. How that for some negative bullshit!! Fuck OFF!!!!

  3. Angry this maybe your site, but your evaluation of players is out of your
    realm, Coach Riley has built a respected program with players such as Storey! I would lay odds he turns out tob a very productive football player. After U of Os’ decisive win over USC you were carrying their
    banner and had the Beavs getting beat by O by 50. Hey, guy it ain’t
    gonna happen!! The Beavs will play the Quackers tough. It might be a
    good idea if you went back to selling Fuller Brushes because I really
    beleive your avocation is something other that football analysis!!
    Perhaps you could become a Duck fan, if you are not already one?
    But your quality of football talk is getting stale!! This will be last post
    and last visit to this site! Go Beavs!!

  4. The reality is that OSU should be recruiting better players at this stage in the program’s development. A program needs depth to compete for the Pac-10 championship, there is no way you can argue against this fact. OSU has not WON the Pac-10 crown since 2000.

    It’s not the end of the world if OSU uses mostly b-level talent to finish in the top quartile of the Pac-10 every year, but at some point the program needs to raise the bar. The Beavers have proven that they have a top-tier program. OSU does have legit players- like the Rogers Bros, but they need more of them to actually win the Pac.

    I agree with Angry’s point that the recruiting strategy is weak, and lacks talent on the coaching side to execute consistently. It appears that luck has more to do with the stars OSU has recruited of late.

    Go Beavers!

    • Well said, beaver blogger.

      I’m not out to rip on Will Storey…he’d make a nice player for PSU and WSU and I’m sure he’s a good guy and all. But…yeah.

      I’m not sure why some fans are taking my “attacks” personally. As if Riley and OSU aren’t using these players for their advantage. The naysayers act as if the players are innocent kids. They’re adults getting free education. This isn’t Pop Warner, so some of you need to get off the high horse and stop acting like it is.

  5. Angry, If you are going to bang on Krebs and other guys who didn’t pan out and then say that finding the Mike Hass’s and James Rodgers’ is not the way to build a solid team i think you should take a look at the big name recruits who have signed with us. Right now the names Simi Kuli and Reggie Dunn come to mind. They might have been 4/5 star guys on the recruit sites but if a player never makes it to camp, they don’t even have a chance to fail. I’d rather take a long shot on Storey then end up with another 5 star who cant qualify.

    • The guys you mention are JC’s, though, and they rarely pan out in any program. They go the JC route because they have some issue.

    • I apologize in advance, but may I ask exactly what did happen to these two you mention? I’ve only fairly recently really paid any attention to recruiting so i’m not sure on the whole story of why things usually don’t work out for JC’s… is it academics? Thanks for any enlightenment!

      • Hey Diggs.

        If you’re new to recruiting, you’ll soon learn there are “preps” (high school recruits) and JCs (high school recruits who went the junior college route). The JCs usually have academic issues that prevent them from qualifying with the NCAA clearninghouse. This could be GPA, SAT scores, required classes, etc. JCs can finish a two year degree at a community college and then transfer to a four year school. This is a way around academic issues. But, the problem is that many of them never complete the associates’ degree and therefore never qualify. Sometimes these players have other issues (off the field, etc). For example, Kuli not only didn’t qualify academically, but he had kids/family that required his time and energy. Then again, Kuli is the Sasquatch of the PNW so we’re not even sure he ever existed.

  6. Angry,

    I don’t like disagreeing with you, but you really should do a little more homework before condemning some of these players. Almost as if this kid heard your complaints about picking up a commitment from him, he goes and does this…

    http://highschoolsports.oregonlive.com/news/article/3448103161559288835/lake-oswego-49-oregon-city-24-lakers-continue-three-rivers-dominance/

    If that’s what he does on offense, I’m curious to see what he does on defense, where I believe we’re recruiting him. Either way, I think it’s promising that OSU is picking up athletic players that can play anywhere. Another example is Poyer (who is lighting things up on Special teams)

    Welch might turn out okay. His highlight video looks promising.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_wHAETzmys

    Seems to have a command of the field and he has a good sense of getting sacks, which is something we desperately need.

