18 recruits & 2 grey shirts from last year. Only 18 seniors.Aren't we at 20 recruits? We losing that many this year?
Care to link it?
Do you have a source for this?
You are overlooking the effects of Big 12 uncertainty might have had on recruiting.
Campbell is a better coach and recruiter and there is no doubt in my mind. Keep in mind that Rhoads inherited a team that had lost 10 games in a row. And in his first year took that 10 game losing streak team to a bowl game Win in the very first year. Rhoads recruited some decent players. Probably the 2 greatest Cyclone Receivers Ever. Hakeem Butler and Lazard. But Campbell recruits have depth and quality in their classes. And Rhoads was never able to do that. Plus Coaching Staff continuity is key. Rhoads was average game coach but was able to pull some tricks in the earlier years. Chizik sucked as a game coach.
Campbell is great. But Rhoads was not the abysmal failure that some think. Everyone fades in comparison to Campbell. But Chizik was a terrible football coach. Rhoads team blew leads against Okie State and K-State that sealed his fate. Both losses attributed to poor coaching decisions IMO. Rhoads was deservedly fired. Campbell utilized many of Rhoads players who were instrumental in our success. Could last years team have won without Willie Harvey, Brian Peavey, Hakeem Butler, Julian Good Jones, Brice Meeker, Knee Nwangwu, Braxton Lewis, Marcel Spears, etc.? Some pretty key pieces were Rhoads recruits. Rhoads was not a complete failure. Campbell is just so much better at everything.
Rhoads was useful for some things and I don't think you're going to get much disagreement from Cyclone fans. As I previously stated, he wasn't all that good at being a head coach. He created some awesome buzz early in his career, but did nothing with it. His recruiting wasn't good and he had no real idea of what his team was supposed to look like. Maybe he did, but he had no real idea how to implement and maintain it. The recruiting/realignment thing may have had some traction, but if you look at his classes, they were heavy in Texas, Florida, and California. The problem with that, as we saw, is most of those kids were fringe P5 players, as shown by their offer lists and lack of success here.
At the end of the day, he served a purpose, but without someone like Jamie Pollard as his AD, he wouldn't be more than a blip. And from very direct sources, Rhoads quickly became his own worst enemy after signing his extension. Knowing some of the behind the scenes stuff has actually soured my overall opinion on the guy. Fair or not.
You can’t dangle something like that and not elaborate.
Let's just say it became about Paul Rhoads from that point forward.
Oh man, what a bombshell.
The big problem with 11 is that means each week someone doesn't have a dance partner. That means some teams get open weeks where it is useful in the meat of the schedule while others get their open weeks at the very beginning or very end of the conference season where it serves very little useful purpose.I have always felt 11 team conferences were the optimum- play 10 games against teams in your conference and 2 pre-conference games. So IMO the Big 12 at 10 teams is closest.
I am hopeful that at some point college presidents among the Big 5 get smart and negotiate the college football TV contract as a single body- similar to the NFL. Having 6 or 7 conferences with 11 teams each and regional based would make for a great fan experience. Then have each conference regular season champion make an 8 team National Championship playoff- with 1 or 2 other teams selected by poll.
Osemele, Klein, Peavy, Spears, Harvey.... Most of CPR had OK talent at the starting positions, but zero depth especially on defense. It seemed like if one defensive starter went out, we were screwed. The starting D-line also had to play like 90% of the snaps and consistently wore out in the 2nd half, one of the reasons we blew so many leads. They left 10-15 really good players for Campbell to start with but the roster was completely bare after that. The most impressive thing Campbell has done is create defensive line and linebacker depth. Two things we've pretty much never had in my lifetime.To be fair CPR also found some diamonds in the rough like Jake Knott & Hakeem Butler
I think Jeff Woody mentioned this on a podcast as well. With CPR, all of the offers had to be approved by him before the offer was made. With the current staff, if an assistant thinks they should offer a recruit, he can make an offer without approval from the head coach.How did you learn this?
Meanwhile, Hoiberg and CPR...
I think the biggest difference is CMC has been able to nab entire classes full of the "stars" CPR came away with every now and again. CPR was lucky enough to sign a few difference makers while CMC has a 2-deep of difference makers.
I don't think I've ever bashed chiz but I have taken my share of shots at CPR. In all fairness, we don't have the program we have now without the work done by CPR. He had lots of faults but passion for our school wasn't one of them. Can say the same thing on the basketball side...
There are many ways of doing things, but having all offers vetted by the head coach doesn't seem unreasonable.I think Jeff Woody mentioned this on a podcast as well. With CPR, all of the offers had to be approved by him before the offer was made. With the current staff, if an assistant thinks they should offer a recruit, he can make an offer without approval from the head coach.
I'm sure there are some programs that recruit this way and I agree that it isn't a bad process. I think Campbell puts a lot of trust that his coaching staff is on the same page with what they are looking for in a recruit. It also helps get offers out quickly instead of waiting to get together with the coach to have the offer approved.There are many ways of doing things, but having all offers vetted by the head coach doesn't seem unreasonable.