MORGANTOWN — Some of the media members in front of whom Rhett Rodriguez sat recently during his first news conference as West Virginia Univers…
From
To
MORGANTOWN — Piece by piece, Rich Rodriguez’s football coaching staff has been coming together.
MORGANTOWN — We live in an age of athletics in which they measure everything and treasure what they measure. Doesn’t matter the sport. We meas…
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — This past week, after West Virginia's football program collared its top recruiting project in wide receiver Rodney Gallagher III of Laurel Highlands High in Pennsylvania, 247Sports' Chris Anderson put together a list of the top 25-ranked football recruits West Virginia has plucked off the board during the internet era.
It proved to be an interesting list of players, one which emphasized just how difficult it is to make judgements on 18 and 19-year-old kids upon whom you are investing the future of your program.
Okay, normally, you can hit the 5-star talent on the head. That is not the difficult part of the process. God saw to that by giving us digital timers, tape measures and videos to put numbers on athletes and their skills.
But the formula is hardly foolproof, for you are dealing with the most unpredictable sub-strata of the human species — the young athlete.
What the listing showed was just how high a tightrope you walk when recruiting ... and if past performance is an indication of future success, you wonder whether this NIL money being thrown around by somebody — perhaps a better word would be everybody — is money well invested.
One 5-star athlete makes it, another doesn't.
Why?
There's almost as many reasons as there are failures, for the upbringing of each athlete, the coaching, the hormones; they all are tugging in different directions.
He may be homesick. He may not like the academic atmosphere, the coach, the color of the helmet. It may be romantic problems that keep him from moving forward or, just as bad, romantic involvement that holds him back.
Everyone wants the same thing in the end, but how badly they want it matters. In some instances it may not be the athlete's problem at all, simply the wrong kid in the wrong offense or defense.
I took a look at the list 247Sports put out and have no arguments with the list, but it was interesting to put stars on their production at WVU after recruitment; just as they did before their recruitment.
Here is the list of the players 1-25 with the number of stars I awarded them for their time here. They are presented according to the recruiting rating given them at the time they came to school:
RB Noel Devine, *****; RB Jason Gwaltney, *; WR Brandon Barrett; WR Ivan McCartney, ***; QB Geno Smith, *****; WR Rodney Gallagher, INC; OT Wyatt Willum, INC; DL Dante Stills, *****; DE Bruce Irvin, *****; DB Dravon Askew-Henry, ****; LB Brendan Ferns, INJ; WR Shelton Gibson, ****; WR Jovon Durante, **; LB Deon-Tay McManus; OT Josh Jenkins, ****; QB Barry Brunetti, *; DB Kwantel Raines, *; OL Quinton Spain, *****; WR Tavon Austin, *****; WR Logan Heastie; WR Jacoby Spells; WR Kaden Prather INC; RB Donte Thomas-Williams; WR Steven Smothers.
As you can see, 10 of players were solid to great players for WVU. You don't find many that top Devine, Smith, Austin, Spain, Spills and Irvin in WVU history.
In truth, WVU did well with the top-rated players, getting 4- or 5-star careers from seven of the top 17 while two of them have not played out their careers at WVU with one being lost to injury.
But is that the overall kind of return you want on how much money now is being poured into the recruiting — be it in camps, travel, time or from contributors into the combines that provide the NIL money?
Gwaltney, for example, was the second most heralded recruit WVU brought in, topped only by the devine Mr. Devine, yet he played only six games as a freshman before being sidetracked, then saw Steve Slaton show up on the scene.
In the end, WVU got far more out of his half-brother Scooter Berry, who became a major force on the defensive line while Gwaltney evaporated into history.
And it's not much different in basketball, where all WVU got was trouble from it's most celebrated recruit, Jonathan Hargett, to say nothing of the Oscar Tshiebwe adventure.
With so much money now involved in the process, along with so many more people, the tolerance of errors expands along with the margin of error, for with the portal involved players are more likely to leave than ever before.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — West Virginia, with its future suddenly on shaky ground, is looking back on the solid foundation laid by its pas…
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — His childhood was as difficult as anyone you will ever meet or hear about and that is part of the reason why Noe…
