Recruiting is a brutal business

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In college football, recruits are fair game

 

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Monday, Dec 24, 2007 - 09:41:26 am CST

 

It’s big business, this college football — a business reliant on securing the most able-bodied teenagers, fleet-footed and muscular youths whose successes or failures determine if men keep their jobs.

 

Given the stakes, you think coaches are going to play nice when it comes to recruiting? That’s a laugh.

 

“I used to tell my coaches all the time,” says Glenn Mason, former head coach at Kansas and Minnesota, “there are no friends in recruiting.”

 

Of course there aren’t. Why, if there were friends in recruiting, Nebraska might still have 20-some commitments in its 2008 recruiting class.

 

In late October, back when Bill Callahan still held the title of head football coach, the Huskers had 24 oral commitments.

 

But that number was destined to shrink. The team finished the season 5-7, and Callahan was shown the exit. Kids who committed to him and his coaching staff began to look around. And not only did some of those kids look around, they chose a different dance partner.

 

Bo Pelini has been Nebraska’s coach for just 22 days now, but he’s already found his first challenge. Last week, over a two-day period, the Huskers were hit with five decommitments. By week’s end, NU was down to 15 oral commitments.

 

Seeing that Nebraska is in transition, other schools have been quick to raid NU’s cabinet, with Colorado leading the chase. The Buffs could potentially end up with four players who were once committed to the Huskers, which in part explains the recent dose of hysteria gripping some Nebraska fans.

 

It is a cruelty that comes with recruiting. Soft commitments and decommitments are what Wyoming coach Joe Glenn once called “the ugliest part of recruiting.”

 

And while it may seem ugly and unfair, especially to Husker backers right now, swooping in to take recruits from a school that has just had a coaching change is as commonplace as the halftime marching bands in college football.

 

Mason knows as much. Did he ever try to woo recruits from a school in the midst of a coaching transition?

 

“Sure, yeah,” he says. “I guess everybody handles it differently. But if I was recruiting a guy hot and heavy, then say he committed to another school, then there was a coaching change at that school. I wouldn’t hesitate calling the young man up and asking, ‘Are you firm on that commitment? Would you like us to jump back in?’”

 

Dan Young, a Husker assistant under Tom Osborne and Frank Solich, says he remembers Nebraska coaches talking to kids who were wavering after a coaching shakeup at another school.

 

“Recruiting is a brutal business,” Young says. “People do anything they can do to put doubts in a player’s mind. ... You try to take advantage of any edge you have.”

 

Young says he’s a bit surprised Nebraska has lost so many commitments recently, but adds that “some kids who are maybe decommitting might not have been that solid in the beginning.”

 

“Who knows? If those kids got to the program, maybe they wouldn’t last,” Young says. “Maybe they wouldn’t have worked as hard as kids that know they want to play here.”

 

And while Pelini is known by about everybody around here, Young says that name is still a mystery to some high school kids across the country.

 

“It isn’t like everybody knows who Bo is,” Young says. “Even though he was here, and who he was here, it’s going to take a while once he becomes a head coach and gets known as the head coach. It takes a while.”

 

The Internet and media hype have taken recruiting to another level — some might say a seedy level, but so it goes.

 

Kids commit early to schools, and then are called constantly to see if they’ve changed their minds. When one does change his mind, the news quickly finds its way to the Internet and becomes fodder for a disgruntled fan base.

 

And these decommitments are hardly limited to schools that are changing coaches. Nowadays, a recruit’s word is nice, but it really doesn’t mean anything until he signs his letter of intent.

 

Last year, Florida signed four blue-chip recruits that were once committed to other schools — taking a quarterback from Texas, a linebacker from Notre Dame, a lineman from USC, and a defensive back from Indiana.

 

Signing day this year is Feb. 6. Right now, Nebraska has one five-star player and two four-star players, according to Rivals.com’s star rankings. There used to be more stars on that list. That concerns some people. It makes others roll their eyes.

 

“We didn’t really know who were the four stars (recruits), who were the five stars or three stars,” Young says. “You still got to look at the players and how they’re going to fit into your scheme. It just isn’t pure talent. There are kids out there that have great desire to come here. That’s worth something. You got to know what kind of a heart they have and how things are going to progress for them when it gets tough.”

 

Some people close to Nebraska’s recruiting situation say NU has some things brewing to make a strong rally from the recent rash of decommitments.

 

Who knows? Maybe Nebraska will raid someone else’s cabinet for a player or two. All is fair in love and recruiting.

 

“Typically, what happens is when a guy makes a verbal commitment to you and changes his mind, you get upset as a coach,” Mason says. “But if you’re successful at getting someone else to change his mind, you’re very pleased about it.”

 

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