The Considerable Attrition of Stanford's 2010 Recruiting Class
Tony Jefferson (L) and Kain Colter (R) left Stanford's class for very different reasons.
I swear I'll be posting a full recruiting mailbag this week, but when looking at Michael Spath's article on Jim Harbaugh's recruiting style, this merited a closer examination:
At Stanford, The Cardinal produced a slew of decommitments during Harbaugh's tenure (18 alone in 2010), and we've been told that when Harbaugh accepts a commitment, it is often the early stages of the vetting process, and that over the next few months both coaching staff and recruit could come to the conclusion it is not the right fit.
If such were to happen at Michigan, fans would have to ask themselves if they are OK with a recruiting strategy in which players are recruited and offered a scholarship but ultimately told prior to Signing Day that it would be best for all involved to part ways.
Stanford's elite admissions turned away a few prospects, and one could argue it was the school not Harbaugh that had final say, but a staff should have a pretty good feel from the onset which players have the grades to be admitted and those that do not. At Stanford, Harbaugh was willing to accept pledges from an abundance of borderline prospects.
18 decommitments in one class! On its face, that's alarming, especially in the context of Michigan taking this many early commitments. To get a clearer picture of what happened at Stanford and what we can expect from Harbaugh at Michigan, I took a look at the decommitment stories of every one-time 2010 Stanford commit I could find to see what really occurred.
The good news: Harbaugh didn't just kick 18 players out of his class to make room for better players. In fact, a good number of these decommits were players Harbaugh didn't want to lose. There was no Elliott Porter situation. The bad news: while Harbaugh didn't seem to go so far as to yank anyone's scholarship outright, a couple of the tactics he used probably won't sit well with Michigan fans, and understandably so.
I've separated out the 2010 decommits into categories. I believe Spath's source for the 18 decommits figure is this Bleacher Report article. There's only one player on the list (Tyler Brosius) whom I couldn't verify was ever a Stanford commit in the first place; neither Rivals nor Scout even listed him as holding an offer. Here's the rest:
Prospect Chose A Better Opportunity
Several of Stanford's 2010 commits had one of the more common reasons for a commitment flip: they got what they found to be a better offer from another program and made the switch.
- Four-star CA S/LB Tony Jefferson, now on the Arizona Cardinals, committed to Stanford in September of his junior season. He backed off the following January, saying he wanted to keep his options open while citing concerns over Stanford's strict admissions, and ended up at Oklahoma.
- Four-star CA LB Jordan Zumwalt fielded heavy interest from both Los Angeles schools while he was a Stanford commit, and on Signing Day he switched to UCLA, in part because it was closer to home.
- Four-star MD CB Louis Young committed to Stanford without taking a visit, had second thoughts, recommitted, had second thoughts again, and eventually wound up at Georgia Tech.
- Three one-time Stanford commits—four-star GA WR TJ Jones, three-star UT S Chris Badger, and three-star KY OL Tate Nichols—flipped to Notre Dame during the process. Jones switched after an official visit to South Bend, while the other two made their decisions shortly after receiving Irish offers.
- Three-star OH CB Courtney Avery changed his commitment to Michigan after earning a camp offer in the spring.
- Three-star TX DT Will Hampton started fielding increased interest, decided he wanted to take visits, narrowed his choices to Notre Dame and Northwestern, and eventually chose the Wildcats.
That's eight of the 18 who simply decided to pursue what they found to be a better opportunity elsewhere.
Standard Recruitment Issues
For one reason or another, something came up during the course of these players' recruitments that led them to end up elsewhere:
- Four-star FL OL Torrian Wilson changed his commitment to Louisville when his primary recruiter at Stanford, Willie Taggart, took the head coaching job at Western Kentucky. He also said his mom wanted him closer to home. There's good evidence that was the driving factor—he'd later flip his commitment again, this time to UCF.
