National Signing Day 21

[FUBeAR]

Well all that may be true, but Coastal started up a program and blew past us into the FBS top 10 with SC boys.

Also... the phrase, “It’s not college. It’s Coastal!” didn’t arise from nowhere.

Ask me about the time I was engaged to speak to ALL of the ‘Student’ Athletes at Coastal on a weekday early evening during Spring Term at a “mandatory” session for them. Just as it was mandatory the evening before @ Georgia Tech when I spoke to over 200 Student Athletes.

Aw...you don’t have to ask, I’ll tell you....

Those 3 Women’s Soccer Players were a great audience!

The embarrassed Assoc AD said...”Well, the Football Players just are never around here after Fall Term & I guess the rest of the Teams had ‘other things’ to do.”

Hmmm...now that I think about it...maybe some of the GT kids had ‘waved ‘em off.’

Anyhooooo....WAY Different sets of standards between the University of Conway & good ol’ FU.

[The Jackal]

Well all that may be true, but Coastal started up a program and blew past us into the FBS top 10 with SC boys.

You might be surprised to know that Coastal's recruiting class is mostly guys not from South Carolina.

No, that doesn’t surprise me. If you want to believe that FU and Coastal have recruited SC with similar intensity for the last 15 years, go ahead and believe that.

I live in a border town. We play usually 2 GA opponents per year. Since I started paying attention in 2007 we’ve lost 2 games to GA teams and one of those was Valdosta. And we aren’t even that good (never made it past lower state). SC is pretty decent at football.

Some colleges try to accommodate kids who didn’t have great educational support systems, and some don’t believe in that. Not saying it’s right or wrong.

I’m OK with trying out the Texas connection. We need to get creative like that.

I went back and looked. Hendrix brought in 3 South Carolina players in 2018, 4 in 2019, and 1 in 2020.

So, that is twice as frequently as the one per season average requested earlier in the thread.

Furman has every incentive to locate qualified and capable players from South Carolina. Given that Wofford took 1 and Furman took 0, that would lend support to the notion that there may not have been a large pool of qualified and capable players in this year's class out of the Palmetto State.

[AstroDin]

Jackal hit the nail on the head… If you look at the 247 Sports 2022 prospect list for Furman, 6 players out of 14 are from South Carolina. The six listed prospects appear to be very good payers and are already getting a lot of attention. Berger at Myrtle Beach has been on Furman's radar for a while and he's now blowing up. Ryan McCants is the other QB listed - he's just starting to get attention but we know he's visited, Furman. This doesn't mean that any of these players will sign with Furman in the 22 class but Furman's early targets are heavy on SC boys.

[AstroDin]

here is the reality… how does Furman build a team that will not just win the SoCon but win some damn playoff games and competes for a legit national championship. It's been a good while since a SoCon team made it past round one or round two. CCH has said it over and over the last several years. We have to get bigger, stronger, and faster. I can't remember a time when a FU head coach described the team as twitchy and gritty. And maybe a more important thing to note. I heard Clay on a local ESPN radio show (Lowcountry) say that they have players that want to play football. That is probably the most overlooked factor that we as fans don't know.

Right now the only known offer for 2022 is for Coltin Deery a guard/center from Malvern, PA. Look at who has offered Deery. The 21 class for Furman has several payers with as impressive and in a few cases, more G5 offers. This is an example of where the coaches are going to look for players that raise the bar for the potential of the program. If Deery was playing ball in SC I bet he would be offered much like Evan Jumper was offered by Furman.

[Furmanoid]

Well all that may be true, but Coastal started up a program and blew past us into the FBS top 10 with SC boys.

Also... the phrase, “It’s not college. It’s Coastal!” didn’t arise from nowhere.

Ask me about the time I was engaged to speak to ALL of the ‘Student’ Athletes at Coastal on a weekday early evening during Spring Term at a “mandatory” session for them. Just as it was mandatory the evening before @ Georgia Tech when I spoke to over 200 Student Athletes.

Aw...you don’t have to ask, I’ll tell you....

Those 3 Women’s Soccer Players were a great audience!

The embarrassed Assoc AD said...”Well, the Football Players just are never around here after Fall Term & I guess the rest of the Teams had ‘other things’ to do.”

Hmmm...now that I think about it...maybe some of the GT kids had ‘waved ‘em off.’

Anyhooooo....WAY Different sets of standards between the University of Conway & good ol’ FU.

Trust FUBeAR to tell it like it is. It’s not about where you find talent so much as it’s where you find the kind of kid you want. SC just produces more kids who like going places near beaches covered with fun loving coeds and lacking over-serious administrators. It’s who we are as a people.

Anyway as I said the Texas private school connection seems like a good idea to me so let’s do it. I was just bowing up against the idea that SC doesn’t produce talent which is just silly.

Oh and I was talking to our new coach a couple weeks ago and got an interesting tidbit. Wofford was pestering him about one of our guys who is barely going to graduate. They said they had adjusted their standards . Coach said, “You ain’t adjusted em that much.” Anyway WC is doing things a little different. Independence (Last Chance U) came by and I think he pushed the kid in that direction.

