Summer News

While I was out of town a decent amount of Buff news transpired…

§  2013 Recruiting

§  The Buffs received 4 more verbals over the past week or so bringing the total number of commitments up to eleven recruits and counting; this is the most they have had this early in a very long time.  Although none of the new guys are “big name” 4 or 5-star prospects, the class is shaping up nicely and filling out the roster with some depth.

§  George Frazier (Monrovia, CA) became the first linebacker to commit, a solid 3-star LB.  He was preceded by Columbine’s John Lisella, a smaller OL who is not ranked very highly anywhere yet, as well as CA WRs Bryce Bobo (Covina) and Elijah Dunston (West Hills), both 2-star guys who run track.

§  That gives them a QB, RB, TE, 2 WR, 4 OL, 1 s, 1 LB.  Even with the huge class they are bringing in, they could still use a couple of DL and CBs and will likely want to sign a couple more OL and LBs.

§  Chapparal TE Mitchell Parsons is not pleased, and therefore very motivated to prove them wrong, that he was not invited to Atlanta to participate in an Elite prospect camp.

§  After reading a post from a Cal blog, it looks like CU is targeting many of the same offensive linemen as Cal and many other Pac-12 schools.  However, even Bears fans are lamenting that many of the biggest California names are focused only on USC, Stanford and even UCLA.

§  OL Blake Nowland did commit to CSU?! which is a little disappointing but he obviously is either really interested in animals or is just not that smart.  CU has 2 of the top 5 in the state and 4 of top 16, but CSU has grabbed 4 of the top 12.

§  That leaves OT Dan Skipper as the only “big” name from the state of Colorado that remains uncommitted.

§  Roster talk

§  It is still possible that recruit WR Peyton Williams, who is recovering from knee surgery, could be a greyshirt candidate, depending on how his knee responds right before camp and how the following story develops…

§  No official word yet about if DE Kisima Jagne, who according to family did NOT qualify through the NCAA, was able to figure out his situation, i.e. what Junior College to officially enroll at.  Unfortunately, we will probably never see this talented player in a Buff uniform.

§  Embree does need to have 3 members of the 28-recruit class to greyshirt, delay enrollment until January and count against next year’s already small class-McCartney and Kough already slated-to be at the 25 member class limit.  Hence, the Peyton Williams deal.  However, if Jagne indeed does not make it to Boulder, then that problem will unfortunately be solved and may make it easier for Williams to not greyshirt, even if he is not quite 100%, which would leave one more slot for next year’s crop of prospects.

§  There is still nothing official on “former” Kansas QB transfer Jordan Webb until he finishes whatever summer work he needs to complete to officially graduate, but Kyle Ringo of the Camera expects him to be in Boulder by late July.

§  Other Program Notes

§  The football program 2^nd year of posting highest score ever) and the rest of the Athletic Department were pleased to announce that their APR scores were excellent.  Let’s hope that players like Cordary Allen were academically on track before he left.  Any players who finish their degree early certainly don’t hurt and we will still have to see how many are able to do that as Embree hopes some current juniors can.

§  The CSU game has been moved back to Saturday, Sept. 2 at 2:00 and will be televised by FOX.

§  Sr. LB Doug Rippy and Jr. 2^nd-team All-Pac-12 LT David Bahktiari will accompany Jon Embree and be interviewed first at the Pac-12 Media Day on July 24.

§  The new video boards appear to be coming along nicely (see AllBuffs.com for photo updates) with the South end basically complete.

§  The news on the “major” renovation plans that have been drawn up but not approved or funded may be farther off than Mike Bohn might have led us to believe previously.  Chancellor Phil DiStefano was not very optimistic when he talked about the project.  Although Embree and Co. are showing the drawings to recruiting prospects, I doubt that there is any chance that those recruits would ever see any of the plans come to fruition without a huge private donation.

§  ESPN’s Ted Miller did rank the Buffs as 7^th best facilities in the conference which is probably about right.

§  The Buff bashing continues on the national front…

…asPhil Steele’s analysis points out that CU will have the least experienced team in the entire country and he does have a point.  They lost a ton of seniors, have a very small senior class and will be counting on double digit true freshmen playing regular minutes.

…however, Dan Vasta of BleacherReport.com actually put Colorado #70 in his preseason power rankings, ahead of both Arizona and Oregon State, and the highest slot I have seen yet, although he still says that 5 wins is the high end of their range.

