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Former Texas quarterback Colt McCoy recently joined Big 12 Radio on SiriusXM to discuss the Red River Rivalry.
Former Texas quarterback Colt McCoy doesn’t think it gets any better than the Red River Rivalry. Continue reading “Texas legend Colt McCoy dishes on the Red River Rivalry”
The experts at Rivals looked that the Irish 2021 recruiting class, with a local and national perspective.
The Irish have seen their ups and downs in the 2021 recruiting cycle, but at the current moment Brian Kelly’s class of ten players ranks among the best in the nation. Rivals this morning took a look at their 11th ranked class in the country, with a local and national view of Notre Dame’s class.
Mike Singer, who covers the Irish for Rivals, sees the class from a quality not quantity perspective noting the “Irish are likely not even going to sniff 25 total signess, so it will be hard to have a highly ranked class. However, it should be very good when it comes to sorting by average star ranking.” Defensive end Jason Onye, the lowest committed player in the class according to Rivals, is seen as the 44th best prospect at his position. Not bad when looking at the class as a whole.
Singer mentions two prospect’s the Irish would love to see commit, Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Rocco Spindler. Both of them have recently released their top school lists and Notre Dame is in a great position to land both of them. He does say if the staff missed out on Spindler that “many would consider the offensive line class a failure” but it can’t be looked at by just star ranking. The base of Blake Fisher and Pat Coogan gives the offensive line class a great start, and missing out on Spindler would hurt, but it shouldn’t be seen as a failure if the Irish are unable to land a commitment from the talented guard.
As for the national outlook, Josh Helmholdt was quick to point out that the Irish haven’t had many recruiting wins since the mandated dead period. “Notre Dame is maybe the best national recruiting team in the country, but in order to maintain that distinction it needs to get kids on campus, so the visit shutdown disproportionately affects the Irish,” is how Helmholdt sees it. It’s hard to disagree with his assessment, as many other schools have jumped the Irish in the team ratings during the dead period. The feeling a prospect gets when in South Bend just can’t be replicated with Zoom visits.
If Helmholdt is right, and we surely hope he is, the return of on-campus visits should see a boom in the Irish’s class. Unfortunately for Kelly, the NCAA has yet to make an announcement as to when they will stop the dead period, so the addition of more prospects might just have to wait a little longer. We’d like to believe that Singer is correct as well, when all said as done the Irish might not have a highly ranked class, but the quality will be among the best in the nation.
Good morning and happy Wednesday. Miss recent college football headlines? Get caught up right here, right now!
Happy Wednesday and welcome to the midweek. I know it’s been a few days since I’ve gotten one of these episodes of the podcast out – sometimes a leaky roof and flooded garage will cause things like that, though.
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In this edition of the College Football Morning Announcements:
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Notre Dame set to re-open for students but school president non-committal to football in the fall
A top linebacker makes his college choice as the rich get richer
An SEC dynasty just fired all of their coaches
And which teams are under the most pressure to win in 2020?
In the newest update of Rivals Top 250, a few of Notre Dame’s 2021 commits make the list.
Going into today’s update, the Notre Dame 2021 recruiting class consisted of 10 commits which is good for 9th best nationally according to their rankings. Of those ten, only four made it into the Top 250 prior to the update and that number stayed the same after as well.
In-state offensive tackle Blake Fisher, the Irish’s highest ranked commit, was 20th prior to today and was now ranked 22nd, a minute drop. Ohio wide receiver Lorenzo Styles Jr. also fell two spots to 39th overall in the country, earlier today Irish Wire looked at his potential to move to the defensive side of the ball. California QB Tyler Buchner fell one more spot than his classmates, dropping from 43rd to 46th overall. The final Irish commit was Missouri’s Gabe Rubio, who’s ranking stayed the same at 99th.
There were plenty of Irish targets inside Rivals Top 250 also, which included Maryland’s Dont’e Thornton is ranked 53rd, Michigan’s guard Rocco Spindler is 56th, staying in the same state with running back Donovan Edwards at 61st, Iowa tight end Thomas Fidone at 62nd, Texas back LJ Johnson ranked 69th, and former commit Deion Colzie at 73rd that made it inside the top 100.
It’s a bit surprising to see Irish TE commit Cane Berrong not ranked inside the Top 250, that is a clear omission by the Rivals recruiting staff. At the current moment Rivals does not rank anyone lower than 250 so it is difficult to tell where the rest of the class stands. Either way, the base for Brian Kelly’s 2021 recruiting class is solid and with plenty of very good prospects still uncommitted, the class could go from solid to spectacular by signing day.
Here is where Oklahoma’s quarterback board stands in May for the 2021 recruiting class.