[Affirm]

I love all the replies since 5:40 pm yesterday on this thread.
Do not totally understand what is being said immediately above by Furmanoid, in final paragraph. One (not the only) part I do not understand is who is Independence/Last Chance U.

[Furmanoid]

I love all the replies since 5:40 pm yesterday on this thread.
Do not totally understand what is being said immediately above by Furmanoid, in final paragraph. One (not the only) part I do not understand is who is Independence/Last Chance U.

There was a series on Netflix called Last Chance U about kids playing at community colleges and trying to get to DI. I think you would really enjoy it. The first couple of seasons were at East Mississippi CC of Chad Kelly game. Then they moved to Independence CC in Kansas which became an epic dumpster fire. If you watch half an episode you’ll find it interesting that WC is now showing interest in that type kid. Don’t think they took a lot of AP courses. In our case here at NAHS they were interested in a kid who we aren’t sure will even get a diploma.

[AstroDin]

Now that the dust has settled on recruiting, I spent a little time looking at who Wofford and The Citadel signed.
This is in no way an evaluation of both programs recruiting just an attempt to find some patterns and differences.
As well as some of these differences in no way mean wins on the field.

I follow the Hero Sports model that B-Mac is using. Throw out the star rankings and look at offers.
Break those offers down into FBS and FCS buckets. I then add on in Furman's case did we beat out SoCon schools, as well as any schools in higher-rated FCS conferences; MVFC, CAA, Big Sky. Also are there any schools that we seem to always be recruiting against for players?

It's not close we recruit against Air Force a lot, far more than any SoCon, FCS schools.

If you look at the last two classes combined, Furman always seems to be going up against an Ivy School.
I still get a concern every time I see a Princeton offer on the list of a Furman recruit. Over the years we have lost many recruits to Princeton.

Furman went head to head against all three academies on many players.

When you look at the most offered Furman recruits Furman went head to head with a lot of Sun Belt and Conference USA schools.

Competing against the SoCon; we battled UTC on a lot of players. This IMO is significant. When Chatty was under Huesman we seemed to lose every head to head battle.

By my count, Furman's last two classes have close to double the total offers of the other top SoCon schools. I'll admit this doesn't mean a thing till we see what it translates to on the field.

[Furmanoid]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

[The Jackal]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

[FUBeAR]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

Speaking of kumquats - comparing Furman and its Football ‘Ecosystem’ (best descriptor I can think of to describe what I’m going to try to convey) to the 2 Different Football Ecosystems that exist at the Ivies & the Academies is really comparing Apples to Kumquats to Bicycle Tires. Furman Football’s ecosystem is much more like that of the other 100 or so FCS schools than it is the Ivies or the Academies. It’s just very complex and really hard to draw many solid inferences from kids being (allegedly) recruited/offered by the Academies & the Ivies. It’s a positive, for sure - but not really a great predictor, as a stand-alone data point, of either Athletics or Academic success at Furman.

Not going into all the details, but neither have Athletics Scholarships, yet are free for most kids (Ivies) and free for all kids (not only free...they get paid)(Academies). Academies have their Preps Schools (feeder systems) and no roster limits...they can have 250+ kids in the program at a time & bring in 100 each recruiting class. Also, probably much harder academically to get into FU than it is the Academies for a Football Athlete. And also maybe for some QB’s/CB’s/DE’s at the Ivies, with their very interesting league-wide Athlete Admissions policies/guidelines.

Anyway - because of the differences & anomalies, FUBeAR now just says “Academy offers. OK, nice. Ivy offers. Good deal. Must be a good, smart enough kid. Hope he can play. Oh, OK...he also has 12 FCS and 3 G5 offers. That’s a seriously solid ‘get.’”

[Furmanoid]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

There’s a pretty big difference between being able to swing it at Furman and being able to get into Harvard. There’s about a 40 point difference in acceptance rates. So those Ivy league schools are forced to pull from a very small pool of guys. If someone is only recruited by them it’s just possible that he’s just a passable player who’s really smart. It seems like we are going after that same guy when we could get a better athlete who only made 11-1200 or so on his SAT. We don’t compete with those schools for students, so why do we compete with them for football players?

As long as we win I don’t care. But if things don’t get going, I just don’t want to hear “it’s our academic standards” because it just seems like we go way overboard.

[The Jackal]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

There’s a pretty big difference between being able to swing it at Furman and being able to get into Harvard. There’s about a 40 point difference in acceptance rates. So those Ivy league schools are forced to pull from a very small pool of guys. If someone is only recruited by them it’s just possible that he’s just a passable player who’s really smart. It seems like we are going after that same guy when we could get a better athlete who only made 11-1200 or so on his SAT. We don’t compete with those schools for students, so why do we compete with them for football players?

As long as we win I don’t care. But if things don’t get going, I just don’t want to hear “it’s our academic standards” because it just seems like we go way overboard.

Our recruiting is objectively better than it was 5 years ago. The "academic standards" argument really isn't persuasive to me anymore. This coaching staff manages it, expands the footprint, and lands guys with a lot of offers from major programs.

