Recruiting Corner: An Early Look at the 2010 Offensive Prospects

While it is still very early in the recruiting season, here is a preliminary list of KU’s potential offensive targets for the Class of 2010.  It is important to note that these are only the targets from the high school level.  Most targets from prep schools and junior colleges will not be identified until late summer or fall. 

As I said before, this is a very early list.  The list of targets will balloon to 300+ prospects following KU’s Junior Days and Kansas football summer camps.  I will do my best to track the list of targets as it grows and make a note of all offers, commits, etc. in the upcoming months.  The list of defensive targets will be posted in the next week or so.

I know for a fact that some of these prospects have already committed elsewhere, but as of now they are still on KU's target list.  At this stage in the game, it is hard to say that any commitment is secure.  If anyone knows of a prospect that I have missed, a recruit that has been offered, etc. please feel free to leave a message and I will correct the list.  Rock Chalk. 

BOLD-Prospects that have been offered
ITALICS-Prospects from Kansas/KC-Metro
*-Attended KU’s Junior Days

Pro-Style Quarterback                    
Willie Ballard
Tyler Gabbert*
Andrew Hendrix
Austin Hinder
Steve Kaiser
 Zach McCabe
Tommy Rees
Scotty Young
Luke Woodley*

Dual Threat Quarterback
Anthony Abenoja
Blake Bell*
Chase Boyce
Grail Brewster
A.J. Derby
Jim Garoppolo
Cole Hubble
Patrick Ivy
Matt Leutjan
Bronson Marsh
Emory Miller
Jacob Morgan
Joel Piper
Marshyl Rothman
Jameill Showers
Jacoby Walker
Detchauz Wray

Running Back
Brandon Bourbon
Brandin Byrd
Derek Campbell
Mark Cole
Antaries Daniels
Andre Dawson*
Deveon Dinwiddie*
Stephen Hopkins
Randall Hollimon
D.J. Jones
Marcus Lattimore
Robert Marshall
Ben Melena
Terrance Olds*
Randy Ponder
Reggie Richardson
Joseph Randle*
DeMarcus Robinson*
James Sims
Aaron Spikes
Jamal Thomas
Calvin Thompson
Kendrick Warren

Fullback
Jacob Harding
Tyson McGill
Josh Smith

Tight End
Ja’Darrius Davis
Austin Kaczsor
Cameron McLain
Tim Semisch
Heath Train

Wide Receiver
Craig Anderson
Sir Bullock
Clayton Cooper
Mike Davis
Davian Harper
John Harris
Jimmie Hunt
Kevin Johnson
Ronell Lavigne
Glenn Lewis
Marcus Lucas
Chris McAlister
Sheldon McCain
Montra Nelson
Devin Patterson*
Joseph Powell
Ben Renshaw
Thomas Roberson
RayShaun Stevens
Darius Terrell
Keeston Terry*
Stephen Washington
D.J. Williamson
Julian Wilson

Offensive Tackle
Troy Baker
Nick Demien
B.J. Finney
Anthony Gatti*
Garrett Grambling
Chaz Green
Lincoln Hansen
Bronson Irwin
Chris Mayer
John McClure
Cameron McClain
Mitch Morse
Andrew Rodriguez
Chad Rokhar
Trent Spurgeon*
Jake Schwertner
Jace Warren*
Evan Washington
Daryl Williams

Offensive Guard
Chris Adcock
Dominic Farinas
Dalvin Glass
Austin Lunsford
Grant Johnson
Andrew Meuler
Adam Shead
Taylor Wallace

Center
Jake Alexander
Gary Hiatt
Michael Lishner
Phillip McGruder
Austin Woods

Tuesday Recruiting Corner: Rolling into 2010

The 2009 recruiting class is all but wrapped up. Rivals ranked the class of 2009 31st nationally and 5th in the Big XII. The class has a strong defensive lean, with 15 of the 25 new recruits slotted on the defensive side of the ball. On paper, it is by far the best class that KU has had under Mark Mangino.

Please take a moment to be excited.

The moment is over. It is time to move on.