More Summer News

A bunch has actually happened in recent days…

§  2013 Recruiting

***Just in!  CU received verbal commitments from 3-star (from at least one site anyway) offensive line teammates at The Woodlands (Texas) guard Jonathon Huckins and tackle Sam Kronshrage,  for their 6^th and 7^th commits for the 2013 class.

-CUattheGame.com had just posted a nice little piece on the Buffs’ offensive line status and recruiting needs.   They are actually in generally good shape as this is their most experienced group on offense.  This just strengthens the future a little. 

-They are still targeting quite a few lineman as they only signed 2 for this cycle (with another going to greyshirt), but it appears the biggest names, while still entertaining CU at times, are only really interested in the biggest names in college football.   However, they are still in the running for some 3-star prospects, including Arvada’s Dan Skipper, who many believe is a “must get” for the Buffs as he is the biggest name left in Colorado. 

Check it out: http://www.cuatthegame.com/2012/recruiting-prospects-2013/

§  Roster talk

§  It is possible that WR Peyton Williams, who is recovering from knee surgery, could be a greyshirt candidate, depending on how his knee responds right before camp opens.  Coach Embree said he wouldn’t want him to lose practice time, even as a redshirt, because of the injury.  See more below.

§  It appears that (according to a “family member”) that DE Kisima Jagne did NOT qualify through the NCAA clearinghouse by (again, according to an unnamed relative) by the smallest of margins.  However, they believe there are still options where he can become a Buffalo without going to a JC (I am going to guess that he enrolls in an Arizona Junior College and I also bet they all have it picked out already). So, still it is an unclear situation.

§  Embree needs to have 3 members of the 28-recruit class to greyshirt-McCartney and Kough already slated-to be at the 25 member class limit.  Hence, the Peyton Williams deal.  However, if Jagne indeed does not qualify, then that problem will unfortunately be solved and may make it easier for Williams to not greyshirt, even if he is not quite 100%, which would leave one more slot for next year’s crop of prospects.

§  There is still nothing official on former Kansas QB transfer Jordan Webb, although it now seems that he needs summer classes to complete his degree at Kansas, which would enable him to be able to play immediately for another team with two years of eligibility left.  So, if he indeed does come to CU, it will not be until late July, and without the benefit of passing with the receivers and learning the playbook with everyone else during “voluntary” (i.e. no coaches) summer workouts.  It appears more and more, even though he supposed has chosen CU based on the prospect of playing time, that he is more the Brent Burnette insurance type.

§  Veteran players have reported from those early summer workouts that incoming frosh TE Vincent Hobbs appears bulked up and very strong in addition to being really fast!

§  Pre Snap Read claims that “(Connor) Wood is starting against Colorado State on Sept. 2. Whether he remains the starter depends on his own play and Hirschman’s right foot.”

§  There was one official “roster move” as an extra scholarship for next year opened up when Cordary Allen left the program.  The late, low-rated 2010 recruit was just not D-1 material-not fast enough to play RB, no hands to play TE and not strong enough to play DE-and could never make any headway on the depth chart.  I do not know if he was “encouraged” to leave or just finally gave up.  He is the 8^th of 24 (fully one-third Hawkins’ lame-duck 2010 class) that has left the program.

§  There was a brief report that Paul Richardson was way ahead of schedule in his ACL rehab and might possibly be available this year-but nothing has been substantiated so this is at the bottom of this section.

§  Other Program Notes

§  Sr. LB Doug Rippy and Jr. 2^nd-team All-Pac-12 LT David Bahktiari will accompany Jon Embree and be interviewed first at the Pac-12 Media Day on July 24.

§  The Golden Nugget has put out some preseason odds, and although the game has not yet been picked up for television, CU is listed as a 6.5 favorite over CSU to open the season.

§  The Buff bashing continues on the national front as…

1) Athlon predicted that the Buffs will begin 3-0, but that they will not be able to find a way to win even a single Pac-12 game!  I understand that there are some holes on paper, but really, seriously?!  Is it really realistic to believe that they will actually go 0-9 in the pac-12, not winning a single conference game, something the program has not done in forever   And this prediction with Utah, whom the Buffs, everyone seems to forget, beat in Salt Lake City last year, coming to Boulder, as well as four schools with new coaches on the schedule.  Is there truly no win to be had anywhere?!  That is a little overblown and I would love to put an over/under bet on wins with any of their writers with either a line of .5 for conference or 3.5 for the season.

