Friday, June 29, 2018

3-star DB from Detroit Verbals to BG


BG has another verbal, and this one the highest ranked player of the class to date.  He's a 3-star player and the first one in this class with a large number of FBS offers, in this case including Ball State, Buffalo, EMU, Indiana, Iowa State, Miami, Syracuse and WMU.

He was a CB/RB in HS, but is listed on 247 as a safety.  He is 5'10" and 177.

He played at East English Valley Prep last year and then went to Harper Woods with the Coach this year.  He was 2nd-team all-Detroit at RB for the Free Press and 1st-team all Detroit for the Detroit News as a DB.  They said...

Anderson was a force from his secondary position where he got in on 43 tackles while getting six interceptions and breaking up nine passes to lead East English to the PSL championship game. He was also an impact player on offense, rushing for 1,210 yards and 14 TDs while also grabbing 16 passes for 137 yards and four TDs. Anderson has been offered by Syracuse. 
“Jordan is versatile where he can cover anybody’s No. 1 receiver, plus he is very supportive in the run game,” Coach Rod Oden said.

Welcome to the Falcons, Jordan.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

BG Adds Additional Defensive JUCO

BG adds another JUCO player on the defensive side of the ball.  As you can see on the post above, he has had quite a trip and is willing to own it.  He's a 6'3" CB, which is something you don't see too often. His name is Jai Nunn-Liddell.

He was a 2-star recruit on 247 when he signed at Troy.  As far as I can see, Troy was his only FBS offer.

Here's what Troy said about his HS career

Three-year starter at wide receiver and defensive back for Pebblebrook High School … Finished his senior season with 61 tackles – 29 solo – to go along with nine pass break ups, two interceptions and four tackles for loss.

He did not play at Troy.  At NEO, where he was only one year, he played in 4 games and had 2 tackles.

Welcome to the Falcons, Jai.

That's the fifth immediately-eligible JUCO player, 3 of them on defense, in the past couple weeks.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Falcons Nab Three '19 Verbals

So, BG had its most productive week of recruiting this week, heading into the "dead period" with verbals from 3 offensive players.

The highest profile player is QB Logan Holgorsen, whose Father coaches West Virginia.  He was committed to North Texas, but flipped that to BGSU today.  He's a 3-star recruit on 24/7.  He didn't have a lot of offers--reported to be just BG and North Texas--though that might be because of his height, at 6'0".   This is today's latest episode of "all roads lead to Lubbock" reveals that Holgorsen's Dad coached at Texas Tech, which got him to North Texas and to BG.

In a statement that will have people in BG scratching heads, he said “Bowling Green also runs almost the exact same offense that my dad runs at West Virginia.”

If you say so.

I saw somewhere, though I can't find it now, that he is a run-pass threat, something that we keep saying we don't want...something I can't figure out.

When he arrives in '19, he'll be the 3rd highly-recruit QB in the program.  There's Jarrett Doege, Bryce Veasley and then Holgorsen.  Most coaches like one QB per class...and the issue this year is with Morgan leaving, BG is short on depth and will need to hope very much that Doege stays healthy.

The second player is Jaden Gragg, a CB/WR from Melbourne, Florida, which is on the Atlantic Coast of the state.  From what I have seen, I think he'd be a CB or S in college.  There isn't a lot of info about him...scanning his twitter feed reveals a number of FCS offers and I didn't see any other FBS offers.

Luke Harmon is from Grand Rapids Central Catholic.  He's an OT, 6'5" and 240.  He has a 24/7 page for no rankings or reports of offers.  A local blogger ranked him as the #50 player in the Western Michigan/Lake region.

Lucas, Jaden, Luke...welcome to the Falcons.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

BG With '19 Verbal

With all the JUCO players, BG also has a new HS verbal for '19.  His name is Darrell Wyatt, who is 6'1" and 175 pounds and he's a WR who attends Detroit Martin Luther King.  He's a 2-star recruit on 247, with an FBS offer from CMU.  Also, he has offers from Delaware State, Youngstown State, Findlay, Davenport and Ferris State.

They play in D2 in Michigan and it's a successful program.  They made the state semi-finals last year.  The year before they won it all.

He was all-region underclassmen, and is ranked as the #69 player in Michigan by 247.  The D-Zone says he is a late bloomer.

