Football Recruiting

I'm going to add one last note on football recruiting.  I've got a couple of football posts queued up, but, short of a coach leaving or some big news, I'm doing to devote this blog solely to basketball until the season ends.  There's lots of time after that for the football, right now we are having a special season for our basketball guys, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Now, the one last thing on football recruiting is this article about Zach Colvin.  From following the web, there were 3 guys I was afraid we would lose.  Campenni, Johnson, and Colvin.  These are all guys who had seen bigger offers or had referred to themselves as having made "soft" verbals.  Of course, Campenni did de-commit, but we hung on to Johnson and Colvin.

Back to Colvin.  He had committed to Illinois and then they pulled their offer.  Here is how he describes the next step:

“At the same time, Iowa and Michigan State were very interested, and I was interested in them. I wanted the Big Ten; I wanted Michigan State or Iowa. I held off committing anywhere because I wanted to see what happened over (last) summer.

“I got hurt when I went to Iowa’s camp. I had a great camp at Michigan State, but even though they came close to extending an offer, they never did. I was supposed to be next in their order.”

Note....he has strong family ties to MSU.

This young man had 10 offers and made 17 visits.  The pressure on him continued right up until the last minute.

“I was up in the air a little bit,” Colvin said. “My phone was ringing until the night before signing day. I’m glad to have this process done, and I feel good about my decision.”

And why did he choose BG?

“When you go through this process, you find out who really wants you and who has a plan for you. The big thing for me in committing to Bowling Green was they wanted me to play strong-side defensive end and hopefully play next year.”

People often wonder why teams don't stay good in the MAC over the long term.  I have a couple theories, one of which centers on coaching turnover.  My other theory is that when you have a star player look at college, it is 100% possible that they will go two full seasons before they step onto the field.  That's can 't be appealing.  A guy like Zach Colvin would be willing to do that at Illinois or MSU...but less likely at a MAC school.  Instead, he gravitates to the school on the way back up with opportunities to play right away.

And that's how talent can tend to drift to teams that aren't as good in ways you don't see in the Big 10.

Just a theory.

Football.  Rack me.  We're out.