2) Pre Snap Read ranked the Buffs #89, actually one of the higher ratings.  They said a dream season would be 7 wins and bowl game, while the nightmare would be the aforementioned winless Pac-12 slate.  Read it all at: http://www.presnapread.com/no-89-colorado/

3) Bill Connelly from SBNation.com wrote a pretty fair, objective piece on the Buffs and ended with: “I'll say the success-or-not line, then, is around five games. A bowl game would be optimal, but baby steps.” & “The road back to prominence gets longer and longer in Boulder, but a bowl bid is still a possibility with a hot start. And even some minor bowl, with a 6-7 final record, would represent a significant, positive forward.”  http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2012/6/7/3070052/2012-colorado-football-preview

§  Interesting (and depressing) stat from Connelly about last year: The Buffs had only 8 defenders total and only ONE defensive back who played in all 13 games last year (Greg Henderson I believe) as everyone else missed time due to injury or indiscretion.

§  Work is continuing on the new video boards at Folsom Field but nothing specific to report yet-the photos out there do not really show anything exciting.

Summer Grazing

It has been relatively quiet in Buff world of late but there are a few items of interest to report before I head out of town for awhile.

§  2013 Recruiting

§  It has been quiet for some time now and the Buffs are still standing at five verbal commitments next year’s recruiting class, but that is still ahead of last year’s pace.

§  The Buffs are targeting some big names, including some of the top-ranked linebackers in the country, but it does not appear that the most highly recruited prospects are really interested in CU.

§  QB Luke del Rio committed to Oklahoma St.

§  2012 Frosh

§  DB Yuri Wright has already landed in Boulder and many more of the new Buffs will be getting here this weekend and next week (QB Shane Dillon, RBs Davien Payne and Terrence Crowder, WRs Jeff Thomas and Peyton Williams, TEs Vincent Hobbs, Austin Ray and Sean Irwin, brother Jeromy Irvin, DT Tyler Henington, DB Jeffrey Hall).  Almost all of the rest of the 27 incoming recruits are scheduled to arrive by June 12 at the latest to participate in voluntary summer workouts with the returning players. DE John Stuart won’t get here until late June, and the only recruits who do not have an arrival date are DEs Kory Rasmussen and Kisima Jagne, the latter being the main academic question in this large group.

§  Dillon will begin throwing this week (after Feb. surgery) and expects to be full strength by the start of July.

§  Preseason Recognitions

§  C Gus Handler was one of fifty centers, including 4 others from the Pac-12, who were named to the preseason Rimington Award list given to the nation’s best center.

§  §  Phil Steele only put 5 Buffs on his top 4 All-Pac-12 teams, with only one on the 1^st team:  OT David Bakhtiari

Second team – defensive tackle Will Pericak

Third team – linebacker Jon Major; safety Ray Polk

Fourth team – punter Darragh O’Neill

*It’s a joke that LB Doug Rippy, even coming off an injury, and DE Chidera Uzo-Diribe get no love here!  Let’s hope they, and the rest of the team, are motivated to prove many wrong.

§  Other Program Notes

§  Steele also compiled some stats on returning letterman (i.e. experience) and no surprise that with 28 seniors on the roster last year, that the Buffs will be one of the least experienced teams in the country, 119^th of 124.  Also, remember that more of those are sophomores than seniors or juniors.  Interestingly, USC is 123^rd, but most of their players are 4 and 5-star recruits.

§  There is still nothing official on former Kansas QB transfer Jordan Webb, but all signs point to him enrolling at CU for 2012 and he should be here soon to get involved with summer passing groups.

§  No word yet on who might accelerate their graduation status next year, although it was announced that OG Gerald Kough will greyshirt along with DE Derek McCartney.

§  Work has begun on replacing the video boards at Folsom Field.  They will be a major upgrade, occupying the same space, but the HD screen will encompass all of that previous space will a full, clear image.  This is way overdue as it was embarrassing last year with a few “holes” in the image.  All of the old equipment is gone and the new boxes are being unpacked.  They should be up in the next week or so.

§  The Athletic Department received about $16 million this week to help offset costs of the Pac-12 transition.  While $10 million is in the form of a loan, to be paid back with Pac-12 TV bucks over the next few years, $6 million was to compensate for the value the rest of the university receives and will receive from the Pac-12 move.

§  Buffs in the NFL

§  I am reluctant to even “report” this but Kordell Stewart, after more than four years out of the NFL finally, officially retired after signing a one-day contract with the Steelers.