Local said

I'm 52 years old, over weight, zero stars, no official offer , but I am verbally committing . There, the monkey is off our backs.

:D

owlcountry40 said

I do care about early commits to think not one kid we have offered yet has said I want to come to FAU is concerning.

Just curious…

What's your explanation now for why we don't have early commits?

Since you can't throw Schnelley under the bus any more…….

Rick said

owlcountry40 said

I do care about early commits to think not one kid we have offered yet has said I want to come to FAU is concerning.

Just curious…

What's your explanation now for why we don't have early commits?

Since you can't throw Schnelley under the bus any more…….

 I truly I do not know none of us really know what is going on. This summer I have gone back to my old high school wight room a few times to say hey to some old coaches etc. I ask them about recruiting and i hear back is what FIU is doing weather it is 7-7 tournaments at the schools or other things they are doing. Mario seems to be crazy aggressive and tries to be be everywhere all the time you have to give to FIU they are doing a great job. I do not know 1-11 does kill us and i did take Mario a couple of years to develop  what he has now.

Snchelly had his chance to create a large strong hold over FIU when we were doing all the winning but we never built off the 07 and 08 years. Lets see how long it takes Pelini to catch up. ……….i do not want to wait long. 

Early verbals help because it starts building a class. Kids want to play with their friends or with players that they know are talented. These early commitments can also be used as recruiters when the coaching staff isn't available to communicate with prospects (ex: a no contact period or during official visits in the fall.) The other advantage would also being able to convince a kid to finish high school early and become and come a semester early.

While I don't think it's time to panic, there does have to be an eyebrow raised to the fact that FAU is one of five FBS teams without a commit.

This team needs upward momentum, and while it would be foolhardy to say that they need to get a player, it is certainly troublesome that no one has bought into Pelini's program — even if they'll just back out of that commitment later.

The worse thing that has happen to sports and sports talk/blog are 1)  Recruiting conversation  and 2) Salary cap talk….and yes I know recruiting is important, it just not very interesting trying to figure out why or why not a 17 year old kid would commit now or later.

That being said, we were a 1-11 team last year.  Think if you were a high school kid who is trying to decide what school to attend…why would you commit early to a 1-11 team?  Probably because you are desperate or want to play immediately (which in my mind the doesn't want to develop).  The fact of the matter is the current team and the incoming class is going to have to prove that something special is going on down here before we can expect early commits from recruits.  I think we have some talent on the team that coaching staff will have to motivate to get the most out of them.  I was watching an Alfred Morris interview with the Washington Redskin team show and the interviewer was commenting on his performance last season and one of the responses from Alfred was that some of the guys quit!  I cringed and I was embarrassed.  We all watched them last year so we know the comment was true.  If the coaching staff can motivate and make the existing players care more the recruits will be getting in line to play here.  So if we are in the same predicament next year I would be a little worried.

Just because we are excited about the future doesn't mean the outside world will be until we make them take notice.  It doesn't take long for a reputation of being a disciplined and hard working team to get out there, about just as fast as a reputation of quiting and being poorly coached team gets out there.  We are a month and a half away from the season opener….in my dream world we would be talking about that and worrying about recruiting sometime in mid-October.  I know that won't be though. 

Tim said

…we were a 1-11 team last year.  Think if you were a high school kid who is trying to decide what school to attend…why would you commit early to a 1-11 team?  Probably because you are desperate or want to play immediately (which in my mind the doesn't want to develop).  The fact of the matter is the current team and the incoming class is going to have to prove that something special is going on down here before we can expect early commits from recruits…

ERROR: A link was posted here (img) but it appears to be a broken link.

and…….

+1!

"I was watching an Alfred Morris interview with the Washington Redskin team show and the interviewer was commenting on his performance last season and one of the responses from Alfred was that some of the guys quit!  I cringed and I was embarrassed.  We all watched them last year so we know the comment was true."

And sadly it all started with the Coaching staff - lame ducks who knew they were done and "played out the string"- pun intended!

Thanks Rick!

Something new for you guys to chew on:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/fau/blog/2012/07/emails_show_sun_belt_had_grand.html