HS Coaching perspective on Hoke

Submitted by JJB2 on

When it comes to recruiting, other than the recruit, who is most important to keep positive relations with? ... High School coaches.  The kids look to their coaches for advice on schools.  

This brief article gives a sense of what the in-state coaches are thinking, so far, about the Hoke hire, and what they thought of RR.  Should be a big recruiting positive.

 

http://highschoolsports.mlive.com/news/article/7287880265125948872/area…

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 12:38 AM ^

when was the last time a kid from Portage Northern and Plainwell ever played for Michigan?

You're kidding, right?  I can think of several players that have come from Portage Northern, just off of top of my head: Eric Mayes, Joey Sarantos, Paul Sarantos, and Kelly Baraka, just to name a few.  Obviously, we all know that Baraka didn't pan out, but Mayes and both Sarantos brothers were key defensive starters on good teams.  The program had a good relationship in the pre-Rodriguez era and sent a number of players to Michigan that turned out successfully on the defensive side of the ball.

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 12:53 AM ^

Last 5 recruiting classes?  No.  They all, except for Mayes, were in the past 10 recruiting classes, though (Baraka and Joey Sarantos were in the 2001 recruiting class and Paul Sarantos was in the 2004 recruiting class).  It's been a few years since they've had a player end up at Michigan, but that's Schermerhorn's point.  Before the Rodriguez era they were sending players every few years.  It's been six years now, and apparently that had to do with the lack of contact from the staff during the Rodriguez era.  It's not like the school wasn't producing FBS players during that time span; they just weren't being recruited...

kgh10

January 20th, 2011 at 1:33 AM ^

Not to be of typical Michigan arrogance, but we don't just recruit FBS players...we recruit B10 caliber, Michigan-caliber players. *Also correction on the years: Joey Sarantos was in the PNHS class of 2001 and Paul Sarantos was in the PNHS class of 2002, not 2004.

Furthermore, Rodriguez had an opportunity to recruit for a full two classes, three if you include this 2011 class. You want to blame the lack of Portage players brought in since 2002 because of poor contact from Rodriguez? If Portage had been producing B10 level players, I'm sure contact would have been made. It's not like there was some steady stream of Portage guys that 1) were UM caliber and 2) that Lloyd was even recruiting.

Portage Northern can blame Portage Northern for not sending guys to UM. Not Rodriguez.

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:35 AM ^

A couple of things:

(1) I don't think Portage Northern is blaming anyone for Portage Northern not sending guys to UM.  I'm virtually certain that wasn't his point.

(2) Keeping contact with high school coaches isn't all about learning about that coach's players, so it's not really all that relevant that the particular school didn't have a ton (or much) FBS talent on it, because the teams on their schedule did and by cutting off that channel of communication you lose a source of information on certain players.  This is a conference, after all, that has produced a fair number of very high level players.

(3) Paul Sarantos graduated high school in 2002, but he wasn't in the 2002 recruiting class.

kgh10

January 20th, 2011 at 1:45 AM ^

1) The article seems as though the coach of PN was a little bitter about Rodriguez not making more contact with him. I could be reading too much into that.

2)  Good point. Although, it doesn't automatically mean he didn't make good connections with other coaches in that conference. We probably will never know this.

3) Paul's listed on the Bentley website as a Fr in 2002. on the 2002 UM Football roster. Unless he's a super genius and was actually a dual-enrolled H.S. kid, he was a part of the 2002 recruiting class. http://141.211.39.65/allroster/FMPro

EDIT: That link doesn't work so just type his name in to the database here if you desire: http://141.211.39.65/allroster/fbsearch.htm

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:49 AM ^

(1) I'd be shocked if that were the case, but it could be.

(2) True, but I doubt it.  I'm not aware of one kid that came out of that conference during Rodriguez's tenure that Michigan had a serious chance with.  You're right, we'll probably never know, but my feeling is that there was little or no attention paid to that conference.  I could be wrong, though.  It seems to me, and again I was a Rodriguez supporter to the end, that Rodriguez's instate strategy was to develop relationships with programs that had top recruits, rather than developing relationships with programs to eventually land top recruits that materialize.  If that's the case, it's not necessarily bad, just different.

(3) I think the confusion is in our terminology.  I think, technically, he wasn't part of the 2002 class because he wasn't on scholarship until 2003 (i.e. was in the 2003 class, not the 2002 class - I was still wrong when I said 2004 earlier, though).

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:00 AM ^

Yeah, for some reason I thought Paul Sarantos had contributed more, not sure why.  Sorry about that.  As for Joey Sarantos, your representation of  isn't accurate, though (and mine wasn't either).  He played in 35 games in three years.  I wasn't really speaking about stats, but rather the fact that they actually saw the field.  So "key" was the wrong word, at least in terms of how you took what I meant.  Sorry.

Magnus

January 20th, 2011 at 1:03 AM ^

How is my representation of Joey Sarantos inaccurate?  I said that his best season included 18 tackles.  That is true, backed up by statistics on the official site.

You said that he was a key starter.

Hmmmm...which one of those things is inaccurate, and which one is completely accurate...?

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:22 AM ^

No worries.  Same here.  I understand.  I should have made my point in a different manner, that would have made more sense.  The number of players that Schermerhorn sent to Michigan may not seem huge, and their impact wasn't all that great, but four players in four years is more than the vast majority of instate programs sent to Michigan over that same time period.  I believe his point was that because of that past relationship there had been a chain of communication that existed between his program and Michigan, and then when Rodriguez came in it ended.  I don't think that's meant as a belly ache on his part, but rather as a manner of saying "if this has happened with my program, it's surely happened to a lot of other similarly situated programs, as well."  The fact that Hoke has already reached out to him indicates to me that Hoke is make a concerted effort to reestablish the relationships with these types of instate programs.  That type of contact isn't just important because of the players coming out of the particular program, but also to get information on players that these programs play.  For example, if one of the primary Carr-era contact in that conference was Schermerhorn, and Rodriguez ended that without someone else to replace him, he would have lost out on a lot of information on some pretty key recruits (e.g. Larry Caper, for one).  Some of that is just speculation, some of it I know, but the bigger point (i.e. losing a point of contact with a program and within a conference) is the larger takeaway, in my opinion.  I hope that makes sense; I'm tired...

Black Socks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:27 AM ^

No offense to the M guy in this article, but it is trash.  Quit dragging RR in the mud because he is from WV.  These people sound like townies who have never left the state.

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 1:38 AM ^

As a big Rodriguez supporter right to the end, I didn't read that article as "dragging RR in the mud" at all.  Commenting that things were different before and after Rodriguez isn't dragging him through the mud, it's just commenting that things were different.

King Douche Ornery

January 20th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^

Perception. Rodriguez fought a perception that he wanted to get all his players from Florida. He fought the perception that he was insensitive to midwestern "values."

And for some reason, this whole swearing thing was blown up, quite hypocrittically, way, WAY out of proportion. For crying out loud, I had TEACHERS swearing in the classroom at some of us more rowdy, uncontrollable bastards when I was growing up.

Clarence Beeks

January 20th, 2011 at 9:35 PM ^

Yeah, I was talking about Portage Northern, not Climax-Scotts.  Portage Northern is D2 now (they were A, back in the days when that system was used), but they play all of the bigger schools in the southwest part of the state.  Schools like Battle Creek Central and Marshall (both in the conference) pretty regularly put out good players.