Notes, Quotes and Slants
-----
Pirate
Notebook No. 247
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
By Denny O'Brien |
|
BCS forces occasional
recruiting gambles
©2005 Bonesville.net
Now would be the appropriate time for N.C.
State coach Chuck Amato to remind us of the unfair recruiting advantage East
Carolina holds over the state's other Division I-A schools.
With the recent announcement that former
Georgia signee Jamar Bryant would enroll at ECU, the timing couldn't be
better. As such, Amato might consider himself justified for unleashing a
'told you so' in reference to past statements about his opposition to future
showdowns with the Pirates in football.
Who could blame him? After the painful
display that took place when the Pack and Pirates renewed their rivalry in
Charlotte last November, the talent gap between the two couldn't be more
clear.
But rest assured that East Carolina wasn't
the one boasting the improved horsepower when the two last met. So perhaps
Amato wasn't too far off the mark with his comments about certain in-state
schools enduring a decided disadvantage along the recruiting trail.
Because since the unveiling of the Bowl
Championship Series in the late 90's, ECU has seen the quality of its
recruiting harvests decline considerably. In contrast, North Carolina, N.C.
State, and even Wake Forest have celebrated the last several Signing Days
with plentiful bounties.
"Recruiting against (the BCS) has been very
difficult," Pirates coach Skip Holtz said recently. "I think that this is a
different age than it was 15 years ago when there was no BCS.
"All of a sudden, you kind of have the
haves and the have-nots. You have the teams that have the chance to compete
for the BCS and those who don't. And I think that gap has been getting
wider between the two of them. So, legitimate obstacle? Yes, an obstacle
that East Carolina didn't have to fight 15 years ago in the early 90's when
they built this program into what it was."
Back then, recruits made their college
selections based primarily on the coaches who pursued them and the schools
that were represented during the process. While conference affiliation may
have factored somewhat into those decisions, its presence on the radar
wasn't nearly as visible as it is today.
With the BCS, league association has become
one of the primary factors. In fact, a recent report in USA Today
suggests that a recruit nowadays is more likely to pledge his allegiance to
a bottom feeder from a BCS conference than a more traditionally successful
program from a league that is not guaranteed yearly access to one of the
cartel's bowls.
Such is the current climate in which Holtz
and many of his peers are now victims of a stacked deck when it comes to
drawing cards from the deck of talent. It has led to a scenario that forces
them to sometimes take gambles on gifted players who have been passed over
by BCS schools because of academic question marks.
Examples like Bryant, a jack-of-all-trades
from the fertile soil of Richmond County who actually may be deemed eligible
this fall, are growing by the day. They are growing because programs like
ECU have been left with little choice but to occasionally roll the dice on
players who some would consider to be academic risks.
Otherwise they are left to fish from a
talent pool that has been depleted of solid blue chippers.
Naturally there are those who would argue
that academic partial and non-qualifiers are deeply rooted in the culture of
East Carolina football. To a certain degree that mindset has some merit,
though not nearly to the extent that some insist.
Throughout ECU's gridiron history, coaches
have made the occasional exception by extending scholarship offers to
players who may not have met the academic requirements of rival programs
that also were recruiting them. However, you would be hard-pressed to find a
single time when the Pirates' roster was stacked with more than a handful of
student-athletes who did not meet the admissions standards at most Division
I schools.
It just so happens that most of the players
in question had celebrated high school careers that garnered recruiting
attention throughout the Southeast. And it also should be noted that the
majority of them were model citizens who went the extra mile once they
entered school.
Moving forward, the recruiting challenges
will become far greater for ECU. Not only must Holtz face the barricade
created by the BCS, but also the new standards the NCAA recently introduced
with the Academic Progress Rate.
The latter may force him to be even more
reluctant to accept non-qualifiers than he already is.
In cases where a recruit has impeccable
character and there is confidence in his willingness and ability to handle
the academic workload, Athletics Director Terry Holland should give Holtz
the green light. Otherwise it might be prudent to apply the brakes,
regardless of how talented the player might be.
The margin for error at East Carolina has
always been more narrow than at other in-state schools. The increasing
challenges it faces on the recruiting trail provides even less wiggle room.
Yep, it sure looks like ECU has a
recruiting chokehold over the rest of North Carolina.
Send an e-mail message to Denny O'Brien.
Click here to dig into Denny O'Brien's Bonesville
archives.
02/23/2007 02:00:11 AM |