Weekly Athletic Recruiting Links

Schiano makes grand entrance to see recruit – Daily Record
Todd Smith has seen no shortage of big-name college football coaches making their way through West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School’s hallways in recent months. “There was a lot of hoopla going on in the springtime,” WW-P South’s football coach said. ‘Every day our kids were lining up to see what big-time coach was walking through next.” Yet, Greg Schiano’s entrance last weekend was different. The Rutgers football coach wanted to catch Smith’s prized pupil, J.B. Fitzgerald, in action, but WW-P South’s opener conflicted with three other games Schiano needed to see at the Meadowlands. And so shortly before the 1 p.m. kickoff last Saturday, a red and black helicopter landed in the park across the street from WW-P South’s football field. Out walked Schiano, the consensus National Coach of the Year, who watched New Jersey’s most sought-after linebacker recruit play the entire first half. “So far, that’s probably the biggest thing we’ve seen throughout J.B.’s recruiting process,” Smith said. “It was pretty cool.” Told of Smith’s comment, Schiano said that wasn’t the reason he trekked to WW-P South’s game by helicopter. “We do it so we can be the most efficient that we can be with our time,” Schiano said. But, Schiano said of the buzz it created, “That is a residual effect, for sure.”

Florida player thought UNLV made a promise, now sets his sights on Ole Miss – Las Vegas Sun
At Lely High in Naples, Fla., classmates dubbed the star football player ” The King. ” Eastern Michigan and Kent State were after him, but UNLV offered him a scholarship. Or so he thought. When the day arrived in February to sign with the university, he instead was left to tell an auditorium packed with parents , peers, coaches and teachers of an alternate plan. UNLV had made a mistake. Baptiste didn’t find out until the last minute. As Baptiste discovered, college football recruiting can be cruel. Universities routinely overbook, offering more scholarships than they have – making “blanket offers” – expecting to withdraw some as the slots fill up. Even in that tough, competitive environment, however, Baptiste’s experience stands out. If UNLV had told him earlier that it wasn’t interested, he would have had ample time to find another school. But by the time he learned of UNLV coach Mike Sanford’s decision, he had no other options. This fall, Baptiste is attending Tallahassee Community College – which doesn’t have a football program.

Wolverines, Douglass make a deal – Indy Star
For Carmel High School senior Stuart Douglass, all it took was a phone call. First-year University of Michigan basketball coach John Beilein called Tuesday evening as scheduled, but instead of the usual recruiting chitchat, Beilein offered the 6-2 guard a basketball scholarship. After hanging up, Douglass didn’t mull over the offer long. He called back that night with a “yes.” “I was very excited, I’m still very excited,” said Douglass, who will make his previously scheduled official visit to the Ann Arbor campus next weekend. “It’s just a great place. “Michigan has basketball and academics, so it was everything I wanted.” The Michigan staff didn’t start to recruit the sharpshooter heavily until this summer. Douglass attended a camp there in late June and made an unofficial visit earlier this month.

A peek inside wacky world of recruiting – Chicago Sports
The crazy thing about football recruiting is it seems so simple: Discover prospect, sign prospect. You can find that attitude on about any recruiting Web site message board, where many a poster pontificates that if a kid has good “measurables” and three to five stars beside his name on a talent list, you’ve simply got to have him. It’s not nearly that straightforward, as ESPN.com’s Bruce Feldman amply chronicles in his new book, “Meat Market.” Mississippi’s Ed Orgeron gave Feldman fly-on-the wall access to his recruiting machine, which is powered by the coach’s addiction to “The Chase.”

Summer shows a different side of recruits – Kentucky.com
Kentucky high school star Scotty Hopson failed to make the all-state first team last season. Yet he’s considered one of the nation’s best prospects. How can a player be a small fish in a small pond and a big fish in a big pond? Only in the context of basketball recruiting does it make sense to be more highly regarded when the sampling of players expands exponentially. And it illustrates the seesaw effect that enhances summer play while making be-true-to-your-school winter games seem a quaint relic of a long-gone era. By his own admission, Hopson played indifferently for University Heights last season. Then, the thrill of summer competition against some of the nation’s best players elevated his play to — this was actually said — Jordanesque dimensions. Summer basketball has “probably more talent because everybody’s at the same level,” Hopson said in comparing the two venues. “Everybody can compete. Guys are bigger and taller, the best of the best.”