Recruiting is heating up and Connor Wood opens up a scholarship

 Here are a few more off-season tidbits that steadily keep rolling in:

§  Wood quits: The biggest news of late was when QB Connor Wood stunned coaches by announcing he is leaving the team.  Wood is close to graduating and after a disappointing career, will walk in his robe in May, and give up football, finishing up his degree this summer.  He is supposedly not even interested in trying to continue his football career at another school after graduating.  He departure is not wholly unexpected, nor will his talent loss sting too much; however, he leaves a void in numbers with only two QBs on the roster-starter Sefo Liufau and now back-up Jordan Gehrke-and not even a walk-on guy to help with reps.  MacIntyre will certainly add an arm somehow, whether it is moving a guy from another position (DBs Moten, Yates and Archuleta all played QB in high school), signing some random guy late, former Air Force QB Jaleel Awini, who was kicked off the Falcon’s team earlier this year for undisclosed reasons, is out there, or maybe they will just hold open walk-on tryouts to find someone else who can chuck the ball around.  It’s amazing that last year at this time the Buffs had six quarterbacks in spring practice with not enough reps to go around, but not a single one of those guys remains in the program.

§  Recruiting: Coaches have been out recruiting hard since the dead period ended, canvassing Colorado, California, Texas and Hawaii.  They have been targeting and offering a number of 2015 prospects along the way, in addition to trying to convince the final few members of the 2014 class to join the program, while also solidifying relationships with those already committed.  They have also been hosting recruits on weekends, although more guys who are already committed than new names and faces.  They will host prospects this weekend and next before signing day on Wednesday, Feb. 5.

§  You win some and you lose some. Previously, Texas DB Chance Waz chose to live in Lincoln and play frigid late season games flying all over Big Ten country, and then LB Zack Brown decided to stay close to his mommy and will go to Fresno St. or San Jose St., but those two de-commitments were not really of much concern.  However, RB Jomon Dotson was possibly the highest rated recruit in their class and he is now going to Washington, where it has been rumored that he would switch since Peterson came in, even though he recently had told Adam M. he was 99.9% coming to Boulder.

§  Including the three guys already on campus (JC DB Witherspoon and LS Smith, plus “pseudo-greyshirt” athlete Lee Walker) the Buffs are currently standing at 20 verbal commitments for the 2014 class (although one is  going on a mission first). Expect them to bring in one or two more guys, possibly as many as four, but I doubt that many.  It sounds like the remaining committed guys are all pretty solid with the Buffs. Now it’s MacIntyre’s turn to make a splash with a big name, last minute flip.

§  On the bright side, four-star WR recruit Shay Fields visited CU last weekend and took in the CU men’s basketball team’s romp over USC, from whom Fields promptly de-committed early in the week.  He did not feel much love from Sark and his new staff, who are looking at some even bigger five star names.  Fields’ new top three schools, in no particular order are CU, Cal and Boise St., plus he might visit TCU.  He was told by Coach Walters not only that he could play right away, but that he could fill the void left by P-Rich and possibly be a freshman All-American.  We can all dream big.

§  The Buffs also reeled in a preferred walk-on in Chatfield FB Shawn Berry, who turned down some FCS offers to come to Boulder.  Berry has worked out with Matt McChesney, who as usual raves about him as he does about all the guys he works with, though we have yet to see any actual production from one of them.

§  As they close out the class of 2014, the Buffs have received their first verbal commitment from a 2015 prospect in three-star LB NJ Falo from Sacramento, whose brother Nate played for MacIntyre at San Jose St.

§  Recruits were in town this weekend as well as D-line coach Jim Jeffcoat had to leave his daughter’s basketball game early Friday (plays for Monarch with my niece).  I had been a little worried at how quiet he had been all season during games and how soft spoken he was in conversation.  However, this week he couldn’t take the poor officiating at this level and the borderline racist treatment by refs of his daughter and when he bellowed out about calling things both ways, the entire gym heard him loud and clear, so we know that he can get on the d-lineman if need be.

§  Spring ball: Spring practices will start March 7 with seven practices before spring break and seven after, with the Spring Football game at noon on Saturday, April 12, televised by Pac12 network. 

§  Buffs in the NFL: No Buffs will be playing in the Super bowl this year.

§  Paul Richardson has officially been invited to the combine, which is certainly not the case for all of the other 97 players who declared early.  So, even though there are a lot of WRs in the draft, P-Rich has the chance to show why he is as good as or better than most of them.

Chidera had a decent game in whatever senior-type bowl I guess and Parker Orms played in one that wasn’t even publicized.  I didn’t see any of them nor read anything either.  Good luck guys!