[gofurman]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

Speaking of kumquats - comparing Furman and its Football ‘Ecosystem’ (best descriptor I can think of to describe what I’m going to try to convey) to the 2 Different Football Ecosystems that exist at the Ivies & the Academies is really comparing Apples to Kumquats to Bicycle Tires. Furman Football’s ecosystem is much more like that of the other 100 or so FCS schools than it is the Ivies or the Academies. It’s just very complex and really hard to draw many solid inferences from kids being (allegedly) recruited/offered by the Academies & the Ivies. It’s a positive, for sure - but not really a great predictor, as a stand-alone data point, of either Athletics or Academic success at Furman.

Not going into all the details, but neither have Athletics Scholarships, yet are free for most kids (Ivies) and free for all kids (not only free...they get paid)(Academies). Academies have their Preps Schools (feeder systems) and no roster limits...they can have 250+ kids in the program at a time & bring in 100 each recruiting class. Also, probably much harder academically to get into FU than it is the Academies for a Football Athlete. And also maybe for some QB’s/CB’s/DE’s at the Ivies, with their very interesting league-wide Athlete Admissions policies/guidelines.

Anyway - because of the differences & anomalies, FUBeAR now just says “Academy offers. OK, nice. Ivy offers. Good deal. Must be a good, smart enough kid. Hope he can play. Oh, OK...he also has 12 FCS and 3 G5 offers. That’s a seriously solid ‘get.’”

Listing the Academies (esp AFA since Clay has connections there) doesn't resonate much with me anymore. I used to think "wow, he would play at AF or Army!" but then learned via FUBeAR they offer a TON of kids - hundreds, literally so there will always be a lot of kids who were "offered" to play at the academies but were never going to play. And I know a kid who went through the feeder system, it's just a whole different set up - I am looking more for G5 offers as a way to determine great talent.

[The Jackal]

Good work AstroDin as usual. You should have your own newsletter or something.

Did we always concentrate so hard on Ivy and academy type kids? I find it interesting since probably only a small fraction of our students could get into those schools. Not clear why we want our football players to be so much smarter than the rest of the student body.

I can see how we can win against the academies since very few guys REALLY want to go to military school. But the Ivies offer a golden ticket to the ruling class which is hard to beat. All I can figure is that some of these guys are well off enough that they would be expected to pay something at the Ivies, and free FU looks better than 1/2 or full price Ivy.

Sure would be great if they changed overtime format or something to a differential equation contest.

I mean, that sounds like a highly generalized statement.

I've personally known folks go to Ivy League or Academies who took the first train out of there. It isn't for everyone.

Many of those programs tend to be made up of solid football players that can swing it academically. Turns out those are the kids we are looking for. I'd much rather see us competing with Harvard, Yale, and Air Force than Kumquat State for recruits.

Speaking of kumquats - comparing Furman and its Football ‘Ecosystem’ (best descriptor I can think of to describe what I’m going to try to convey) to the 2 Different Football Ecosystems that exist at the Ivies & the Academies is really comparing Apples to Kumquats to Bicycle Tires. Furman Football’s ecosystem is much more like that of the other 100 or so FCS schools than it is the Ivies or the Academies. It’s just very complex and really hard to draw many solid inferences from kids being (allegedly) recruited/offered by the Academies & the Ivies. It’s a positive, for sure - but not really a great predictor, as a stand-alone data point, of either Athletics or Academic success at Furman.

Not going into all the details, but neither have Athletics Scholarships, yet are free for most kids (Ivies) and free for all kids (not only free...they get paid)(Academies). Academies have their Preps Schools (feeder systems) and no roster limits...they can have 250+ kids in the program at a time & bring in 100 each recruiting class. Also, probably much harder academically to get into FU than it is the Academies for a Football Athlete. And also maybe for some QB’s/CB’s/DE’s at the Ivies, with their very interesting league-wide Athlete Admissions policies/guidelines.

Anyway - because of the differences & anomalies, FUBeAR now just says “Academy offers. OK, nice. Ivy offers. Good deal. Must be a good, smart enough kid. Hope he can play. Oh, OK...he also has 12 FCS and 3 G5 offers. That’s a seriously solid ‘get.’”

Listing the Academies (esp AFA since Clay has connections there) doesn't resonate much with me anymore. I used to think "wow, he would play at AF or Army!" but then learned via FUBeAR they offer a TON of kids - hundreds, literally so there will always be a lot of kids who were "offered" to play at the academies but were never going to play. And I know a kid who went through the feeder system, it's just a whole different set up - I am looking more for G5 offers as a way to determine great talent.

I think the answer is somewhere in between. This article is three years old, but does a pretty good job of examining the question https://navy.rivals.com/news/understand ... recruiting

Again, I think we have to be careful of generalizations. For instance, I would think there is a significant difference if a kid is an academy's top recruit or a late-season offer as roster filler. That makes a difference.

We have no idea how an academy rates certain players on their recruiting board. They aren't just throwing a net in the water. They target and recruit kids just like every school does.

Even if true, though, an academy commit can typically hack it academically and will frequently demonstrate the mental makeup we are interested in. Beyond that, pop in the tape and see if the kid can play. That's where our coaches have to do their diligence.