My favorite indicator of how good a H.S. athlete is....is the number of competing offers. Star rankings do not impress me. Two years ago Tulsa verballed a Rivals 2-Star DB and then South Carolina came in with an offer and the kid ended up at South Carolina. Within 24 hours, his Rivals star rating went to 3-Stars. We all know examples of that.
I will try to update the recruiting info as I have it in a thread titled SUMMARY OF 2008 TULSA FOOTBALL RECRUITS as recruits are added. Would you please help me with this thread? If you have any info or if I have made errors, please post that info here in this thread. I will incorporate it in the RECRUITING SUMMARY. Thanks!!!
SUMMARY OF 2008 TULSA FOOTBALL RECRUITS
http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=245891
Both Tennessee and Arkansas sports boards and sports writers criticized transfers WR Slick Shelly and WR Andrew Norman. Shelly was accused of not being able to gain separation from defensive backs and Norman was critcized for not being able to get off and clear the offensive line.
I consider it sour grapes. It reminds me how Kragthorpe came into Tulsa and, with the same players that won one game the year before, took Tulsa to the Humanitarian Bowl. And how Graham went to Rice and took them to the Owls to their first bowl in 45 years. Shelly and Norman need a fresh start and good coaching....and they will get exactly that at Tulsa. You can have 80,000+ stadiums and a boatload of 4-Star players...but that doesn't mean the team's coach is a good coach. Nutt and Fulmer could probably learn a lot from Kragthorpe and Graham.
Regarding Arkansas, they ranked something like 105 out of 116 I-A schools in passing. I don't recall the exact nubmers. The Hogs went 4-17 (four completed passes in 17 attempts) against LSU. Many Arkansas fans are critical of Nutt because they feel the lack of a passing threat is causing opposing teams to stack the line and stuff the Hogs' excellent running backs.
And just about all the various football magazines had Tennessee Coach Vince Fulmer under fire for the Vols lack of success....given their talent on hand.
I don't know how to genetically clone, but if I could, I'd have a whole boatload of Chris Chamberlains. Paul actually had some stars and offers, but chose TU anyway - that shows his loyalty and intelligence IMHO.
What we need is defensive line speed, the kind we haven't had since Chad Evans. Our glaring weaknesses were cover speed and rush speed (if you overlook the kicking).