Ethan Pocic to LSU per Core 6
RT @core6athletes: Ethan Pocic committed to #LSU
Nice get for Les Miles & company. Tough beat for Ohio. Congratulations. Please leave David Dawson alone.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA Ohio Oline Recruiting HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH......
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"Arguably the No. 1 offensive line recruit on the Bucks’ board, Ethan Pocic, was in Columbus with his parents and the visit went very, very well. In fact it was “all good.”
Well that ends all the "what if Pocic is still around in January?" talks. Thank god.
that some of those "Dawson to LSU" queries can pack it up more than likely.
Dawson is a guard and Pocic is a tackle. One has nothing to do with the other.
Dawson might be a guard at Michigan, but he has the skills to play both inside and outside.
has now picked up their 4th OL commit this class, and are in on a very select group of highly regarded OTs. Think they wanted Pocic and Dawson to play inside.
He didn't want to go to a school that has 20 infractions against them and is going to be on probation for the next decade.
Our D line is going to beat up on OSU.
Mostly because they aren't building high quality depth. Having them as a last game every year will surely bring in some backups. I shouldn't be getting carried away but with all the talk about Michigan's great OL recruiting and OSU's great DL recruiting, I'd say we have the upper hand because our DL recruiting has been pretty good lately. Pipkins is an interior talent when most of their studs are DEs.
We dont have many true NT / DTs that play in Mattison's system. Sure some of the DEs might be asked to grow into that role, but outside of Pipkins, we are a bit short. We need to land Poggi or a couple other recent DTs we've offered.
Landing an another Alan Branch type would be quite nice. I love that Penn State pic (you know which one)
I get what you're trying to say, I just don't think it's correct. Over the 2012 and 2013 classes, they have 6 OL commits, 4 of which are four stars, and the 2013 cycle is still far from over. Over those same years, we have 7 DL commits, 1 five star, 3 four stars and 3 three stars. Yes, we're all super excited about Pipkins, but he's just one guy. Even with him, comparing our DL against their OL isn't exactly lopsided.
I guess you're right, however, in many cases I do not abide by the star system. I think Tommy Schutt is extremely over rated. I also think 2 of their 3 OL from last years class are over rated. I know OL is hard to project and anything can happen when a kid gets to college, but I see a ton more potential from guys like Dawson, Bosch, Kugler, and Kalis then I do from Dodson and Decker.
And for the record, I think a lot of Michigan guys are over rated and under rated as well. An example would be Dawson being under rated and LTT being over rated.
When it's all said and done, I am just very excited for the size and skill being added to the roster. Our OL depth is projected to be scary. And as a firm believer in building the trenches first, I believe this will be the key to Michigans success moving forward. And yes we still need to add a few guys on the DL this year.
No one is arguing that our OL isn't going to be scary good. But you are comparing our DL to their OL, both of which has plenty of question marks. Which is why I think your comment along the lines of "our DL is going to dominate their OL" that started this debate isn't based on anything but hope.
Any sort of talk involving high schools kids who haven't stepped on a college campus yet is based on hope and personal projections. Yes, I hope our DL disrupts and overpowers their OL. I shouldn't have said that as a statement.
I just feel that Pipkins will be the type of guy that makes the rest of the line a whole lot better. IMO, he is the best prosect of the last few years, easily. I have high hopes for the guy.
Well if we can't have him, at least he's out of the conference. Oh, and not to Ohio of course.
I'm sure it wasn't a "committable offer" anyway. He's fast enough for the SEC but not Meyer's ground breaking offense he's planning at Ohio.
...Anything commitable about the commitableness of any sort of ohio offer would have become null and void as of the instant a verbal commitment was made to Les Miles. Of course there may well be a secret ability for commithood should there ever be a decommit from LSU. I'm sure Urb is putting in no effort to facilitate such a change of heart.
Commence buckeye blog thread about fat offensive linemen eating grass like their coach. If there's one thing they know around here, it's livestock. Not that it's all bad, they taste delicious.
At a school we'll most likely never play over the next 5-6 years.
Good for him. Early on, I thought he was going to be our first ginger OL that I can remember. I guess we will have to wait till 2014 and beyond.
Kalis, yo.
I'm not sure Kalis would qualify as a "ginger".
His hair is red. What else do you need?
the absense of a soul, for one.
For some reason I thought Kalis had light brown hair.
Usually redder hair than that, and freckles. If anything, I believe Kalis would be considered a "daywalker".
Now I know why Andy Dalton is offended by the nickname "Ginger Ninja". I had no idea either!
Funny that he's not going to OSU, not so funny that he'll likely strengthen the country's most annoying football conference.
Buckeye tears. Over at 11W they where whining as to why ND and UM were getting all the Oline recruits. They also thought Pocic was a lock.
Can we call this the Kalis Curse?
They thought their curse ended when they got rid of Jim Bollman. Not so fast ohio, not so fast.
A good get for LSU, kind of ironic that they lost out on Pocic to a former Michigan player.
Yay!
My first reaction was "dammit, the SEC?" but a split second later I felt "ahahaha Ohio State". I've had quite a few emotions in the past 10 seconds.
I was secretly hoping he'd go to Illinois. I'm not scared of them going forward and they could always be trouble for our fellow divisionmates.
Excellent.
Is it just me or does Pocic look he would have a seriously nasty demeanor on the field?
Eat it Urbz!!!
