Beaver Gone. To Conference USA. Comment Count

Brian

Right, so that is Shavodrick Beaver's myspace and he's been flat-out lying to the mods at Rivals and Scout:

Tulsa received a quarterback commitment Friday afternoon when Shavodrick Beaver announced he'd sign at the University of Tulsa.
Beaver, a 6-foot-3, 185-pounder, is from Wichita Falls (Texas) Rider High School,and has been ranked the eighth-best quarterback in the country by rivals.com.
Beaver had given a commitment to the University of Michigan, but switched to TU after a home visit by TU coach Todd Graham.

This seems like completely farfetched crap, but Rivals has an article with quotes($) up, too. WTF? This one really bothers me because for months Beaver's been called up and has said things like "I'm ten thousand percent committed!" Man up and admit you're wavering.

Michigan now needs to scramble for a second quarterback in the class. They've been recruiting FL QB Denard Robinson and may look to get involved with WVU/Tennessee decommit Tajh Boyd; expect Eugene Smith to get a phone call, too.

UPDATE:

Comments

El Jeffe

December 20th, 2008 at 12:38 PM ^

I realize that it is fun to speculate about the inner workings of the minds of 18 year-olds who are put in positions in terms of making life-altering choices that most of us don't make until we're at least, like 25 or so.

But seriously, can we all collectively agree that verbal commitments are little more than strong indicators of the likely destination of these kids, rather than promises written in blood?

To take a sociological position on things, what has not changed in the past many years is the official way in which recruiting leads to commitments, namely, the LOI. What has changed is the entire culture surrounding those commitments. Unless and until there is an incentive for kids to keep their verbal commitments, there will always be some proportion that don't. For example, it's likely that there are fewer decommits in basketball, where there is an early signing period.

Anyway, the point is that we should take this opportunity to notice that the furor surrounding a decommit says a lot more about us, the observers, than it does about them, the kids. Kids haven't changed nearly as much as our breathless and near-pathological attention to their decisions has.

Not that it matters what the right answer is, but my guess is that these kids, unless they are emotionally tied to a school (which I doubt Beaver ever was), make much more coldly rational decisions about the probability of having significant playing time. If I were Beaver, and saw sophomore starting B10 quarterback Threet and incoming wunderkind Tate Forcier in front of me, I'd be really leery of getting into that mix. By contrast, I'm willing to bet that the depth chart at Tulsa is pretty thin at QB, especially dual-threat QB.

So let's all remember that prior to the interwebs in general and this excellent blog in particular, a lot of this stuff probably went on--we just never heard about it, and only saw the outcomes in early Feb. on signing day. So let's all just relax, wait for that day, and trust that RR knows how to field and coach a winning football team. This ain't his first rodeo, after all.

chitownblue (not verified)

December 20th, 2008 at 1:28 PM ^

No, actually, even with your over-wraught analysis, the lottery ticket analogy works. As you note, lottery tickets are fungible items - one is just as inherently valuable to the other (prior to the drawing). Your complaint is that these are humans - and not neccesarily equivalent value. Normally, you'd be right.

HOWEVA, if we're going to accept Brian's argument that swapping Newsome for Forcier was a wash, we have to believe that Beaver and Forcier are pretty equivalently rated. Newsome was the 4th ranked dual threat QB, Forcier the 6th, and Beaver the 8th. The three of them have the same overall rating (5.9). If we were pining about the loss of Feagin, your argument would stand - Feagin isn't a realistic candidate to beat out Forcier or Threet. Beaver was.

JaySoul

December 20th, 2008 at 2:32 PM ^

I like Tate alot, reminds me of Chase Daniels but with a little bit more in the motor. Hes not blazing, but hes not Threet like slow. The problem is when people say him and Newsome are a wash...is absurd! Tate is a much more polished passer but..and its really BIG BUT "New New" was and is the better pure athlete. The kid was built like a running back! Knowing the San Diego area, Tate doest carry any sprint titles. And he doesnt have elite 110M hurdle speed like Newsome either. Yes we have the better passer, but we didnt get the better athlete point blank.

IMO if Threet or Sheridan are the FULLTIME starting QB next year we might as well mail it in, and start looking for a new coach. In this offense nobody respected the QB as a run threat, which if they did it could open alot while holding that DE from blowing up the play. IDK why Feagin gets so dismissed, yea he cant pass but NEITHER CAN THREET or SHERIDAN! (unless its to the other team) If you remember back 4 years ago nobody wanted that wiry redshirt freshman QB for WVU, then they ran wild on UGA in the SugarBowl with a QB "who couldnt pass"..and the legend of Pat White was born! Think about it..Threet and Sheridan should be guaranteed one position next year, and thats holding the clip board next to RR.

JaySoul

December 20th, 2008 at 5:01 PM ^

And your reasoning for being so confident in Threet or Sheridan is..wait probably "because they have a season under there belt"? Stevie Brown has a couple seasons under his belt and hes still a blown coverage/ or miss tackle waiting to happen. But thanks for the compliment, shows your intelligence.

El Jeffe

December 20th, 2008 at 4:17 PM ^

over-wrought (compared to what standard? Yours?), but rather narrow and self-consciously pedantic. I was merely objecting to the idea, which seemed to me to be intrinsic to the recruits-as-lottery-tickets analogy, that the eventual value of a recruit is based upon a purely random process. It is certainly true that there is uncertainty and therefore risk associated with any recruit, and therefore it makes sense to have options. Witness the clusterfuck that ensued after Forcier's (the elder) and Mallett's transfers. But uncertainty is not the same as pure randomness, though randomness is certainly a component of uncertainty (see Bass, Antonio).

