With the Spring Football game approaching this weekend and with NC State’s football recruiting evolving into a very different dynamic under Tom O’Brien than we had under Chuck Amato, we thought that we would share some interesting insight from a former college football coach.
(Tip of the hat to Dave Sez for linking this up a couple of months ago. We saved it for a slow period like today).
As we walked back out onto the front porch, before I said goodbye, I turned to his mom one last time, hugged her neck and reminded her how much I loved her. Then, with all the sincerity I could muster, I looked that young man directly in the eyes and said, “I have never told anybody this before, but you’re gonna win three Heisman trophies at Auburn. You’d win four, but you’re gonna be in the NFL by then.”
As I turned to leave, a long black, stretch limousine pulled up in front of the house. A little, short driver with one of those driver’s caps and half-jackets on got out, walked all the way around the back of the limousine and opened the back door next to the curb.
Out stepped my ol’ man.
He had scheduled his official visit for 7:30 p.m. on the same night.
As he waddled up that sidewalk wearing that silly-looking safari hat and those red/yellow/green sunglasses that he always wears, my eyes got as big as saucers and my jaw dropped.
My ol’ man stepped up on the porch, said hello to that mama, shook Martavius’ hand, turned to me, patted me on the head (in front of both of them) and said, “Terry, when you get home, your mama wants you to call her.”
That’s all he said!
You talk about dirty recruiting – it doesn’t get any dirtier. Nobody has ever been “who’s your daddy-ed” worse than that.
Post Script:
In our comments section below this entry one of our readers asked the following: “SFN – What do you mean by a different dynamic under TOB? I know they’ll recruit differently, but I’d be interested in your thoughts – other than the obvious – the South FL pipeline.”
Great question!
From the outside – (as we are not intimately involved with following the small details of recruiting anymore) – we are observing a huge shift in the quantity and the nature of the universe of potential high school recruiting targets.
A few differences from CTC’s recruiting that we have observed since TOB’s arrival:
(1) Geographic expanions and dispersion – Suddenly, TOB’s (and staff’s) national network of contacts is producing contacts all over the country in markets where we have recently had no presence?
Since when does NC State recruit any football player from the state of Illinois? Targets from New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other markets are popping up all over the place. There can be nothing but positives that come from enlarging the number of recruits in a potential talent pool.
And…it makes great sense. Why would a fantastic ACC experience in the nation’s #1 area to live and do business with mild winters and fantastic seasons NOT be appealing to some kids from the miserable northeast and midwest? TOB can speak from first hand experience about CHOOSING to make the move to the Triangle from other spots.
(2) Targeted recruiting philosophy – Gone are the days where we will take a dozen “athletes” who can basically play defensive back or not play at all. It will be surprising to me if our program ‘wakes up’ one year and suddenly realizes that don’t have a capable quarterback on the roster. Or enough offensive linemen smart enough to remember the plays. Or three linebackers who are serviecable.
Even IF such a situation were to present itself, TOB’s network of contacts (point #1) and ability to find undervalued talent (point #3)
(3) Undervalued talent – Recruiting ‘expert’, Tom Lemming recently rated Tom O’Brien and staff as the best evaluators of hidden talent in America. Couple this with the staff’s large network of contacts and it is obvious that the Wolfpack’s program should be able to fill targeted needs relatively efficiently.
Need a punter? Presto! Sign a top JUCO punter from California.
NC State’s recruiting ‘rankings’ may fall a bit from CTC’s best classes because we probably won’t be over-recruiting some of the positions that usually garner more “stars”. But, I expect the ‘return on investment’ generated by the performance of the kids that we sign will rise significantly as we will have more targeted talent that can actually play the positions needed on the field.
(4) Kids who mention academics – We all get our internet recruiting information from the same two sources: The Wolfpacker and Pack Pride. Sometimes the features on of the recruiting targets contain valuable information; sometimes they do not.
Recently, however, I have noticed A LOT more comments from recruits that resemble the following: “The first thing that Coach O’Brien/staff mentioned to me was academics” or “Academics are very important to me”.
This is a change.