I love this news. Every OSU fan thought he was an OSU lock for the longest time. Whenever O-Line recruiting was talked about, they just assumed Pocic was part of the class.
Even today on 11 Warriors Alex created a thread saying OSU "might not" lead for Pocic anymore, but to not worry because it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Alex at 11W is one of the worst recruiting guys? Maybe I'm just spoiled because I got to enjoy TomVH for so long, but literally everything I read from Alex is 'OMG Urbz breathed on a kid, OSU leads". Granted I haven't followed recruiting closely for very long, but he does not seem to try any sort of objectivity, which frankly kind of pisses me off even if you're working for a huge Ohio blog.
I'm not sure what you've been reading, but he basically warrants everything on objectivity. Most of his posts either surround a "gut feeling", which is often the best we can get, or he uses details of a visit to speculate, which is effectively what recruiting is...
In this case, he says OSU may not lead, as they have for some time with Pocic, which he confirmed earlier in the recruiting cycle. Not sure what the criticism is with calling recruiting a marathon, because it's true. Nothing is finalized until LOIs are signed.
Other speculations of his aren't all that outrageous. Vonn Bell calls OSU visit his best yet, it is safe to assume OSU has great chances, and so on.
Things change over time. If UM recruiting experts were judged on their widespread speculations that Isaac, Levenberry, etc., they'd all have the same negative views from the public.
11W Alex seems a little too susceptible to the post-visit interview glow. Don't get me wrong, there are some on this board that do the same. But Alex is their purported recruiting expert, not just another poster, and so you would think that he would realize that every recruit always has positive things to say about their visit to School X right after their visit to School X, especially when being interviewed by a School X blog.
That, plus, he just would not let go, and I'm not sure if he has let go, of the whole "Dymonte will flip for Urban Meyer" belief, even after a good percentage of the 11W board hasd given up on that.
I do agree about Thomas, I wish everyone would let that one go.
But to correct you, no one ever claimed that he was a "recruiting expert". He's a journalist that covers recruiting, doesn't claim to know any more than recruiting services, doesn't jump to argue with rankings or cite actual football-related info in the evaluations of recruits. This is simply because he's the one that compiles the data from which everyone else can draw their own conclusions. Usually his statements are off of gut feeling like many other people in his position would do as well.
But if you follow his track record, he tends to be correct on many of his concrete statements. He was the first one to report that Bosa may have changed allegiances, he correctly reported OSU's lead for Pocic as well as when this status changed, and rarely if ever does he use the word "lock", which angers me to no end.
He understands the process of recruiting because that's what he was assigned to cover with the site, and simply reports things the way they are, and sometimes the way he sees them possibly playing out. There are very few instances in which he says "player X WILL be a buckeye", and is proven wrong without extenuating circumstances.
I hear you, and maybe my expectations have been too high for his ability to evaluate recruits and interpret recruit speak. And I agree that he doesn't necessarily "overcall." But there are also very few instances when I've seen him try to reign in the sometimes delusional optimism about certain "locks" as discussed on 11W, and to me that's the difference. The recruiting guys on this blog tend to take a much more "FWIW" attitude or, "here's this information, but take it with a grain of salt," which I think is the healthy way to report recruiting information. I often get the feeling from Alex's reporting of positive comments from recruits, that the reader should assume that OSU is a leader for that kid. Maybe that's a product of OSU's relative recruiting success after the Meyer hire last year, and if so, maybe it will be tempered now that OSU recruiting is hitting some speed bumps.
I definitely see where you're coming from, and I think some of it is also coming from the fact that some of the readers will take Alex's fact-based reports, and run away with them in an unrealistic manner, which I've seen happen on every site, for every team. Take the Bell example: Alex simply says that Bell called OSU his favorite visit of the recruiting period thus far. He then says his opinion, which is that OSU is very much in the running for his services. Same with a guy like James Quick. Impressionable readers take this as "Alex says Bell is lock", suddenly the whole process is misrepresented.
The same thing happens here with Kendall Fuller, and with Cravens on the Wolverine 247 board, (which I read because Bucknuts posters are stupid and everything is paywalled.)
Addressing the "Urban is the best recruiter in history" delusion, understand that many of us do not agree with this sentiment. It's harder to draw big-time recruits to the midwest than it is to Florida, and I think that despite everything working against Urban, he's doing as well as we should be realistically expecting. The same goes for Hoke and his inequality between OL recruits and playmakers. It's just that his expectations weren't as high coming into it.
All fair points... I'll admit that it's very possible that I'm just piling too much on Alex. I think one of the things I like about this board is that as soon as someone has an orgasm about an elite commit looking upon Michigan favorably, half a dozen posters, many with reliable connections or ability to evaluate talent, typically jump in and bring everyone back to reality... and that seems to be a reality check that has been missing over at 11W. I say "has been" because I think as OSU recruiting hits its own speed bumps, a sense of reality is creeping into 11W... I was surprised at the ratioanlity of the reaction to the Pocic non-commit.
It's a fascinating phenomenon... the difference between "the hype" created, fueled, and perpetuated by boards like this based upon a tweet or a few comments to the media... the difference between that hype and reality. Sometimes they are close to the same... sometimes they are way off base.
EDIT: I must have missed the thread that got delusionally optimistic about Kendall Fuller??
I can't speak for the rest of 11w, but you'll always see me try to bring my fellow Buckeye fans back to earth on there, haha. All your criticisms are valid, I understand where you're coming from.
What's your handle on 11W? If you don't mind me asking...