- Four-star TE Blake Barker, who hailed from Cambridge, MA, changed his commitment to Harvard, telling Rivals he wanted the right combination of academics and proximity to home.
- Four-star MO RB Brandon Bourbon also decided he wanted to play close to home, swiching to Kansas just days before NSD after being committed to Stanford for six months.
Senior Year Injury
This is where things start getting uncomfortable. In two documented cases, Stanford stopped contacting recruits after they suffered injuries during their season season. That's how Kain Colter, a three-star athlete, wound up at Northwestern instead of heading to Palo Alto:
During his first game that fall, Colter heard a "pop" after throwing a post route. An MRI revealed a torn labrum and biceps, but he kept playing as a running back and receiver while rehabbing a shoulder that eventually needed surgery.
Stanford originally stuck by him, but then their correspondences dwindled. They wanted his MRI results and claimed he would have to wait for clearance from the admissions office. Interesting for a kid who carried a 4.2 grade-point average.
Finally, Spencer said, "They just stopped calling. It was a bad situation. I wanted them to man up and talk to Kain."
Colter decommitted in late December. Three-star FL OG Joe McNamara had a similar experience:
The 6-foot-2, 270-pound McNamara, a three-star prospect rated the 28th-best offensive guard in the country by Scout.com, was excited to become a Cardinal. That's when his recruitment started taking a turn for the worse.
Tearing his ACL roughly a week before the season started, forcing McNamara to sit out his entire senior season, McNamara wanted to be sure Stanford was still behind him. After no returned calls or emails, McNamara had to start from scratch.
"The thing that took the longest was finding out if Stanford was in or out," McNamara told Badger Nation Monday. "They never came out and said I was out of the picture but at the same time, there was no communication. I would say probably November was when I re-opened the recruiting process."
McNamara wound up at Wisconsin. If there's a positive to be found in these two cases, it's that Harbaugh never formally pulled either player's scholarship, and both opened up their recruitments with enough time left in the process to find suitable landing spots. It's tough to sugarcoat the complete lack of communication from Stanford's end, however.
Stanford Ceased Contact
Somewhat related to the above, the main way it seems Harbaugh indicated to recruits it was best for both parties to go their separate ways was to stop talking to them.
- Three-star GA S Daunte Carr opened up his recruitment because he hadn't heard back from the admissions department with less than a month to go before Signing Day. He later committed to Arkansas.
- Three-star NV LB Evan Palelei committed in the spring of his junior year, then decommitted in early September of his senior year because he "lost contact with them over the summer." Palelei eventually signed with Navy.
The Late Grayshirt
- In arguably the most concerning situation of them all, the Stanford staff informed three-star TX TE Zachary Swanson that he'd have to take a grayshirt with about a month to go before Signing Day. He chose instead to sign with Virginia.
I can't find anywhere what happened in the case of three-star OG Harris Williams, who flipped to Boston College in July after originally pledging to the Cardinal in late April.
So?
A lot of the attrition in this class occurred for reasons outside Harbaugh's control, but there are definitely red flags that come up. Falling out of contact with recruits as a way of not-so-subtly pushing them out the door isn't a great look, especially in the case of injury; even worse is blindsiding a prospect with a late grayshirt.
We'll see if Harbaugh operates in a different way at Michigan, where he won't have to worry as much about potential attrition within his classes due to problems with admissions. While this stuff doesn't quite rise to the SEC level of recruiting malfeasance, it's not going to go over well in Ann Arbor if Harbaugh isn't more open with recruits about their place in the class as the process moves along.
18 decommits a year? Cool that just means more Hello posts which I enjoy. Maybe upwards of 40 a year!
On a serious note I cannot see that continuining long term or it will hurt the program. Just like some of our fans yell at 17 year olds for not honoring a committment the players will begin to ask what does a committment to UM mean to them? It will seem tenuous and IMO encourage players to constantly be looking around for a plan B in case they become a "decommitment".