    Still- I understand what you’re saying, but I believe this class will be alright.

  7. Let’s rate some “stars” courtesy of Rivals.com…

    Simi “The Pooka” Kili 5 stars
    Bryan Payton 4 stars
    Edorrian McCoullough 4 stars
    Reggie Dunn 4 stars
    David Ross 4 stars
    Ahmed Moktar (OSU drop out, now scholarshipped at USC) 3 stars
    Zach Hagemeister 3 stars
    Danny Southwick 3 stars
    Jacquizz Rodgers 3 stars
    Yvenson Bernard 2 stars
    Andy Levitre 2 stars
    Al Afalava 2 stars
    Gregg Peat 2 stars
    James Rodgers 2 stars
    Jordan Bishop 2 stars
    Jordan Poyer 2 stars
    Lyle Moevao 0 stars
    Victor Butler 0 stars
    Mike “friggin'” Hass 0 stars

    How did this group pan out? Is it possible that the recruiting websites often don’t know a solid/stud recruit from a waste of time and energy? I don’t get how you THINK you know anything about this cat. You admit you’ve never seen Storey play. The coaching staff HAS seen him play. And if the above list doesn’t tell you that sometimes (wink, wink) a coaching staff knows better than Rivals or any other group of jackass bloggers, I don’t know what will?

    • Your “point” is hilarious. While the rating services were wrong on half the guys on your list, the coaching staff was wrong on the other half. You realize the coaching staff offered those 4 star guys, right? Also, why such a circumspect group? Makes your point even less clear.

  8. I don’t think angry is trying to insult anyone… except maybe Wazzu?

    To answer your question, recruiting sites are bunk. They evaluate the very limited amount of tape available, and they tell you whether or not a kid has ‘room to grow’ based on nothing more than the eyeball test. They rarely tell you about heart or discipline. And if they don’t post a multi-star’s GPA, you can bet he’s not a good student (I should qualify that with a ‘to date’). They don’t tell you if this five star is going to beat his girlfriend or rob a convenience store let alone how well they respond to discipline.

    Sure angry is way off on his assessment of Storey. But he didn’t respond with proof of a star rating from some whacko pay-to-read-me site. I saw him play last year at LB, and he is scary good. He has no rating and very little early interest because he was really late getting tape to prospective schools, and his focus switched to the O side this year. I’m told that his attitude toward recruiting was this way because he’s such a Beav homer. If we didn’t have coaches who valued relationships more than star ratings then we might be asking ourselves how we missed an in-state player like him a couple years down the road.

    I will agree with the need to be better at recruiting once targets are evaluated. Obviously, the kids who need to be told that they’re great while a major D-1 program is recruiting them are not kids we need, and those we target don’t want to hear it. So why would we have anyone recruiting who follows this principle? We need someone who takes to heart the relationship and personal development aspects that our program now touts. I think angry suggested Lyle could be that person, and I agree.

    I’m not too worried about this year’s recruiting class. It’s so small with so few needs that we can afford to take two and three star guys, redshirt them, and make them into the recruits we fans always wanted. Riley’s ability to develop these kids has always been apparent to us, but this is the first year I’ve been hearing this consistently from major media outlets. It’s only a matter of time before quality blue-chippers start checking out the hype to see if it’s real.

    • Great post.

      I’m torn a bit.

      A. Frustrated that we can’t land more refined talent that doesn’t need years to groom etc.

      B. Happy that we do coach up better than anyone else in the conference

      I think the frustration comes from wondering what could be if we did land refined talent AND coached it up. We’ll see with Michael Phillip.

      • Think in terms of the early Bowden years at FSU. It took a while before he consistently won 10 games a year, and, when that streak ended, the whining began in their fan base. Now that we have the pipeline production in gear, we can expect to see first small then considerable sized clusters of blue-chips on the team. I think there’s a balance to be had at that point.

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