The running back room at Oklahoma is one of the most star-studded position groups not just in the Big 12, but in the history of college football. From Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Joe Washington, and Billy Sims to Adrian Peterson, DeMarco Murray, Samaje Perine, and Joe Mixon, there are always big shoes to fill in the Sooners backfield.
Here is where Oklahoma’s quarterback board stands in May for the 2021 recruiting class.
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When DeMarco Murray was hired as the running backs coach, he was hired to do one thing: Get Camar Wheaton in crimson and cream. The No. 7 overall 2021 prospect is ranked 52 spots above the next closest running back, per rivals. Wheaton is a ‘can’t miss talent’ however, the Sooners need to fight off Texas and Alabama for Wheaton to take his talents from Garland, Texas (Lakeview Centennial High School) to Norman, Oklahoma.
Despite being verbally committed to Ohio State, everything is still in play for Henderson. Like most of Oklahoma’s recruits, Henderson (Hopewell, Virginia; Hopewell High School) has not yet stepped onto campus for an official visit but it is likely he will once everything gets a little more back to normal.
Grabbing offers from nearly every Power 5 program, Johnson has taken an official visit to Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. The Cypress, Texas (Cypress Fairbanks High School). Former Oklahoma and current Texas RB coach, Jay Boulware could affect Johnson’s decision to don burnt orange over crimson.
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Oklahoma currently has four verbal commitments from 2021 players. Per Rivals, they are No. 50 in the nation in 2021 recruiting with three 3-stars and a solo 4-star committed, but the Sooners can and will shoot up the rankings quickly once a few big dominoes fall.
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Lon Kruger and Oklahoma have made the cut as a finalist for Santa Clara guard Trey Wertz.
Transfers are not just for Lincoln Riley.
Lon Kruger and Oklahoma have made the cut as a finalist for Santa Clara guard Trey Wertz.
Wertz, a 6-foot-4, 185-pound sophomore averaged 12 points a game in his two seasons with the Broncos. Shooting 35.9% from behind the arc, averaging 3.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game in his career with Santa Clara, Wertz could be a great fit for the Sooners.
In his freshman season, Wertz was named to the West Coast Conference All-Freshman Team and followed it up with an All-WCC honorable mention in his sophomore season.
In high school, Wertz was a McDonald’s All-American nominee out of Providence Day High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, earning a three-star rating from Rivals. Taking his team to the Final Four his senior season, 18 points, six rebounds, and five assists.
Santa Clara transfer Trey Wertz is down to Arizona, Butler, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Virginia, he tells @247Sports.
— Evan Daniels (@EvanDaniels) April 3, 2020
Oklahoma is on the shortlist to land the guard alongside Arizona, Butler, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Virginia, and home town basketball powerhouse, North Carolina.
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When people say recruiting doesn’t matter, they’re lying. It does. Maybe it doesn’t always play out on the field but you aren’t a regular powerhouse if your team’s name isn’t at or towards the top of these lists with regularity.
The second and final national signing day has come and gone with no movement for Notre Dame, who had all of their eventual signees known back in December during the early signing period.
Now the grades and rankings start to come out from those who are much smarter than myself on such things. Where did the three big outlets rank Notre Dame’s class and how many elite prospects were they able to bring in?
247 Sports: 17th
Of Notre Dame’s 19 signees, 247 ranks just one as a five-star talent (TE, Michael Mayer) and eight players as four-stars and eight more as three-stars.
ESPN: 14th
ESPN doesn’t give away their information or thoughts on recruiting for free but they do reveal their team rankings without cost. This is however the highest ranking any of the three services gave Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish.
Rivals: 21st
Rivals, like 247, has Mayer ranked as a five-star recruit. However, Rivals lists nine players as four-star talents but just six as three-star caliber. This is the lowest of any of the three major outlets ranked the Fighting Irish.
Listen, you see the rankings and they leave you far from thrilled. I get that.
Clemson is ranked atop all of these and your usual super powers of Alabama, LSU, Georgia and the other regulars are right there as well.
The loss of Landen Bartleson hurts as depth at corner takes an obvious hit. I think it’s important to remember how high folks were on Chris Tyree just a few short weeks ago in these same rankings, yet his overall ranking went down the closer to national signing day we got.
When people say recruiting doesn’t matter, they’re lying. It does. Maybe it doesn’t always play out on the field but you aren’t a regular powerhouse if your team’s name isn’t at or towards the top of these lists with regularity.
That doesn’t mean you can’t still be bad or disappointing if your name does appear high. See Notre Dame under Charlie Weis or what our friends over at USC are going through right now.
It’s a class with a lot of potential, just few certain future stars. Here’s to hoping we look back on this class four years from now and are discussing how much it shocked the college football world for all the right reasons.