Yeah, but Harbaugh coaches for UM now, so I don't care about the moral or ethical wrong doings as long as UM wins and the NCAA stays of UM's back.
This is one of the really hard thing about all the moral calls we as fans make (or at least that I make). We are doing it with far from perfect information. Sometimes we only know one side of the story. Other times we know neither side of the story. Yet we (I) always like to make a call about what is right/wrong.
Would we give that kind of benefit of the doubt to any other coach?
Yes, he may have said that something of that nature to these kids, but that still doesn't justify radio silence. Just tell the kid "the offer was a conditional one and I don't think it is going to work out from our end."
Yeah, I'm not going to declare any of these rationalizations "wrong," but how many of these arguments were absent in our threads about coaches at other schools yoinking scholarship offers? Sometimes it's tough to look objectively into a mirror.
Or, maybe these rationalizations are a result of being objective and the criticism of other coaches was the result of being too subjective.
This is a perfectly valid point, and I think the reality is that both ends of it exist. We have people here who will be overly critical of our competition, and we have people here who will be overly protective of our staff.
Man, that guy sucked.
I remember he was out to dinner with a group of recruits and he went to the bathroom and never came back. They found out later that he stepped outside and took the Cinci job over the phone, didn't even bother to tell them. Just left.
He also managed to get himself banned from Massilon shortly after taking the job.
Bold move for an Ohio college coach...
Does any other coach coach for UM?
I can think of one you wouldn't give it to.
There are high expectations at Minnesota State, you know.
No, we wouldn't, but I actually don't think a lot of coaches are as evil and slimy as so many here make them out to be. Bama and oversigning, sure. Nothing Meyer has done has been terribly egregious though. Dantonio's worst offense seems to be bringing back criminals with almost no punishment.
That isn't even a valid rationalization given in all four occasions he didn't contact or respond to the recruit regarding his scholarship status.
If your scenario was the case, the staff would have had to inform the kid that they were no longer wanted, rather than ignoring them until they went away.
He basically just fixed the glitch.
I get the argument about conditional commits, but to me that isn't the right way to run the scholarship offer system. It is probably a bit naive, but if you are good enough to get an offer and commit as a junior, then that should be valid regardless of what happens going forward. If there are enough questions about the quality of the commit that you have to put limitations or conditions on the offer, then just don't make the offer.
Recruiting isn't a perfect system, and you have to take risks on both sides when entering into a relationship. But while recruits can decommit relatively easily, I don't think the universities need as much protection because the relative damage for a bad decision is quite a bit lower (i.e. if a school whiffs on 1 kid in a class of 17, that will likely hurt less than a kid whiffing on the only school he can commit to and then having to go through the hassle of transferring).
This is probably all speculation; I assume that everyone Harbaugh offered will have the option to enroll at UM in 2016. But this raises real issues that should be discussed, and the undercurrent (happily of the minority it seems) of people trying to minimize it aren't being intellectually honest with themselves.
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that's all I need to know.
Triple stamp it, no erasies, touch blue make it true.
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Hopefully the lost phone numbers and surprise grey shirts don't happen here.
Re: Harris Williams, this SB Nation piece claims Stanford pulled his offer after he suffered a foot injury at a camp.
http://www.bcinterruption.com/2014/7/3/5868173/boston-college-football-…
The grayshirt actually bothers me less, because of its timing. I'm forced to speculate but it's easy to think of a very plausible scenario -- the coaches are in constant contact with their commits (well, most of them), a desired recruit was expected to flip, they waited and waited, then a month to Signing Day realized they got their man but had one too many recruits and had to tell one of them to grayshirt. It is very, very difficult to track what HS kids do; tracking dozens of them is like herding confetti. Considering the 2010 class had exactly one grayshirt the sample size tells me more about what happened than the crappiness of the situation they put Swanson in.
The radio silence is more troubling. It's immature, unnecessary and there's a pattern.
