This is a strong contender for worst thread of the year.
The year is still young.
the off-season is getting long in the tooth. It'll get better, I promise.
I don't follow Dawson (or any players) on Twitter, so I don't know what's going on...
...but I agree. Don't give the kid flak for wanting to visit other schools. He's a 17-year-old kid and he has every right to explore his options. Hell, the NCAA doesn't even allow him to receive an official offer from any of these schools until a few weeks from now (August 1).
When a major recruiting service posts something about a Michigan commit, I'd venture to guess that virtually everyone on this board would read it.
Twitter stalking was not required to obtain this info.
The source is a paywalled post from Wiltfong (http://michigan.247sports.com/Board/59424/David-Dawson-update-from-The-Opening-10558181)
He says Dawson told him this, and adds that Dawson is wearing a Florida Gators bracelet today.
I'm no longer hungry for lunch.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
Didn't Shane say in an interview that Dawson is just messing with the Florida guys? Pretty sure that was said. Chill out. He goes to Cass Tech. He's not going to Florida.
Yep, that's why Dawson is being so persistent. And wearing Florida gear. And visiting Florida. And getting ditched by the other Michigan recruits.
Because he's "just messing."
Well, when you put it like that...
AAAAGH I hate that cliche. It's lame when used rhetorically - basically you're saying "if there's a rumor / some indirect evidence about something, it must be true". And it's physically incorrect. Consider cooking oil, which has a smoke point well below the actual ignition temperature. Ever actually lit a fire? Typically smoke is released well before an actual flame is produced. And it's certainly possible to have flame without smoke.
The presence of smoke is neither necessary nor sufficient to prove the presence of flame.
Not to totally generalize, but it seems like the Cass Tech guys are a little more prone to recruiting antics than others. BWC committed, decommitted, took visits and recommitted. Terry Richardson constantly mentioned taking visits but didn't end up taking them, and now this with Dawson.
I'm not saying this makes them bad kids or anything, but there sure is a decent level of mind-changing or indecision going on over there.
Look - we have a great recruiting class with 4 other very good OL, and other guys on our radar. If David Dawson wants to be a part of that, he's obviously welcome. If not, he can go his own way and we'll be just fine.
Guys calm down. We went through this with Terry Richardson last year.
Even the bracelet I'm not worried about. He is not the first high-school kid to wear team apparel other than his favorite team. It was probably given to him by one of the Florida kids he hung out with yesterday. And is only wearing it to humor them.
Lousy thread title.
Second of all, kid can do what he wants. I would like it if he comes to Michigan. If not, good luck to him.
It's definitely a concern, since he is possibly our best committed OL recruit, and you never like losing a highly rated guy at an important position. It's not like the world would end, but losing a commit like him from the class is equally negative as a big time Hello: post is positive.
Michigan commit David Dawson to visit Florida.http://florida.247sports.com/Board/14/Michigan-commit-David-Dawson-10558109 via @247Sports
It's absolutely insane how quickly the Michigan fanbase freaks out! Dawson has probably been perhaps the 2nd or 3rd biggest recruiter for Michigan since he committed (only slightly behind Shane and LTT). He has been a part of recruiting sales pitches to Derrick Green and Joe Mathis at camps and over Twitter. He is very close to the rest of Team 134, especially JD and Shane. Why does everybody believe that he would just turn his back on them? They flew to the Opening together fergodsakes! David has stated himself that he just wants to go down to compete against some of the best in the country, and it's obvious that he is one of the most competitive recruits in the class. Take him at his word until we hear otherwise. If the coaches allow him to camp at Florida, then we must assume that they are confident that he is going to try to improve, not to check out the Gators.
I don't care that he's going, and don't particularly love Hoke's "no visit" policy, but this isn't a "camp." It's a recruiting thing. He's visiting Florida, regardless of what you call it.
Out of curiosity - why do you not like the no visit policy? Most big programs have this rule, and it makes a lot of sense. I'd like to hear your reasoning against it.
of recruiting means that kids are making commitments before getting a chance to take visits to schools they might be interested in. Some of those kids will later take visits to other schools and then decide they still want to go to Michigan. I know that Hoke's policy is "if you visit, you're no longer a commit" not "if you visit, we're dropping you," but I worry that the net effect will be to lose highly-rated kids who ultimately would have ended up at Michigan if the coaches didn't view the visit as quite so much of a dealbreaker.
I get that at least some of the rule is based on coaches not wanting to get left out in the cold on signing day when a kid goes somewhere else, but i can't help but feel like at least some of it is personal too. "If you really wanted to be here, you wouldn't be looking elsewhere." My view is that recruiting is business, not personal, and coaches should do whatever maximizes the likelihood that the players they want end up at Michigan. If Hoke thinks this policy maximizes those odds, I can understand that, but I wonder whether or not that's actually true.
Not to sound disloyal, but another reason I'm not a huge fan of it is that the accelerated recruiting timetable and forcing kids to make decisions before they have a chance to see other places means the kids don't really know what they might be missing. As someone (just a regular student) that transferred from a school I went to without putting much thought into it to one I was much happier at and should have gone to in the first place, I sympathize with the curiosity that these kids must feel. That said, I don't fault the coaches for their approach, there are lots of reasons kids can be swayed from their decisions, and a lot of pressure to bring in a good class, so you gotta do what you gotta do.
