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