The heart of college football is recruiting. Recruiting is a year round process. It never stops. It doesn't take time to eat.  It never sleeps. It just keeps going and going.

The recruiting landscape has changed drastically in the last ten years, due in large part to the success of Texas coach Mack Brown. In years past, colleges were able to begin recruiting evaluations and start drafting prospects lists in the spring. They would evaluate those prospects in the fall and offer them in the winter.

If a school did that now, they would never be able to sign a full class...let alone a good class. 

Prospects are committing earlier and earlier each year. Texas already has ten commitments for the Class of 2010.  19 of Texas’ 20 signees in 2009 had committed by June of 2008. As it stands, colleges must follow that trend or risk falling off a recruit’s radar entirely.

Most schools have their prospect lists already drafted and a lot of player evaluations done before spring practice and are already extending scholarship offers.  KU is no different.  Three players committed to Kansas by July 2006 for the Class of 2007.  The Class of 2008 had four commits by July, 2007. The Class of 2009 had nine commitments by July, 2008. This trend of gathering more early commitments must continue if KU has any hope of closing the talent gap further with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma.

Recruiting will be anything but easy in 2010. In addition to the normal challenges that KU faces, there are new foes on the recruiting trail. KU lost out on four players to Arkansas in 2009, including a prospect that was a KU commit. Bill Snyder’s return to K-State has the potential to throw a serious monkey wrench into KU’s ability to recruit in-state.

Fear not, all is not lost. In spite of all of the challenges that KU will face on the recruiting trails next year, there are several important factors that are tilting the scales in the Jayhawks favor for the Class of 2010.

1. Bill Miller Co-Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach has traditionally recruited the state of Florida and the Jayhawk Conference (JuCo) almost exclusively. There is no reason to expect that to change any time soon. Both are areas that the Jayhawks have had mild-success with in the past, and areas that should improve with Miller spearheading the effort.

2. Ed Warriner’s push to recruit the state of Ohio appears to finally be panning out. In the last two years, KU has been able to sign two recruits from the state. While that is only a drop in the bucket, it isn’t as if Texas prospects were beating down the door to play at KU five years ago either. The addition of Defensive Line Coach Tom Sims, formerly of Illinois, should improve the effectiveness of recruiting in the heart of Big Ten country.

3. The depth of talented players in the state of Kansas and the KC Metro area for the Class of 2010 is probably the strongest it has been in at least a decade. The player rankings are not out yet, but I will be really surprised if there aren’t quite a few 4- and 5-Star prospects in those two regions.

4. Graduation will hit the Jayhawks hard after the 2009-2010 football season. Virtually every player at a skill position will be graduating after next year.  That means that there will be a lot of starting jobs up for grabs. The ability to come in and start on a high octane offense should entice several talented recruits to make Lawrence their home.

The University of Kansas is finally getting to the point where they can no longer be considered a fluke program. Over the last four years, the Jayhawks have won nearly 70% of their games as well as three bowl games in the same span.  As KU continues to show that it can consistently win games and get to bowls, Lawrence becomes a more attractive place attend school for potential recruits. If nothing else, the last two years have proved that.

The Jayhawks have a lot of things working in their favor for the Class of 2010. If Mark Mangino’s team is able to take care of business on the field, the recruiting should be able to take care of itself.

Can Kansas Actually Recruit Ohio?

I was in a heated debate last night with a pair of Ohio State fans at work.  (Before any Buckeye fans try to correct me, until there is a second Ohio State University in the FBS, I am not going to put “the” in front of Ohio State.  Deal with it.)  We were discussing football recruiting, and more specifically, we were talking about Kansas OC Ed Warinner securing two commitments from Ohio prospects over the last two years for the Jayhawks. 

I argued that KU has been trying to recruit the state of Ohio for several years and that the commitments of Josh Richardson (Class of 2008) and Bradley McDougald (Class of 2009) were the first steps to setting up and securing an Ohio-KU connection.  My Buckeye counterparts were inclined to believe that 1) I am nuts and 2) it is impossible for any Big XII school to consistently sign quality talent from the heart of Big Ten country. 

