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Don't know if this has been posted on here as of yet, but one time Wisconsin commit Chance Stewart has decided to go the Western Michigan route. William White of Cass Tech decided to commit to Toledo as well. Both commits are listed on the Scout front page.
Both had BIG TEN offers, but chose to head to the MAC. Stewart still had an offer from Illinois, and White had an offer from Indiana.
I am glad to see my Broncos get a pretty solid QB. Hopefully he can be the next Tim Lester for them.
As a fellow Bronco, this is a huge get for them. BroncoBlitz has an article about highly rated players to sign at non-AQ schools, Stewart would be the highest rated player to ever sign with a MAC school. Pretty big deal, Fleck is doing some good things here in Kzoo. I'd put him on your up and coming coaches to watch list.
So, does this reflect well on the MAC or badly on Illinois and Indiana? I am leaning toward the latter.
Beckman has been known as a great recruiter, at least that is what they said about him at Toledo. To miss out on a guy to the MAC may be a telling sign of his perception.
Turns out it was really his OC, current Toledo head coach doing the biggest recruiting.
I feel it's worth mentioning ex-Bronco HC, Bill Cubit, is now the OC at Illinois. Not too surprising tho, due to the fact Cubit had a bad track record with MHSAA coaches. He often snubbed local kids in favor of FL kids, I know it didnt sit well with local area coaches.
I'm a WMU grad and I hated the way Cubit recruited. He flat out ingored Michigan. He would much rather recruit Illnios and Florida. Basically if ANY kid from Miami Beach wanted to play college football, Cubit would offer him no matter how talented or what off the field issues there were. Once in a while he hit a homerun (EJ Biggers and Louis Delmas) but mostly it was all bad news.
Stewart is a good fit At WMU. He likes that its close to Sturgis, and he'll get a real chance to start early in his career
Hoke lost a recruit to UCF that first class - similar situations coming off debacles. Not identical but similar.
At WMU, Stewart will be "the man" at QB and can possibly make a name for himself over his career there - vs. fighting for playing time at a Big Ten school. Maybe he has an opportunity to play right away at WMU too. Who knows?
They often make a name for themselves that gets them a little national attention. It usually ends in searing pain.
Interesting. I'd speculate that they're holding places as they await better offers, but realistically those schools would probably find places for them on Signing Day. They'd also probably win starting jobs at those schools pretty early. Good for them. Hopefully they found situations they like.
What is Chance Stewart rated at?
Nevermind I didnt see the scout link.
He's been highly rated by the recruiting services since the beginning (early four star). His offer list never matched the services' hype - including neither Mich nor MSU offering - but he committed to Wisconsin when Bielema offered. The post-Bielema Wisky staff apparently cut contact with him, which looks like their way of saying "please look elsewhere."
Honestly, while Illinois and Indiana play in a major conference, both are considered the bottom of the conference. Zero chance of either of those schools playing in a B10 title game, winning the conference, going to a major bowl (and a chance of no bowl), or being relevant, so how much different would their B10 experience be from their MAC experience. I can understand not wanting to spend 4 years at a school that is considered a cupcake game within its own (weak) conference.
At least in the MAC, both of those schools have a shot at competing for a conference championship and going to a decent middling bowl. Winning your conference is still a big deal for a player, even if that conference is not a major one.
Although Illinois and Indiana will probably never play for a Big Ten title while those guys are in school, they'll play in big games, and you typical big ten game is bigger than the MAC championship anyway. Outside of the NIU anomaly last year, MAC teams never go to big bowls, and it's difficult for them to go to any bowl at all.
If you go to a lower level Big Ten school, you'll play in a number of nationally televised games every year, you'll play in some of the biggest stadiums in the country and you'll get a far better education. And the playing time factor would only be negligibly different, most likely.
I hear your point re: playing in nationally telivised games and bigger stadiums more often at Illinois and Indiana. That is a definite reason not to go to a MAC school. However, in most of those games, they will be nationally telivised in bigger stadiums getting beaten, often badly. Also, for a QB, not sure that I would want to play against Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska and even Northwestern with an Indiana / Illinois OL protecting me. I would want to play in a situation where the OL and DLs are approximately on par, so that I wasn't running for my life and could showcase my abilities.
Also, re: playing in big games in the B10, the problem with that is that the game is usually only big for the team that you are playing, and not for you, if you are at Indiana and Illinois.
Re: education, I can't argue with your point.
In general, though, I think that all of your points are pretty fair, and I think that the decision is a close one re: going to a MAC team or going to a bottom tied B10 team.
Very few college players think that way. These are guys who are stars. They don't think to themselves "why would I want to lose to OSU when I can maybe beat Ball State!" And thank God they don't. These guys think they're gonna win, and that's part of what makes them good players. Which is why Indiana and Illinois always out-recruit the MAC schools.
I ran track in high school, and I was good but not incredible. But I always wanted a shot at the top guys in the state, in my time it was Baraka, Charles Rogers and Stu Schweigart, even though they had always beaten me before. I didn't want my team to go to an invitational where I was the top sprinter there so I could win, I wanted a shot at the big boys, even though it probably meant I would lose.
Kind of odd that the 8th rated QB in the class has a kind of underhwleming offer sheet.
That would indicate to me that he's not really the 8th best QB in this years class. I think offers are a much better indication of a player than what the recruiting services rank. I think just last year EMU had a Rivals250/4* QB from Ohio but his only offers were like EMU, Toledo, and Miami (NTM) so I'm a bit skeptical he's really a top 250 player when no one in the Big Ten gave him a sniff
Doesn't it seem like most, if not all, of the top espn150 QBs have underwhelming offer sheets for being supposedly the best QBs in the country? There are defensive lineman with offer sheets a mile long, but none of the QBs seem to.
Teams almost always take only one QB per year and as we saw with us, they are judicious with those offers so even relatively high ranked QBs don't have amazing offer sheets
standard "hoke should have been recruiting these guys" drabble
Good pickup for WMU. Don't rule out the fact he might want to stay close to home. WMU isn't a bad option compared to the bottom of the Big Ten. If M and MSU weren't gonna offer? What's the best option for your situation? MAC football still is a scholarship.
The beer stains on my underwear are from expensive craft beer.
What is the point of posting a response like this one? Why are you bitter over whether other random people in the world don't like how a guy is ranked?
Your 'bottom line' statement is also pointless as plenty of guys are technically NCAA athletes without actually playing at a level that deserves that status. It happens.
Technically, so are ~250-300 other guys. And that's just D1...
His offer sheet is underwhelming because he didn't really play anyone. The SMAC is not the powerhouse of South West Michigan. As a coach in that conference, I'd really like to know exactly how he ranked so high! Must have really impressed on the camp circuit.....
I really think he jumped so high in rankings because of potential and his "tools" And the fact that he was 6'4" in 8th grade raised his status. He has a cannon for an arm, and he went to a lot of camps. He just got his name out there early.
That makes sense. I'm more impressed with his baseball skills. I guess a lot of those carry over. I just think Western is a better fit for him.
