Friday, December 31, 2010

I'm doing just fine, thank you — and let's hope Derek King is too

Thanks, Greg M, for inquiring about my mental state. No, I'm not in a deep state of depression. I'm having a great holiday season, eating exceptionally well, hanging out with my kids, watching ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries (I got the first volume for Christmas), preparing to do some cooking on the Green Egg, and of course watching some bowl games. (Tyler Bray's kind of a punk.)

In other words, I'm not at work and I'm not trying to kill time. And yes, I'm taking a little break from MV!

But soon I will be.

Oh, and if you've heard we've lost two verbal commitments, don't be too worried about it.

Alex Barr has switched his commitment to NC State. He was a huge kid who'd have been a project much like Andrew Bridges, who redshirted this past seasons. We've got two other offensive linemen, James Lewis and Jake Bernstein, who'll play before he would have, and two other promising projects, Jose Valedon and Spencer Pulley.

Also, QB Damien Fleming has reportedly withdrawn his commitment. We've got another quarterback commitment, Shaun White, who was similarly rated, and this gives Coach Franklin some room to recruit a better QB before signing day in February. If you ask me, Coach Franklin's going hard after a better quarterback and he deciding whether to keep White or Fleming.

Sumler's best offers are from Southern Miss, Memphis and UAB, while Fleming supposedly had an offer from West Virginia (not sure that'll stick with Dana Halgorsen joining the Mountaineers since then) as well as MTSU, Southern and Hampton.

So which recruits should we really want to keep?

Athlete Derek King had offers from Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee and Ole Miss. He's by far our most decorated recruit.

Tackle James Lewis could have been but he committed early with offers from Kentucky, Duke and Illinois, but he almost certainly would have gotten better ones.

The other recruit with an SEC offer was RB Mitchell Hester (Arkansas).

Guys with BCS offers included DE/TE Keith Heitzman (Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana), OL Jake Bernstein (Arizona, Cincinnati, others), DE Conor Hart (Syracuse), WR Courtney Bynes (Illinois, Duke, Cincy), RB JJ Keels (Maryland, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Cincy, Duke) and RB Marcus Sumler (Iowa State).

Happy New Year, everybody.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's Goro?

Anonymous said...

Enough is enough - It's time to play Charlie Goro.

Anonymous said...

Dimon, its been very quiet on the hiring of a defensive coordinator for Coach Franklin's staff. So far I am please with the direction of the staff, but I am looking forward to who we secure to run the defense. Have you heard anything credible yet?

Anonymous said...

zzzzzzzzzz

Anonymous said...

why didn't we get David Lee as offensive coordinator!!???? He goes to Ole Miss as OC! We could have had him!

Anonymous said...

What's MV's take on the offensive staff announcement? One of the more intriguing comments Franklin made was about his personal emphasis on getting a top qb recruit. makes me wonder if he has one under wraps. I know a lot of people aren't thrilled with the vanilla cast of mostly MD coaches and old buddies of Franklin. But, I disagree. Compared to CoBoJo's staff, these guys seem to have more youth, fire, and risk tolerance. I'm an optimist, but I think we'll get to a level of respectability under Franklin's watch.