Dequinta Jones Commits - Update Comment Count

Brian

Updated with information and stuff!

A defensive end has signed up. His name is awesome: Dequinta Jones. It is so awesome that a google search for just his first name pops up stuff about him. (When you are a blogger prone to google-stalking these things become disproportionately important; I vaguely hope Mike Jones changes his name to "Frobozz Tamoshanter" before he commits to Michigan, if indeed he does so.)

His skills? The recruiting sites are pretty meh: three stars all around. He did have offers from Arkansas, Cal, Okie State, and Alabama, FWIW. Informative update coming tomorrow AM.

Update: Okay, this one's pretty weird. Jones hasn't visited Michigan and the last time he touched base with a recruiting site he claimed that Alabama and Cal led with a decision pending on Signing Day. He wasn't even on the recruiting board. Then out of the blue he picks Michigan. He is from Louisiana, the national epicenter of wacky recruitments. All these things indicate a potentially shaky situation. But, like... what the hell. He's committed. On with the show.

Jones is a three-star to everyone. Tiger Rag's "Midsummer Top 40" published just a few weeks ago weirdly claims no offers and interestingly claims he'll end up inside:

27. DeQuinta Jones DT (6'2,265, 4.8) Bastrop HS - Jones is explosive off of the line of scrimmage and is a quarterback's nightmare. Jones moves along the defensive line for his high school team fulfilling different positions, but with some added weight he will likely be more of an inside guy at the next level. Jones is currently flying under the radar as he awaits his first offer, but like many other talented prospects offers should appear flowingly throughout his senior season. During the spring, Jones took in visits at LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

"Dandy Don" has him a bit higher at #19, saying he is a "little under-sized but has great speed and outstanding work habits." He appears to have fallen in the estimation of the gurus after starting out a member of the Rivals 250; clearly that's no longer the case. He's actually moved steadily down, falling from #187 in the first Rivals 250 to #218 above to entirely out and just a three-star. I know I've said this a few times already this year, but he might have some upward mobility left with his late-ish flurry of offers and Michigan commit. 50-50 he ends up a four star and back in at the tail end of the Rivals 250.

ESPN, however, is not particularly impressed, providing a 77. His evaluation is littered with words like "adequate"; in summary:

Has the ability to develop into a solid college defender that can at worst could be a good swing guy.

They, too, bring up the defensive tackle thing.

Unfortunately, that's about all on Jones: he's a DE/DT prospect that is sitting on the 3/4 borderline. Given Michigan's needs, a good pickup but not a thrilling one.

And now, a word. Earlier this year there was a mailbag in which a reader asked which of the premium sites was the better one to subscribe to. At the time I hadn't had much direct experience with Scout, but I related the general opinions of a trusted group of internet friends. I've now added some direct experience to my portfolio of Scout knowledge.

Sometime yesterday both sites came out and said "we can't confirm this yet, but we're getting indications that Dequinta Jones has committed to Michigan." Rivals got Jones on the phone and got these direct quotes from him:

"I talked to Coach (Jay) Hopson and he asked me if I was ready to be a Wolverine and I said 'Yes sir,'" Jones told Rivals.com national analyst Barton Simmons Monday afternoon. "Coach Rodriguez was in his office and heard the celebration down the hall and came out to see what it was all about and found out I committed."

Point for Rivals if you care which recruiting site posted information about a commitment nanoseconds before the other. No one who's sane should, but this is internet recruiting we're talking about here.

Scout did not take this well. They've got a story up with quotes from Jones' parents saying that Jones hasn't committed anywhere and that he was "on the farm." Okay, fine, whatever, different information. But Tom Beaver has posted this in at least three separate places:

Let's hope this didn't get messed up by the gun-jumping.

This garners responses like this:

TOS ["The other site" -ed] at their best. Way to do the due diligence Sam/Tom. That's why I come here for the real news.

To recap: Rivals has a direct quote from a kid saying he has committed to Michigan and that Jay Hopson and Rich Rodriguez know. They run a story reporting this. Tom Beaver laces his premium message board with innuendo about "gun-jumping" and lets his message board minions leap to the desired conclusion. Given the situation outlined above -- weird, no-visit Louisiana commit out of nowhere -- there's at least a small chance this commitment doesn't make it to February, at which point Beaver will tut-tut those jerks at Rivals who had the audacity to run a direct quote.

Lord knows I've had issues with a couple of the more sanctimonious Rivals writers, but Beaver routinely pulls stunts like this whenever he's beaten to a story. It's dishonest and drives me crazy. If you're looking to sign up for one site or the other, keep it in mind.

Comments

Tim Waymen

July 21st, 2008 at 7:42 PM ^

and its fans... I was watching CFB Live on ESPN, and they were showing the emailed questions on the bottom of the screen while they were interviewing Satan, I mean, Tressel, and one question came up that I found particularly cocky. It was something like, "Will Tressel be easy on RR as he was with Lloyd with running up the score?" How incredibly stupid. But what should I expect from a Bukkakeye? I'll give it to OSU that they have beaten us the past 6/7 years (not fairly in 06 and against an injured team in 07), but they were never in a position to run up the score against us, unless you count having the opportunity to not take a knee and make the final score 17-3 or 21-3. I hope that everyone wonders if RR will take it easy on Tressel, not that I like teams running up the score.

Tim Waymen

July 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 AM ^

Don't say that. He's a Condom. No "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" here. Fuck USC, and fuck the Bukkeyes. Still, props to him for saying that about OSU, even if he said it as a Pac-10 supremacist bastard.

Oh God I hate Ohio State, but dammit I might root for them against USC. I hate having to choose between OSuckU and a Pac-10 or SEC team.