Welcome to the Falcons, Darrell.

BG Continues JUCO recruiting


Josh Moore is the latest commit to the BG Football program, yet another signee from a JUCO.  He is from Coffeyville CC in Kansas, where he only played one season, catching 10 passes, 154 yards and 1 TD.

He's from Prattville, AL.  According to this, when he spoke at his signing day he said that he had once been headed to Tulsa, but "I didn’t get my grades right. First off, I want to tell you young guys, stay on top of y’all’s grades. Because going to college for free is something good."

Which it is.

He apparently played QB as a junior, moved to Lubbock (all roads lead to Lubbock), and then moved back to Prattville and played WR.  This same story says he had 10 offers (out of HS) including Cincinnati, Tulane, Arkansas State and Troy and I saw elsewhere that he visited Michigan.  On 247, you can see that he had an offer from BG, in fact, as well as Utah.

He was a 2-star recruit out of Prattville.

While in Lubbock he won the district title in the long jump.

His twitter profile says he will be graduating in December 2018, but my guess is that if he is coming now that he is going to be eligible this Fall. 

If so, he represents a rash of late 2018 signees as BG looks to plug gaps.  As I said before, the sense I get is that Spring practice revealed players were not as ready as hoped and the staff knows they cannot afford another awful year.  There were also losses at WR.

On second thought, I'm going to take his profile at face value.

Welcome to the Falcons, Josh.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Football Continues to Add JUCO Players

The Falcons are continuing to seek out new players to help with this Fall's team.  A couple have come up in recent days.

The first is WR Jordan-Wayne Prather.  He played at Antelope CC in California, where he caught 43 passes last year, about 14 per catch and 7 TDs.  He originally signed a LOI to go to Marshall and now has switched to Bowling Green.  On 24/7 he's a 3-star player and is listed at 6'1" and 195 and reported an EMU offer.  Prather is from Paducah, KY originally, where he led his HS team in his senior year with 43 receptions for 861 yards and nine touchdowns.

There's also LB Eldridge Salguero, who is 6'1" and 205 Lbs who comes from Los Angeles Pierce College and before that played HS in Birmingham, CA.  He was the defensive player of the year in his HS conference.

He played in 16 JUCO games, with 86 total tackles and 1.5 sacks.

Demontae Haigler is a d-lineman from Phoenix College in Phoenix, AZ.  He's originally from Montgomery, AL, and was listed at 6'1" and 255 pounds.  In HS, he had 78 tackles and four sacks his senior year.  Apparently, he was at Miles College before Phoenix.  He's listed on the roster at Phoenix but I can't find anything on how and if he played.

BG has added 4 JUCO players in the last couple weeks, 2 WR and 1 on defense.  I'd guess that it signals three things.  First, I think the Coaches know they need to start to demonstrate some results soon.  Second, the departures at WR have caused some concern.  And third, I think that after spring practice evaluation, Coach Pelini needed some older players to fill the gaps in where maybe some younger players are not ready.

Those are just suppositions, I have no inside information.

Welcome to the Falcons, gentlemen.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Falcons pick up new defensive commit


BG now has its third commit this week.  All three of them have come on the defensive side of the ball.  This young man is Decarleon Townsend.  He's a 6'0", 195 pound OLB from Bedford, OH.  Bedford is in the east Cleveland suburbs. 

24/7 lists him as a 2-star player, but there is no composite ranking.  He has a reported offer from EMU.

He was honorable mention all-district.  He made 37 tackles and 1 sack during his junior year.  Bedford is a good team, they were 11-1 last year and played in the regional final.

One note.  All 3 of the verbals so far have come from the Great Lakes region, for whatever that might mean.  All my comments on recruiting from the previous post still stand.

Welcome to the Falcons, Decarleon.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Football Adds WR for this Fall

With the departure of a couple WRs, BG has gone out and picked up a JUCO WR who will be eligible to play this fall.  His name RB Marlow and he has been playing at the College of the Canyons, which is in California.  He is originally from Florida, where he was second-team all-state in HS.

He's 5'10 and 175, so looking like more of a slot guy than an edge guy.  He was their 3rd leading WR last year with 31 receptions.  He had 13.5 yards per reception but scored 7 TDs, tied for the team lead.

