Recruiting: This weekend will be the biggest weekend of the cycle with more than a dozen recruits scheduled to visit today and maybe tomorrow. On the slate are seven verbal commitments (QB Sefo Liufau, WRs Devin Ross and Elijah Dunston, LB George Frazier, OL Colin Sutton, Jonathon Huckins and Sam Kronshrage), one who is committed elsewhere, and at least four or five uncommitted prospects. A little more on those below, although not all of them are listed on every site that tracks these things, and therefore all of them may not actually make the trip.
You
would think that most of these guys would have a no-brainer choice when you look at
their other options, but CU as fallen a long way in regards to their national
reputation.
James
Ooten is a two-star athlete (played WR and DB) who is committed to New Mexico
State, but I guess does not show up in the Scout database yet.
WR
Delvon Hardaway (Los Angeles, CA) is rated as high as 3 stars by ESPN, is
currently committed to San Jose State, but could probably be flipped.
CB
Chidobe Awuzzie (San Jose, CA) will decide after this weekend between three
schools: CU, San Jose State and Washington State, which has much less depth at
CB and may be more attractive for immediate playing time, but is located in
Pullman.
S
Tedric Thompson (Valencia, CA) will also choose from three schools after his visit
and you would think the Buffs would be frontrunners over Fresno State and
Minnesota.
RB
Michael Adkins (La Mesa, CA) is a two-star prospect who has also played
safety. He is definitely not an academic
risk as he holds offers from Yale and Harvard, as well as Arizona.
LB
Lawrence Montegut (La Marque, TX) also has offers from Texas Tech and a lot of
smaller schools.
S
Josh Jones (Michigan) has de-committed from Illinois and may also visit this weekend or maybe not. This guy has changed his itinerary more times
than any site can keep up with so who knows where he will visit until he is
there. He was scheduled to visit Michigan St. this weekend but cancelled that,
and has said his final three are now NC State, Pitt and Colorado. He visited Pitt last weekend and will maybe
visit the last two these two weeks, or not. New receivers coach Troy Walters
had recruited him at NC State.
LB
Kiel Robinson (San Marcos, CA) is a two-star who is committed to csu and had
been recruited by MacIntyre’s staff at SJSU was scheduled to visit but
cancelled his shot at playing in a real conference.
Stuart
has full bios on all these prospects: http://www.cuatthegame.com/2013/stoppin-by-for-a-visit-2/
I
still do not understand how MacIntyre expects to be able to sign 17, meaning
four more on top of the 13 verbals, plus four greyshirts that are already here
and cannot be counted back to last year’s cycle, and he invited two lame duck
senior receivers back for more free school and board?! The Buff could really use one of the safeties
and anyone with some speed, but there is no one on this list that is
Other Program Notes: Jack Follman of
PacificTakes.com did a piece analyzing the rosters of Pac-12 teams and where
their players call home. Here is where the Buffs come from: California 32%, Colorado 25%, Texas 12%, Hawaii, DC &
Arizona 3% each, Louisiana & New Jersey 2% each. Not surprisingly, the
Buffs pull more players out of the state of Colorado than any other school. They
also pull a low percentage of players from California, but subsidize with
players from Texas which is actually closer to Texas than it is California.
TE
Nick Kasa has been invited to play in the Senior Bowl on January 26 in Mobile,
Alabama. This is his chance to show NFL
scouts what he can do as a pass catcher and blocker. He has the size and raw skills to develop
into a decent TE, but needs to get a lot better. A good showing here and the combine could get
him drafted, a bad one could leave him scrambling to try and sign on as a free
agent.
CU
Football’s APR score should stay high with all eight seniors graduating or on
track to: four December graduations (Major, Polk, Rippy, Richter), to go along
with two from last May (Dannewitz and Ebner) and two expected for this May
(Kasa and Pericak-both in four years).
Former Buffs who retired due to injury, Max Tuoti-Mariner and Vince
Ewing, also graduated.
Not
that it is a win now, but the schedule gets a little bit easier without Chip
Kelly at Oregon, whose departure indicates for most that the program is about
to receive some pretty harsh sanctions.
It appears that Oregon will fake the process of interviewing with at
least one minority candidate before promoting Mark Helfrich, former CU OC under
hawkins. Most believe this is an obvious
choice and a great match. Reed Marks is
about the only one who doesn’t coo at the expected move, tweeting out last night:
“I can’t be the only one that would applaud if Oregon hired Helfrich would
I? On top of being placed on probation,
he’s a disaster.” When I thanked him for
finally saying that, he replied, “I know him pretty well. He would need to improve 100% just to suck.” It will be interesting to see how this plays
out and if they lose any of their highly ranked recruiting class based on this
news and the now even more highly anticipated report on Willie Lyles.
In
addition to raving about the Pistol offense and coaches
MacInytre and OC Brian Lindgren for helping him become the nation’s most
accurate passer, San Jose State QB David Fales also told the Denver Post’s
John Henderson that MacIntyre’s “Four F’s” (can you name them yet?) set the
tone for the team in going 11-2 and this season.
No big surprise that Athlon’s
early Pac-12 predictions have CU at the bottom of the South Division; here’s
what they said: “Key Returnees: QB Jordan Webb, RB Christian Powell, WR Paul Richardson, WR Nelson Spruce,
WR Tyler McCulloch, LG Alex Lewis, C Daniel Munyer, RG Jack Harris, DE Chidera
Uzo-Diribe, NT Josh Tupou, LB Derrick Webb, CB Yuri Wright, CB Kenneth Crawley,
CB Greg Henderson, SS Terrel Smith, SS Marques Mosley, S Parker Orms; Key Departures: TE Nick Kasa, LT David Bakhtiari, DE
Will Pericak, LB Doug Rippy, LB Jon Major, S Ray Polk.
After a failed two-year stint under Jon Embree, the Buffaloes hit a home
run with the hire of former San Jose State coach Mike MacIntyre. Although
Colorado should be more competitive in 2013, escaping the cellar of the Pac-12
South is unlikely. The offense was one of the worst in college football last
season and finding stability and production from the quarterback position will
be MacIntyre and coordinator Brian Lindgren’s No. 1 priority in spring
practice. Helping the passing attack in 2013 will be the return of receiver
Paul Richardson, who missed all of 2012 with a knee injury. The defense was the
worst in the Pac-12 last season and must replace a handful of key players,
including end Will Pericak and linebacker Jon Major. Improvement will be
noticeable for Colorado in 2013, but the Buffaloes are at least one more year
away from contending for a bowl game.”
Go
Buffs!
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