Maybe I've just gotten old, but the reaction to the commitment of Journey Brown has been absurd. Was he lightly recruited by power 5 schools? Yes. Was he relatively unknown to the message board masses and recruiting servies? Yep. Does that mean he isn't good? Of course not.
Now, to be honest, It drives me insane when people act like recruiting stars, taken as a whole, dont matter. Every time people pretend its irrelevant how many high-star players we land, because "2 star player X was awesome!!", I lose it. Of course it matters, and all the statistics prove that.
It's ironic then that the only thing that drives me more insane is people who act like a lower rated recruit is a waste of a scholarship. Not every great player is a high-star recruit. You cant build a program on low star players, but there certainly isn't damn thing wrong with supplementing one with them.
Let's look at this year's NFL pro bowlers. We have players from Utah State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Central Missouri, Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, East Carolina, Eastern Michigan, Florida International, Fresno State, Harvard, Miami (Ohio), Northern Iowa and West Alabama.
And yes, that's anecdotal evidence. But Brown is an anecdotal recruit. We're hardly building a class of nothing but sleepers. We're loading up with top talent, but also allowing for the staff to find a guy flying under the radar. What the heck is wrong with that? If you think the future of the program hinges on Journey Brown vs. Lovett, you need to take a few plays off.
This staff just took us from mediocre to the Rose Bowl in a couple years. Trust them. They didn't make this decision out of desperation, obviously. They did it because they really like what they saw. And given that every year, dozens of NFL pro bowl players come from schools we'd be ashamed to compete with, I'm fine with occasionally taking a shot at landing one of them when the people we pay millions to annually think they see something.
Finally, to those complaining about the recruiting services failing to properly evaluate him because of his not attending camps or conducting interviews....can you blame them? There are too many people playing football in the country to provide incredible evaluation on all of them. If you play at a school in a bad conference in a non-traditional football area and do nothing to draw attention to yourself, why would anyone notice you? It doesn't mean recruiting services are rewarding those who attend camps and interview, it just means they can't evaluate what they barely get a chance to see.
Now, to be honest, It drives me insane when people act like recruiting stars, taken as a whole, dont matter. Every time people pretend its irrelevant how many high-star players we land, because "2 star player X was awesome!!", I lose it. Of course it matters, and all the statistics prove that.
It's ironic then that the only thing that drives me more insane is people who act like a lower rated recruit is a waste of a scholarship. Not every great player is a high-star recruit. You cant build a program on low star players, but there certainly isn't damn thing wrong with supplementing one with them.
Let's look at this year's NFL pro bowlers. We have players from Utah State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Central Missouri, Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, East Carolina, Eastern Michigan, Florida International, Fresno State, Harvard, Miami (Ohio), Northern Iowa and West Alabama.
And yes, that's anecdotal evidence. But Brown is an anecdotal recruit. We're hardly building a class of nothing but sleepers. We're loading up with top talent, but also allowing for the staff to find a guy flying under the radar. What the heck is wrong with that? If you think the future of the program hinges on Journey Brown vs. Lovett, you need to take a few plays off.
This staff just took us from mediocre to the Rose Bowl in a couple years. Trust them. They didn't make this decision out of desperation, obviously. They did it because they really like what they saw. And given that every year, dozens of NFL pro bowl players come from schools we'd be ashamed to compete with, I'm fine with occasionally taking a shot at landing one of them when the people we pay millions to annually think they see something.
Finally, to those complaining about the recruiting services failing to properly evaluate him because of his not attending camps or conducting interviews....can you blame them? There are too many people playing football in the country to provide incredible evaluation on all of them. If you play at a school in a bad conference in a non-traditional football area and do nothing to draw attention to yourself, why would anyone notice you? It doesn't mean recruiting services are rewarding those who attend camps and interview, it just means they can't evaluate what they barely get a chance to see.
