Jinks Talks to The Blade

With the staff completed and recruiting now in crazy mode, Mike Jinks sat down with The Blade to talk about the state of play right now.

I'm not going to steal their thunder, so head over to The Blade, read the story and then come back and I've got some comments.

OK.

There are a couple of things I would point you towards.

First, recruiting.  Coach Jinks talked about his experience at Texas Tech with fast recruiting when you just got a job and how it didn't work out.  Coach Babers said much the same thing after his first class and we've seen it in basketball as well...those guys you pick up that you don't know very well often times don't pan out.

A couple things from this.

It shows a guy who has been learning at the college level.

It should also serve notice to the Falcon Nation that we might very well bring in a class that leaves some scholarships on the table for this year.  If we do, that's because we're making a conscious decision to keep the scholarships for the kinds of long-term players we need and not hastily acquired guys who don't fit.

So, on signing day I don't want to hear everyone bitching that we only had 16 signees, if that happens.  It was a conscious choice, which will be evaluated over time...the challenge you pick up with that is going out the next year and getting better guys with the saved scholarships.

He talked about some other things--his staff hiring process, for example, and what they are doing to open Ohio and Florida up and put Texas into our recruiting base.  Anyone who reads here knows that I have questioned both his hire and (even more) his staff.  I keep hearing "you just have to talk to him" and I keep thinking, "what is that going to show?"

To that end, I will say this:  the Mike Jinks in this story is a guy who clearly knows what he is about and sounds to me like he knows what he is doing.

The results, of course, still have to be achieved, but that would have been true regardless of who we hired.

Based on twitter, he and Eliano are sprinkling defensive offers across Florida.  They also visited Falcon verbal Jean-Charles Shemar.

Anyway, here's what I will say.  This is going to be worth watching.