In the words of Billy Joel, “They may be right, I may be crazy.”

The only thing is, I am not so sure that I am. 

I will be the first person to admit questioning whether or not KU should have spent so much time recruiting in Ohio.  I felt that it was a bold move, but for all intents and purposes, utterly hopeless.  I honestly thought that trying to recruit in the state of Ohio was a complete waste of time and money. 

If KU had to fight a lost cause, I would rather have seen the fight take place in California or Florida.  The talent in Ohio is good, but there is just more of it in those two states.  I just figured that the law of large numbers might take effect if the Jayhawks case a wide enough net in the larger states. 

Ed Warriner proved me wrong and has snagged two very talented prospects the last two years. 

I am not deluded enough to think that Richardson and McDougald chose KU over Ohio State.  They didn’t.  It is unlikely that any Ohio kid will ever make that choice if Ohio State really wants them.  Most Ohio kids that play football, grow up wanting to play for the Buckeyes.  It is the same as most Kansas kids that play basketball grow up wanting to play for the Jayhawks. 

That wasn’t even the point of my argument.  My point is that Mark Mangino and his staff are in the process of setting up the channels needed to make KU attractive to those prospects that Ohio State isn’t sold on. 

The fact remains, that Ohio State can only sign so prospects each year.  Even if the Buckeye’s sign the Top 25 prospects from the state of Ohio every year, there are still 50 to 60 prospects in the state that are talented enough to play at the FBS level.  Ohio State couldn’t sign all of the talent in the state, even if they wanted to. 

There are still plenty of prospects in Ohio left over. 

Kansas will never beat out the University of Texas for a 5-Star recruit from Texas.  It’s never going to happen.  That hasn’t stopped KU from recruiting competitively in Texas.  In 2009, KU signed just as many Dallas Area Top 25 recruits as Texas and OU.  Mark Mangino consistently finds recruiting gems in the Lonestar State. 

There is no reason why Kansas can’t annually pluck a few talented prospects away from Ohio.  All that Kansas needs is a linebacker here or a lineman there.  It isn’t as if the Jayhawks will be building their entire recruiting class from the state of Ohio. 

Sure, there are other Big Ten schools to compete with, but there is a big difference between the type of player recruited to play in the Big XII and those recruited to play in the Big Ten.

Even though there are a few teams in the Big Ten that run spread hybrids, it is still a conference dominated by the power run game.  The Big Ten is a rough-and-tough, conservative, grind-it-out conference. 

There is a reason that three of the most productive runners last season came from the Big Ten.  In spite of the changes that are being made within the conference, the old adage of 3 yards and a cloud of dust still holds true. 

The Big XII is about as close to a polar opposite as it gets.  It is a conference dominated by the spread, where running the ball on 2nd and 3 is considered conservative.  A 31-27 game is a defensive struggle.  It is a wild, anything-goes conference.   

Neither is better or worse than the other.  They are just different.  So are the types of players that the teams within those conferences recruit.  A big, powerful running back is going to get more touches in the Big Ten than he will get in the Big XII.  A tall, fast receiver is going to get more catches in the Big XII than he will get in the Big Ten.

If the Kansas coaching staff is successful in their effort to make KU more attractive to Ohio kids, it won’t be long before a mini-pipeline is in full effect.  If the two Ohio prospects have moderate success for the Jayhawks, how long will it be before other Ohio kids start thinking about Lawrence as a possible destination?  That may be exactly what the Jayhawks need to take them to the next level. 

I fully expect the coaching staff to continue to hit Ohio heavily.  The addition of Tom Sims to the coaching staff can only help.  His experience in recruiting Big Ten country will be a great asset on the trail in upcoming years. 

Already there has been a huge spike in the number of prospects from Ohio that are interested in Kansas for the Class of 2010.  That is a positive sign that the coaching staff’s efforts are starting to pay off. 

While I can’t start gloating yet, hopefully I will be able to in a few years.  Then again, who knows, they may be right…I may be crazy.