I just hope that Michigan under Harbaugh stays in the middle of the pack on this issue. I surely don't want them to become Alabama, but I also don't want such a strict standard that it hampers the program compared to other teams. Until the NCAA eventually decides to clean up oversigning and whatnot, these types of situations are unfortunately going to be part of the game.
This sort of thing used to matter quite a bit to me. But I really can't think of many successful programs that don't have something that seems shady going on. Maybe Virginia Tech, but I'm not really sure about that. Penn State used to trumpet "success with honor" or some such bs. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I'm not sure it's possible in today's world to succeed at a high level and do everything in the most honorable and ethical way. I still don't want Michigan to win at any cost, but I can live with a few yanked scholarships here and there.
i refuse to just shrug my shoulders and say "everyone does it" or "hey, that's recruiting nowadays" or anything of the sort. yes, decommits happen. the "better opportunity" and "closer to home" things? ok, yeah, i get it. guy got hurt and got blown off? grayshirt? yuck and yuck. we'd be killing just about anyone else in the country for stuff like that.
that he might end up a walk on or a grayshirt. Maybe that's the case, but we aren't going to find out because Harbaugh can't talk about it. If he was told, and in the end it's a grayshirt, and he decides he'd rather take a scholarship somewhere else, it's not on Harbaugh.
I disagree with the people attacking Meyer for oversigning in most situations because we don't really know what the coaches know and someone may discuss a transfer and decide not to. It has to be incredibly difficult to manage the roster and it will be even moreso if fewer kids sign LOI's even though that would be my advice to them. We crticized Hoke for putting all his eggs in one basket with Hand so we can't really fault coaches for having contingency plans and it's probably the only way to compete at top levels.
The biggest issue I might have is that one recruit this year said that Harbaugh promised, if he committed, he would be guaranteed a scholarship even if he was injured his senior year and I would hope a promise like that would be honored.
In Harbaugh I trust, I am not here to micro-manage and get anxious about these things when he has not even had a full season. Is the NCAA investigating Stanford for recuriting violations - NO - so let it be.
Taking your clues on ethical treatment of amateur athletes from the NCAA, are ya?
We have a coach that is committed to winning and excellence. He knows his job depends on beating MSU and OSU. He needs to win Big Ten championships. He wants to win a National Championship. He's going to ask himself if he has the right group of recruits to do that. We are coming off of some down years and he's going to need to balance who he can get vs. betting on waiting for top recruits. Yes, it's going to get messy, but if he's winning, I seriously doubt the fan base will be complaining. Let's face it. We'll be all giddy that the good times are back thanks to Harbaugh. It is what it is. I'd like it to be perfect, but nothing is perfect.
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The only thing that matters is winning. The Harbaugh honeymoon is in full swing, but his first sub-par season and he'll be thrown to the dogs like every other coach.
- This isn't a war. It's collegiate athletics.
- How has Harbaugh saved the program? Ticket sales?
The Tyus Battle comparison is spot on. It's important to note that the bulkiest group of decommitments were guys looking for greener pastures.
Alabama hasn't been hurt by Saban's style, which is that a scholarship offer is really just an invitation to try out for the 'Bama football team. Much the same could be said for the rest of the SEC. I'd much rather have Harbaugh pulling offers or stopping communication when recruits still have ample time to flip than have him bring kids in and send them packing with a forced transition year.
It's clear that the a lot of kids do not believe that a commitment is actually a commitment, just a way to hold their place in a class. But that doesn't excuse dishonesty from coaches.
Sadly, it has gotten to the point that this is how the game is played. Hoke was a successful recruiter (based on the rankings) and this article really brings into focus why he would not allow committed players to visit other schools: he believed in honoring commitments.
We can't have things both ways. If we, as Michigan fans, want a coach with a flexible recruiting philosophy (unlike Hoke) we're also going to conceed that there will be some less than honorable tactics used to get the possible class on board. Let's not pretend it's honorable, but let's also accept that's how the game is played, and we want to win.