A college football recruiting analyst hilariously mocked the infamous Twitter troll Ray UGA on Wednesday
Just about every Georgia fan on Twitter has probably heard of the infamous gift that keeps on giving by now.
Andrew Ray, the uber-confident “Twitter insider” has been popping up on the timelines for about a month, putting out hilariously foolish content on Georgia football.
Whether the guy thinks he’s a legitimate recruiting insider or he’s just trying to mess with people, he’s good at getting under people’s skin with the following tagline.
‘Go Dawgs, Go SEC, Rise Above Hate.’
⚫⚫Whatsup Dawg Nation!?🔴🔴
I received word just an hour ago that an official decision is happening tomorrow around 1p.m. E.T.
Georgia fans please respect the process, as this has been a very difficult decision for Jake.
My source will be covering the announcement tomorrow pic.twitter.com/PN9FKeJX6D
— 🔴Andrew.Ray_UGA⚫ (@ray_uga) January 8, 2020
God Bless all!!
Rise Above Hate!
— 🔴Andrew.Ray_UGA⚫ (@ray_uga) January 4, 2020
Now, an actual reporter has decided to take a stab at the skit himself, with a twist on the tagline.
Mike Farell of Rivals.com recently began posting short videos on the latest football news for Twitter, quietly sneaking in a ‘Go Rivals, Go Rivals.com’ at the end.
Quickies pic.twitter.com/WsWTd5ZbYs
— Mike Farrell (@rivalsmike) January 8, 2020
Of course, if you couldn’t already tell, Farrell is taking a jab at Ray for his clownery on the inter webs. No one seems to know how and when this whole thing started, but as long as you don’t take it serious, it’s actually quite enjoyable.
Let Ray have his 15 seconds of fame. He clearly loves this newfound attention and we don’t see the videos stopping anytime soon.
The only thing we advise is to avoid talking negatively about players and their families in the videos. Otherwise, they’re pretty funny.
Keep rising above hate or else hate will rise above you… and remember, Go Dawgs! Go SEC!
IT JUST MEANS MORE.
The Seahawks will play the San Francisco 49ers Week 17 with tight end George Kittle healthy and must form a game plan with him in mind.
The Seattle Seahawks’ 27-24 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Week 10 was memorable in both the good and bad sense. It featured several back-and-forth scores and mistakes and culminated with a game-winning field goal by Jason Myers. However, San Francisco did not have their star tight end George Kittle playing in that game, which could have been the deciding factor. Seattle will face their bitter rivals with Kittle healthy for the division-deciding Week 17 showdown on Sunday.
This will be the most crucial game this season and the biggest regular-season game for the Seahawks in recent memory. Coach Pete Carroll acknowledged that San Francisco will present a tougher challenge with Kittle in the offense.
“He’s an amazing player, he really is,” Carroll told reporters Tuesday. “He’s a heart and soul guy for them, and a clutch guy, too. They go to him when times are crucial and all that. He’s a fantastic player. Not just a catcher, he’s a blocker as well. He’s a good ballplayer.”
Kittle has been one of the best tight ends in football this season, racking up 78 receptions for 967 receiving yards and five touchdowns in 13 games played. The Seahawks’ injured defense will be hard-pressed to defend him consistently on Sunday. They must formulate an effective gameplan with him in mind.
“We won’t be able to play them the way we did last time,” Carroll said. “We’re going to have to do things much differently because he’s in the game.”
The Seahawks are set to face off against the 49ers on Sunday, Dec. 29 at CenturyLink Field at 5:20 p.m. PT.
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The Seattle Seahawks were blown out by the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers edged out the Los Angeles Rams in Week 16.
Week 16 was a nightmare for the Seattle Seahawks (11-4). They got blown out by the Arizona Cardinals (5-9-1) and lost even more key players to injuries in the process, while the San Francisco 49ers (12-3) narrowly defeated the Los Angeles Rams (8-7) at home to take the lead in the NFC West. Here are the summaries of the two games featuring Seattle and its division rivals in Week 16.
The 49ers defeated the Rams in a thriller and eliminated them from postseason contention. Both teams showcased strong offensive prowess, particularly in the fourth quarter. There were also a few big defensive plays sprinkled in between, including a pick-six by 49ers linebacker Fred Warner right before halftime and several key sacks of Jimmy Garoppolo by the Rams.
Speaking of Garoppolo, he made numerous clutch throws in the final quarter of play including two third and 16 conversions and his receivers answered the call. It all came down to a game-winning field goal by Robbie Gould as time expired.
With this victory, San Francisco controls its own destiny and reclaimed the No. 1 seed ahead of Week 17. Sean McVay and his group face questions this offseason while the 49ers head into a huge season finale against the Seattle Seahawks on the road. Speaking of which…