I'm sure there's nothing personal involved. It's simply the coaches saying "if you're loyal to me, I'll be loyal to you" which is completely fair. There's no "If you really wanted to be here, you wouldn't be looking elsewhere" part to it at all. It's more of "if you aren't sure you want to be here, that's fine, but we need to fill this class and I can't save you a seat until you're sure."
Coach Hoke makes a promise to these kids - that if they commit, they'll have an LOI sent to them come signing day, which secures them a spot on Michigan's football team. In response, the commits need to promise him they won't visit elsewhere. It's not fair for a kid to keep his options open for a school if Hoke can't keep his options open for that spot.
Agree with this completely.
Well what's the difference between a kid taking a visit and Michigan still taking visits from recruits at positions tht are already filled?
On one hand, I like the policy, on the other I think it almost says that we are "scared" that a recruit might like another place better. If we truly believe UM is the best, then we should not worry if a recruit visits another campus. If anything, we should encourage it. This way, a recruit can tie up the resources of an "opponent" on a player that we believe is solid on us. Could this type of policy lead to more decommits? Maybe, but those type of players aren't the type that I want at Michigan anyway.
Out of curiosity, what other big programs have a no visit rule?
Do you really think that he needs to visit Gainesville, FL, the home of the Gators, to "improve"? If you do, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you...
So a kid is visiting a different school?
I own 21 Cuckaroos. Imma be aight.
"Y'all don't own one cuclaroo. Not one."
if Florida and Ohio have "Friday Night Lights" events can we have the "Unnecessary Roughness" event for recruits?
I am surprised this question has not been asked yet and hopefully Ace or Tremendous can clear it up. When he attended the Alabama 7-on-7 camp, he went with the Cass Tech team and coaches. I guess this may be less of a concern if this is a team event that the Cass Tech coaches is taking prospects to.
Personally, I would be less concerned if this was a camp that Cass Tech coaches were taking their team compared to Dawson going to the event alone.
There've been subtle clues about him being unhappy for a long time. It's the most unoriginal thing anyone could type, and yet it is always a provocative thing to say regardless (paradox!?): This situation is doubtlessly complicated.
Besides that, he's a kid. So no ill will toward him lest I become bereft of logic and virtue. But having said all of this...I currently consider him our best OL commitment and my favorite (we found him; he was formerly the most under the radar, now he's the most above it). And I suspect Hoke will honor the precedent of his word more than a teenager's freedom. Dawson is therefore gone if he visits. If.
And I can't help but think the coaches saw this coming. Haven't they been doing extra (otherwise unexplainable) 2013 OL recruiting in recent months?
We found him? When he committed to us shortly after being offered, he already had offers from:
Alabama, Arkansas, Baylor, Florida State, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UCLA, and West Virginia
Sometimes a single sentence can have multiple interpretations. The interpretation you chose for my sentence was not the intended one. My post never pointed to scholarship offers but rankings. That's the kind of discovery I meant.
i.e. "He committed to us before his commitment blew up. His stock has only risen since the time of his commitment--and in some places it has done so significantly." I assumed this intent of mine was obvious. After all the other clarifying words I used within the same parentheses only alluded to recruiting rankings. Any chance you're willing to admit your misinterpretation was a bit myopic? No skin off my back if not, but I think this has been laid out rather reasonably. Also, the single sentence you called out was but a small aspect of my post.
I also won't challenge you on the timing of his Alabama offer, but if you say he had that before he committed to us, then that is news to me. I assumed that came between weeks and a month later. So I guess it's news to me.
Your "under the radar" comment in parentheses could also have multiple meanings. Do you mean the recruiting services or schools? Obviously, now you say you meant recruiting rankings...but that wasn't clear in your original post.
It's the burden of a communicator to make his point clear, not the reader's.
And yes, David Dawson had an Alabama offer when he committed to Michigan.
"It's the burden of a communicator to make his point clear, not the reader's."
That's more than fair. I completely agree. But that doesn't let the reader off the hook entirely. Careful reading can always deflect assumptions. It may be cumbersome, but careful reading means preceding your interpretation of each debatably equivocal statement with "Maybe he meant" instead of "Certainly he meant."
For even the best writers the world has known have never once been able to untangle a thought in their minds, spin it into ours, and have it retake precisely the shape it had in theirs. The best writers only get closer to accomplishing that than the rest of us. Such is the foggy barely-connectedness of human minds.
because our staff has a firm stance against committed kids taking visits. If he's visiting then he isn't committed. Hoke and Co has stuck by their guns on this from what we've seen in the past and they'll need to be consistant with how they handle this situation. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more on this in the next week.
Earlier this summer, the Cass Tech team took a trip to Alabama to participate in their 7-on-7 camp. If the Cass Tech team is going to Florida for the FNL camp with their coaches, I don't think this is as big a deal as a prospect going on a trip alone or an official visit (i.e. Pharoah Brown).
and it's not that kind of event.
It's a camp.
The rule isn't "you can never ever go to a college town between now and NSD." The rule is "no visits." And this isn't a visit. Ergo, this is barely different than when Shane Morris did the NFTC camp in (gasp) Columbus.