Zerodark is right...every school that's winning is using questionable "roster management" practices. It sucks, and I don't like it, but it's the current market and the recruits are no more honorable than the schools.
If things happened as described it is certainly not a good look from Jim, but in all things recruiting you must understand that the coach is not permitted to say anything, not one word, about a potential recruit until signing day so all of these stories come from the recruit.
Is the recruit going to tell you his commitment was based on a mutual understanding that he needed to keep his grades up, get the required scores on his tests, stay out of trouble, etc..or is he going to flip the blame away from himself?
Hard to make a verdict on a case with so much information missing.
Given Harbaugh's entire outlook on life, I'm sure he feels like he can make offers to borderline admissions recruits because, hey, they'll either attack the day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind and ace their senior classes and admissions tests, or they won't in which case they aren't recruits he can use on his team after all. (See also: the Norfleet situation.) I'm not sure that this is a negative attribute. The lack of communication to these kids though is worrisome.
Too bad we can't hear the story from the Stanford perspective. I always like to hear both sides to paint the full picture, but this was an interesting read nonetheless.
I'm not a fan of ceasing communication (if that was indeed done on purpose - i.e., instead of someone on the Stanford end being lazy in not doing the weekly check-in calls). Then again, I think it might be worse if they just told a kid that your offer is no good either. So it's kind of a rough spot to be in.
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can't talk about non-signed recruits, all you can do is speculate really. It's like they say, there's two sides to every story, and the truth lies somewhere in-between. Since Harbaugh can't talk about what happened with the ones that say Standford quit communicating with them, it guess just becomes a matter of how much or how little you want to believe the recruit. For the record, I'm not defending or bashing anyone mentioned in the post, just an observation.
"there's two sides to every story, and the truth lies somewhere in-between"
Whoever said that has never seen a divorce.
We are forced to speculate, but there's still enough here to decide what's acceptable, what needs more information, and what's unjustifiable. If multiple recruits claim Stanford just stopped talking to them, that's not exactly a crime against humanity, but it's scummy and I don't see a good reason for it. Burden of proof is on Harbaugh here, though I don't think he can comment publicly so we can only hope Hackett looks into it.
The forced greyshirt is the only one that really bothers me. Ending contact with recruits is not the best, but if done well ahead of signing day its not a huge deal.
However in regards to guys decommiting... There is more leeway. The lack of contact is kinda disturbing, essentially ghosting a recruit. but, what do we have to compare this against?
Nice work anyway Ace.
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Didn't JH post a sign that said something like "those who work hard will stay" near a sign with the Bo quote about staying and winning championships? Wasn't there audiotape from a Michigan Spring practice of JH yelling at a player that if he wanted to stay, he had to do better? Is Michigan planning to sign 25 recruits, with 14 open slots? Didn't Michigan have more than 85 players on its roster earlier this year? I am pretty sure that the answer to each of those questions is "yes." Sounds like oversigining is coming to Michigan.
As an OSU fan, I follow OSU recruiting VERY closely. Players come and go, and just as most of the 18 Stanford decommits raise no red flags, most of the OSU comings and goings are perfectly explainable. And just as with the 18 Stanford commits, you need to look at each situation to see whether there was something concering. There are only three that I am aware of at OSU under Meyer that raise red flags for me: (1) the freshman that was offered a medical redshirt this year, declined it, and is now set to play at Auburn; (2) an OL this year that had committed and signed, but was not granted admission based on academic issues; and (3) last year, about 9 months before signing day, OSU told a committed recruit to look elsewhere. The first two may be perfectly legit; but they raise red flags. The third -- at least it was well before NLOI day, and he was communicated with clearly. (I am not saying that there are not more than those three that raise red flags; but they are the only ones that I know of.)
As to all the criticism here directed at OSU and Meyer, if you live in a glass house . . . .
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