Tim Waymen

July 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 AM ^

Jim, you ignorant slut.

That is a good point. I don't want OSU back in the title game. If they beat the Condoms, and Michigan somehow just maybe manages to pull off the impossible, then it would be the upset of the century, but it's probably not happening. Still, OSU represents the Big 10. If they win this year, then it will shut up some of the detractors. I know some people don't really care about how the Big 10 does or about Big 10 loyalty, but OSU (not their fans though) is sort of representing us. Maybe say, so what? Everyone else should do well in OOC and bowl games.

Anyways, want to see how far to the end of the screen this thread will go? Who's with me?

A side note about music: Ne-Yo makes some damn catchy tunes. I can't get So Sick or Because of You out of my head. You know, he writes his own songs and songs for other people.

WolvinLA

July 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 PM ^

I'm going with JHS on this one.  I really don't see USC as a rival, maybe it's because I live in LA and most of my buddies are USC grads and they cheer for Michigan with me when they play.  I doubt any OSU grads would do that.  I relish in any moment when someone who knows the game well and who fans respect rips on the Buckeyes.  And I will be going to the USC-OSU game, and I will be cheering for the Trojans.  For the record. 

 I agree that we like to see the Big Ten do well, but OSU has been on top too long, and that needs to stop.  God knows the Buckeyes were going nuts after our first two games last year.

Tim Waymen

July 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 PM ^

My attitude is, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." The challenge is making them fall. Since UM probably can't do that this year, I should probably root for USC. There are many older OSU fans such my dad (grew up in OH and went to OSU) who root for UM "in every game but one." DC Scott Shafer grew up in a mixed family in OH and was brought up to root for either team in the Rose Bowl regardless of whom he rooted for in The Game. It's an old school approach, but it does exist. I'm sure it's much less common among younger fans, especially those of OSU because they grew up with Cooper and the 1997 championship team but mainly because they have no class and are insane.

I kinda like UCLA though. I hate USC and their home team advantage at the Rose Bowl (which is also the Big-10's fault). Still, I really just want to see how far to the right side of the screen this column of comments will go.

WolvinLA

July 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 PM ^

I, too, am conflicted.  I cheered for OSU when they beat Miami for the BCS Championship in 2002, because when one member of the Big Ten does something great, it bodes well for the conference as a whole.  I cheered for OSU against Florida (although admittedly it was nice to see them get creamed).  I did not cheer for them to beat LSU because enough is enough here, IMO.  It's one thing to see the Big Ten do well, but it's another when the team is OSU and they have been pretty diminant as of late.  I don't want OSU to turn into a dynasty a la USC in the last 6 years or Miami of the 6 years before that. 

 Also, Pete Carroll lives a block down the street from me, and he's a pretty cool guy.  Him and I have gone surfing together a handful of times in the offseason, and he's a guy you can't not like.  I think that's part of why I don't hate USC like a lot of Michigan fans do.

Jim Harbaugh S…

July 21st, 2008 at 7:53 PM ^

A Defensive End committed!?! Awesome news, I don't care that he is a 3*, this is still great news. Maybe this RichRod guy knows what he is doing after all. ------------------- Also, Brian, thanks a lot for the link for my Anti-Carr team post, much appreciated.

Noahdb

July 21st, 2008 at 8:43 PM ^

Sounds like a proto-typical 3-4 def. end who is a touch underrated. I imagine that in a 4-3, he'd end up being a DT with quickness and great feet. But in a 3-4, he can give you a little push and still defend the run.

hat

July 21st, 2008 at 10:23 PM ^

Did we have an unofficial prohibition on guys with unusual names under Lloyd?  We've been far more successful landing them under RR. 

The Other Brian

July 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 AM ^

FWIW (and I'm sure Brian will cover this in the informative update), many think Jones' future is at DT, not DE, but that's not a sure thing at all, and unless Rivals really DOES have an anti-Michigan bias like a lot of people believe, Jones should be a lock to get a 4th star and possibly back into the Rivals250 on their next update.

Ninja Football

July 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 AM ^

Disagree? Jim, you ignorant slut. Waymen for the win! Dude I just cracked up when I was on the phone with a client, half listening to them and half reading this post. Awesome.

hat

July 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 PM ^

But see, most of those guys committed under Moeller. Under Carr there were only a handful. RR has landed a Martavious, Shavodrick and Dequinta in under a year. Now that we have a more exciting brand of football, we're getting more exciting names.

Tim Waymen

July 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 PM ^

I won't lose sleep over OSU losing a bowl game, but the one that bugs me to this day is their loss to Florida last year.  That really puts a huge question mark on the quality of the Big 10 for that season.  And it's weird, because I didn't think that Florida was any better than Michigan, but it's hard to know.  UF won some close games, including one against Vandy, whom Michigan completely dominated.  Michigan is also to blame for losing to USC.

Even though people have explained to me how OSU outplayed UM in the 06 game, that game's results were distorted by the shitty field turf.  There is no way that either defense would have given up the same yardage on normal turf that wasn't coming apart.  I know that multiple Big 10 opponents that year said that UM was better than OSU.  During the Rose Bowl, Michigan just looked flat.  (A Big 10 coach has said that they looked "distracted" but also that OSU was just better than everyone else.)  The secondary was not that great, but that was a damn good team in 06.

hat

July 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 PM ^

The turf in '06 OSU was terrible, but honestly, we had terrible turf at Michigan Stadium for many, many games during the 1990s (by November, it would typically be more of a mudpit than a grass field), and yet I don't remember many 42-39 type shootouts back then. I think it's entirely plausible that both OSU and Michigan were overrated that season due to weak competition beforehand. We certainly didn't pull our weight in the bowls, on good turf.