Committed yesterday. Nobody gonna post about that but me ? #1 juco player. DL help is on the way. Maybe ? 6'6. On paper seems to be a great get. Had tons of offers 4* Yada yada
Zavion Hardy
- Thread starter Howiefeltersnstch
- Start date
I think Hutzler will get it together. This guy actually said he was stoked about Coach Turner. So maybe he isn't washed up and too old. He needs some studs across that line juco AND high schoolers. I think we will be wandering thru the dessert for a couple years regardless
It's hard to get excited with this coaching staff and their coaching and talent evaluation. Maybe he can bring his defensive coaches with him. That would get me excited.
Top Juco’s are back within reach for us again. The attention that JUCO athletes used to receive from the big boys has shifted to transfer portal players. The number of JUCO athletes who commit to power five programs has decreased by nearly 50% since the pre-portal era. This could be honey hole for us to take advantage of again, like back when Jackie used it heavily before the big boys decided to follow suit.
Only our fans would turn good news negative.
Good insight. His recruiting writeup sounds like the Incredible Hulk. He's 6'4" 265 with a 6'9" wingspan.
Also to my original point, notice not only just Hardy, but right now we’ve got commitments from the top 4 rated players in the JUCO system right now. All defensive players. Hopefully this system can be just as strong as it was us under the early Jackie days.Good insight. His recruiting writeup sounds like the Incredible Hulk. He's 6'4" 265 with a 6'9" wingspan.This is my GIF of a random Asian guy pumping sunshine
The talent pool in Juco has dropped significantly on the whole. We have done very well getting the ones this cycle that are good enough to play in the SEC, but you can't make a living in Juco any more. The portal has killed most of the Juco talent because bounce back players largely no longer go to Juco. They don't have to any more.
I know this. But my point is that if we focus there again and clean up the top ones, while the big boys are looking elsewhere, I’m saying this could be a honey hole for us again if vetted properly. There is plenty of JUCO SEC talent to get, that will have that chip on their shoulder to prove something.
There are not plenty. There are 2-3 a year that we can get at most. We did a great job of basically sweeping them this year. It won't be that way every year. I can promise you we didn't get the couple we got this year because big time programs were focused elsewhere. Everyone in the country wants this guy and the safety we just got.
There is plenty. Why would you want to sign more than 3-5 a year anyway? And for whatever reason, we got them this year. Are you saying we’re paying them more than everyone in the country? Ha.
There's definitely not plenty of SEC talent in the JUCO ranks any more. It has been slashed significantly. I'm not saying we are paying them more than anyone in the country. I'm saying we did a great job of recruiting them this year, because we have great relationships at Scooba mainly and Turner has a previous relationship with this kid. You can definitely tell who is only on the free site of this board. As to your other point, you wouldn't want to sign more than 3-5, but there definitely will not be 5 SEC level JUCO players in any year going forward that we have enough relationships to sign, and of the handful to come out of JUCO that can actually play at this level, you are going to be fighting the entire country for them. It's not going to be easy, which is why these 2 coming to us should be celebrated. It's a great job by our staff.
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If we sign 4-5 Juco kids a year going forward we will be changing coaches very soon. The game has changed. They don't get the same caliber athletes they used to get in that league.
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When Jackie did it, it was generally considered a negative over developing talent from redshirt year through seniors. I can recall him being very successful with JUCOs, but then later in his tenure people blaming his reliance on JUCOs for his downfall in not having the players he needed because he was too reliant on JUCO. Boy how times have changed...
I suspect there are way more than 2-3 each year. Where did that number come from? Of the roughly 6000 JUCO players in any given year about 350 sign with FBS schools annually. At 3 each year, you are saying 1% of those signed by FBS aren't capable of playing at that level?
Nah, not really. Each year is different with jucos. Defense is where you want them. I'll take bounce backs anytime and we've got basically three of those in this class and James was pretty much our placed guy. This year is heavy Juco due to depth and bounce backs available. But we'll always sign 2-4 depending on the year
1. - That number has and will continue to drop with the transfer portal. Kids with options largely aren't going to juco any more when they leave a FBS program
2 - FBS is a very broad term. We don't need FBS jucos. We need SEC level jucos. That's a very different thing
3- We don't have relationships to sign a large portion of JUCOS. You have to limit the numbers mainly to MS jucos, which decreases those numbers significantlty as well.
Bounce backs actually going to JUCO programs is almost like a unicorn at this point. We will always sign a couple, but 4 is going to be pushing it most of the time. We signed more than we should have this past year to put it nicely. The ones we have committed this year are much higher in quality.
Just trying to understand, how do you know there are only 2-5 SEC players in JuCo?
I didn't say there were 2-5. I said realistically, that's the amount we would even have enough relationships/connections to sign. When you only have the relationships to sign that many SEC level players it's going to be unusual to hit on all of them (which we have done this cycle which is amazing) when you are fighting the entire conference for those small amount of players. But to make you understand better, I looked at the amount that used to sign with SEC level programs prior to the portal opening totally up and looked at the amount that currently go to SEC programs now and actually produce once they arrrive on SEC campuses. It's a big difference and the reason for that is because kids can transfer without sitting now. There takes a special circumstance for any of these athletes to be required to go to JUCO in the modern era of CFB.
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This exactly. A kid use to go to Juco b/c they didnt have grades or they didnt have the big time offers they wanted and didnt want to settle for a lesser school.
Now they can go to that lesser school. Get a full ride. Get all the benefits and perks of being a divison 1 athlete and coaching, and schooling, and tutoring... then enter the portal.
We have one of the best, if not the best, juco program in the country 90 miles away. Even he said he doesnt get the bounce backs down there anymore. The portal has killed JUCO in every sport. If you have more than 1-2 guys you are signing yearly from a JUCO, you arent doing good where the real recruiting is taking place.
It's "commitments", doesn't mean squat yet so not going to care till they sign. Still time for big money to be offered to them and by big money I mean here are Hardy's offers, "Hardy also holds offers from Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Florida, Oklahoma and Southern Cal among several others" Any of those have somebody go down this Saturday or before signing day, he'll have to tell them "no thanks, I don't want more money, I'm going to MSU instead".....
According to Hardy he has developed a great relationship with the staff and he said it's a great positive that he has a couple of previous team mates playing at State. They all told him it was a great situation and he was gonna wait until November but decided to go ahead and commit and try to help build this class. Sounds like a good thing to me. We need all the help we can get
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