Musings from "The Opening"
Slow day, so here are a couple of free articles about The Opening, as well as their money quotes. Ian Bunting was our lone commit, and it sounds like he did well for himself.
I didn't get to see that much of the line play because I was focused on the QBs and the 7-on-7, but this is the second time in two months I've seen Hand and there's no doubt he's an elite talent. He looks like a future impact guy. However, the D-line who seemed the most impressive at The Opening was Chad Thomas, a Miami native who took camp MVP honors. Thomas is a long kid who showed he was really explosive and slippery. Thomas' stock among recruiting analysts figures to be soaring after this week.
"When I talk to Coach Miles, it's pretty funny," said [Lorenzo] Carter, who is ranked as one of the nation's top 10 players by multiple scouting services. "I have fun when I call him. He just talks about whatever. It's not always about football. He just talks about whatever he feels like. (The length) depends on how deep we are into the conversation. He might bring something up about girls, and then that will be a long conversation. One time he wanted to talk about country music, and that was a short conversation."
Da'Shawn Hand is choosing between Alabama, Florida and Michigan, schools whose stadiums seat a combined 300,270. And it's possible one day Hand will design a stadium that large. The defensive lineman from Woodbridge (Va.) High School wants to work in stadium design, planning and finance. He said he recently earned an A for the year in his civil engineering and architectural design class, in which his class project was a design of an athletic fieldhouse. "I had two meeting rooms in it, a track in it, a basketball court, a pool, a training room, a weight room, two bathrooms , elevator, two floors, it was crazy," he said.
Here are a couple positives in terms of Bunting:
http://www.studentsports.com/blog/2013/07/02/day-2-pool-play-starts-opening/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmr03cs7s9c (feel free to embed, I can't access youtube at work)
"I had two bathrooms, it was crazy." - Da'Shawn Hand
Not quite as crazy as having subs but definitly close.
He is clearly throwing a massive hint on where he is headed. Clever Hand... very clever.
That line was about the athletic fieldhouse he designed, not a stadium that he might one day design.
I'm wholly unsurprised by the description of phone calls with Les Miles.
the part about conversations about girls being really long...
I wouldn't mind a few catches like this scattered throughout a season...very nice indeed.
trolling - annoying
trolling - funny
Don't get me wrong - it was a very good play. But calling Bunting's catch "ridiculous" is a bit of a stretch. It was a well thrown seam or skinny post route over a linebacker's head. An FBS tight end prospect should be able to make that catch on a pretty regular basis.
Ridiculous implies otherworldly catch to me...like jumping through a hoop lit on fire over a pit of alligators with a suit of armor on.
That being said - nice catch! :)
I'd settle for outjumping three Ohio State DBs to catch the winning touchdown at the back of the end zone as time expires.
/Intellivision
This is an expected grab for a highly recruited tight end. Not even close to ridiculous. Ridiculous is a one handed snare after leaping 48 inches into the air along the sideline when the QB is trying to throw the ball away.
Actually, ridiculous is getting your foot down inbounds after that catch. Still the best play ever.
An FBS tight end prospect should be able to make that catch on a pretty regular basis.
This got me thinking about Alabama, and whether I could recall any really outstanding catches by their receivers ... and I can't. Maybe there were some, but my memory recalls an almost machine-like consistency in their passing and receiving.
The really spectacular catches -- the zenith being Desmond Howard stretched out against Notre Dame -- are a real treat, no doubt. But the truly soul-crushing thing is relentless precision and consistency. That's what I'm hoping for ... games against OSU, MSU, Notre Dame where the better team is clearly the one wearing Maize and Blue.
What happened to sports management?
I took his quote as being sports management based. He didn't just report interest in design, but also financing and management.
Sport Management has a stadium planning and urban development elective class as well as pre-requisites for Sport Finance and Sport Economics
Not sure if it's possible to minor at all with an engineering school major (however I had elective credits left over and my friends were in CEE so I took Construction Contracting pass/fail for the hell of it my senior year lol)
Lorenzo do you like Gladiator movies?