My defense of Magnus on that other thread was not that it was irrelevant that Beaver decommitted--I don't believe that and to the extent that Magnus was arguing that I disagree. But, to the extent that he was arguing that we lost our likely 3rd string QB for next year, for reasons which he and I noted--shoulder injury being paramount--I think he was on more solid footing and didn't deserve the reaction he got.

roded

December 20th, 2008 at 1:22 PM ^

I could bash the 18 year old, and his mom, for de-committing, but I'll refrain. One word for the Beav though, she named you Shavodrick Beaver. How rationale can she be? Ok, that was out of line, but it was honestly my first thought when I found out at about 5 AM after a 18 hour road trip back to Michigan.

My point...aren't we in down period in recruiting where coaches cannot contact recruits. Bowl games started this morning. TomVH? If I'm correct, the timing of this announcement really leaves us in a bad spot. Did we have enough time to contact Boyd, Smith, Robinson and/or unknown guy to say the door is open.

Side note: I'm not totally against bashing these kids when they pull moves like this. They are becoming their own self-absorbed hype machines with the press conferences and politicking with schools and the media. If you play the game, you are no longer immune in my opinion. And if you decide to sh*t on Michigan on the way out or when announcing a change of heart...no holds barred. So if you hope Beaver becomes academically ineligible or doesn't receive his degree at Tulsa OR his genius OC gets a job at a real school, Tulsa switches to a wishbone, and said OC doesn't take Beave with him OR anything else along that line, I'm OK with it. Hell, we end up hating opposing players anyway, why not start with players that intentionally attempt to hurt our program on the way out.

roded

December 20th, 2008 at 1:57 PM ^

Hate may be too strong word, but I certainly don't want to see opposing players do well against us. SO I don't have a problem wanting to see a player have a bad career. But I'm also a heartless SOB, so there you have it.

McFate

December 21st, 2008 at 8:50 AM ^

"One word for the Beav though, she named you Shavodrick Beaver. How rationale [sic] can she be?"

Once you're stuck with the last name "Beaver" (which was more likely inherited than a choice by the parent), any silliness in the first name is lost in the noise.

hackattack13

December 20th, 2008 at 1:45 PM ^

im just wondering how this whole situation would have played out with an early signing period. clearly he would have signed but i wonder if he would have transferred out of here or not. i believe that now a days kid are pressured into committing to early. they get caught up in the excitement that is the recruiting process and some of the stuff that coaches say and the kids do not fully weigh out the options that are best for them. although an early signing period sounds good, i ultimately believe that it will result in a dramatic increase in the number of transfers

MC Hammer

December 20th, 2008 at 2:44 PM ^

But I'm pretty high on Threet.

The man was banged up all year and still went out there because half of him was better than a full Sheridan. That took balls.

He didn't panic when we were down 21-0 to Notre Dame before he had been on the field 3 minutes.

Before his elbow injury, his TD/INT ratio was shockingly good

I know he has poor mechanics and is slow but I think he will be more accurate next year simply because he is healthy and knows the system. I don't really know how good Forcier is other than his highlight films, but if he's good enough to beat Threet out then we'll be ok at QB.

As for Beaver, it's fine to decommit. Happens all the time. But what isn't fine is the way he went about it. I don't want to say we're better off not having him, because frankly we're not. However, he showed a lot of character (the bad kind) with the way he went about his recruiting process.

Elno Lewis

December 20th, 2008 at 5:28 PM ^

Beaver was never gonna make or break the program--and how often does any school take two highly rated qb's in one season? Unfortunate, but oh well.

Hope all works out well for the Beav.

Route66, btw, don't fret my bro. Been there, done that.

Elno Lewis

December 21st, 2008 at 8:40 AM ^

Dan Dierdorf, on MNF once made a statement about UM qb's that drove off Rick Mirer--and the program didn't collapse. Bo wasn't happy, but the program moved on successfully.

Ed Orgeron missed out on a QB once, and ended up with Jevan Snead--of course he got fired before he could enjoy this kid, but Miss State survived.
And we ain't exactly Miss State.

As competitive as college football is getting, and with all the tv parity, this junk is bound to happen. Anybody can get on tv now, and even qb's from the "lesser" schools are getting NFL shots.

Didn't RR coach at Tulsa once?

Besides, didn't Beaver just blow out his shoulder? Those can be nagging injuries. Do we really need another Antonio Bass?

GeoTracker

December 21st, 2008 at 1:45 PM ^

I think Rich Rod started coaching at Tulane. Beaver's shoulder was the non-throwing arm. I agree though, we will be just fine. Threet is going to learn more in the off-season and Forcier will provide quality minutes. And maybe Coner has been holding back and will unleash hell this season... ok... maybe not...

AceCubbie

December 21st, 2008 at 2:48 PM ^

It's like it's the cool new thing for recruits to do. Commit to Michigan and then de-commit. I wouldn't be surprised if we pick up 100 new commitments next week from top 100 kids in the country, only to have 99 of them de-commit the following week. And the other 1 turns out to be academically ineligible.

DMadCat

December 23rd, 2008 at 2:33 PM ^

Just means he's opted to play on a smaller stage.

At least I won't have to spend the next four years trying to spell the bastard's name... (Shadrovic? Shavrodroc? Shecky?... screw it.)