Tulsa Still Has Some Tricks Under Sleaves

[Stallion]

apparently disregarding the Phil Bennett "Ignore the Top 100" Rule, Tulsa got visits this weekend from two National 4 star recruits- a RB Broderick Green from Little Rock who is committed to USC and a WR Greg Little from Durham North Carolina who is committed to Notre Dame. Meanwhile Phil Bennett only bothered to offer two recruits in the Texas Top 100 all year long. I wonder if Doherty plans to spot the field on the Texas Top 30 every year?

[Pony Fan]

Did they get them?

[jkflamebo]

i'd say a 1 in a million chance

[PK]

Yeah, a quick tour of the Tulsa campus ought to seal the deal. Let's see...USC or Tulsa? or... Notre Dame or Tulsa??? Unless there is money changing hands here, I don't see it happening.

[originaloverthehilltop1]

yeah. stallion thinks smu is ignoring the top 100 lists. not the other way around.

[PonySoprano]

Maybe Tulsa's problem is that they have tricks under their "sleaves."

Now if they had a few tricks up their sleeves, they might have a chance.

[EastStang]

I suspect if Bennett said that, it is more in the view of face saving. I am pretty sure that every player (with suitable grades) got interest letters from SMU last year. Bennett might have put in a call to the kids' coaches to see if SMU was even on their radar and probably checked Rivals and Scout to see if the kid listed SMU on their interest lists. If he saw no interest and heard there was no interest, why tie up an offer and why waste time going after someone who clearly has shown no interest. In his blog he said that the final two weeks are spent holding on to your commits and following rumors of decommits. If there were rumors out there that a kid's commitment was soft, he probably did whatever the rules allow him to do to follow up on that. Graham may have lucked into the situaton, being new at Tulsa, he probably just sent out interest letters to all the 100's he could possibly write to. A kid with a soft commit might listen. They don't have viagra for commitments.

[RedRiverPony]

Not true (about ignoring lists for the sake of saving face). What was it, three years ago (four?) when we signed 10 three-star guys? Not USC, I realize, but better than we'd had in some time. I was at the alumni meet-n-greet, and Coach Bennett said then that the lists and stars don't mean anything, other than fans, and that while it's nice to talk about these things as fans, coaches don't care about those lists. Any coach worth anything will go off his own evaluation before he'll do anything in response to some other guy's list.

[mrydel]

If the lists do not mean anything, why do UT,USC, Notre Dame, OU, A&M,etc. waste their time signing all of these 4,5 &6 star kids. Seems to mean they have the ability to evaluate. Shouldn't they be "stealing" some of our 2 star guys?

[perunapower]

If the lists do not mean anything, why do UT,USC, Notre Dame, OU, A&M,etc. waste their time signing all of these 4,5 &6 star kids. Seems to mean they have the ability to evaluate. Shouldn't they be "stealing" some of our 2 star guys?

He means they aren't the end all as far as recruiting goes. There are going to be overlaps between what a coach sees as good and what Rivals or Scout see as good. But ultimately only the coach (arguably) knows what is best for the team and what players have the best potential to succeed in the environment of their school. One guy may be a 5-star, but has a poor attitude, so the coach goes for the 3-star who will work harder and be a team player.

[Stallion]

Ok the comment about .02% is in reference to those that claim that Phil has a secret list of crazy good players better than the Texas Top 100 and make comments like Logan Turner was the only QB SMU wanted. Of course, we wanted 100% of the Texas Top 100 that could get into school. Logan Turner was far far down our original recruiting want list. We couldn't even get our foot in the door with these kids though and offered the only 2 that would listen long enough to say no.

[PK]

We get your point...but it's the math Stallion that is not following your logic. 0.02% is less than 1%. 2% of 100 is 2. 0.02% of 100 is 0.02.

[EastStang]

I'm glad to see that Stallion agrees with me, that Bennett doesn't waste time going after players who won't give him the time of day.