Welcome to the Falcons, RB

BG Gets 2 Football Verbals

Football has its very two verbals for the '19 class, both of them on defense.

The first is Darren Anders, a 6'1" and 195 pound OLB.  His other offers were from Findlay, Robert Morris, Notre Dame College and Butler, according to 24/7, which lists him as a 0-star recruit.  He was 2nd team All-Ohio as a LB in Division II.  He played both ways in HS set a few school records as a running back.  He also had 10.5 sacks, a school record.   With no actual factual information whatsoever, it would not surprise me if he was moved to Safety.

Jaylen Pate is a DE/LB who plays at Lane Tech in the Chicago area.  He's 6'4" and 220 pounds.  His twitter profile says he was all-conference.  There is no 24/7 on him and not a lot of info beyond that.

I think a lot of people will have their eyes on our recruiting this summer.  Again, just guessing, but I suspect you're getting a lot of talk from other schools about the state of the program.  These two guys are not that typical of the players recruited during the Jinks tenure, but I'd let the whole thing play out before drawing too many conclusions.  Also, while you like to get guys other schools wanted, recruiting rankings aren't everything. 

However, recruiting is literally the only calling card of this coaching staff to date.

FWIW, Miami and Toledo are out of the gate hard.  Miami has commitments from 16 players, 9 of them 3-stars.  UT has 8 3-star players, WMU 6 and NIU 5.

Thursday, June 07, 2018

Guyton Removed From Team

Coach Jinks has removed Datrin Guyton from the football team as a result of an incident that happened on May 23.  The Blade has the story and you should read it in full to get the full flavor of the allegations against Guyton.  It is worth the read.

Coach says in the story that Guyton was already on zero-tolerance based on something else, so the outcome of the case is not relevant to whether he plays football for us.

Here's the story I wrote when we found out he was coming to BG...note that the Oregon State coach seemed to vouch for Guyton as he was dismissing him from the program.

I'm always torn.  I am more or less against us taking guys who have been dismissed from other programs.  At the same time, if someone was dismissed from a program and made a decision to turn his life around, I'm a huge fan of that.

With Robbie Rhodes and Guyton, these two experiments have turned out badly, and do not reflect well on our program or our institution.

Best of luck to Mr. Guyton.  I hope he does turn his life around.

Sunday, June 03, 2018

Blade: Guyton arrested for robbery, suspended

So, the hill continues to get taller for BG, as the news breaks tonight that Datrin Guyton was arrested for robbery and is indefinitely suspended.  The arrest came from the Wood County Sheriff.

We don't have a lot of details right now, and the University told The Blade that they are still collecting information about the situation.  So, at this point, this is an accusation until we learn more.

Guyton was dropped from the Oregon State program for some kind of disciplinary issue, played JUCO for a year and then made his way to Bowling Green.  He was a highly ranked HS player and had clear physical ability, so he got a second chance at Bowling Green.  In this way, he is reminiscent of Robbie Rhodes, who was chased out at Baylor, played for Babers and then was dismissed by Jinks.

So, we will watch how this turns out.  However you slice it, the off-season has continued to be unkind to the Falcons.  You have to wonder how those WRs who transferred feel now that there is an opening.

Saturday, June 02, 2018

Blade: Punter leaves football program

So, this is not good news.  We were all spoiled by having an All-MAC punter in Joseph Davidson, who was just a machine during his years in our uniform.  There was no heir apparent on the roster, so BG went out and picked up a highly-ranked JUCO punter named Cooper Lee.  This seemed to have settled things, but Lee never made it onto the field and has left the program.

It leaves BG in a difficult position.  There are two punters on the roster, who you can read about here, but neither of them is a blue-chip stud,, to put it charitably.

You can combine that with the school's error in calculating Jake Suder's eligibility, and we go from having excellent special teams to a bunch of question marks really quickly, and largely from self-inflicted wounds.  Obviously, Suder's situation should have been accurately understood and a kicker recruited and a punter should have been ready to take Davidson's place.  People graduate.  It isn't unpredictable.

Anyway, the spring continues to bring news for the football program that would point us toward things getting harder to see any kind of turnaround for 2018.  Not that it can't or won't happen, just that the player movement situation has made it more difficult.