Twitter Tuesday: Wild recruiting pitches; Big Ten; Chip Kelly's start
Our weekly #TwitterTuesday file continues this week as you ask National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell your football questions via social media. Here are six questions, including the best recruiting pitch ever.
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Two-part questions are great. To answer the first, it has to be Urban Meyer, who told Sharrif Floyd (I believe it was Floyd, it could have been Matt Elam) that he saw him playing for him and the Gators in a dream - and it worked. I’ve seen pitches like wanted posters, cookie cakes and a lot of other things on the recruiting trail, but Meyer truly sold a dream to a five-star recruit. And this was following his resignation from Florida for health reasons. The guy can recruit, there is no doubt about it. In fact, the job he did in 2010 was the best job by any coach I’ve ever seen, considering the circumstances.
As for question No. 2, it’s a bit early to say whether or not the Big Ten is going to have a down year. While Ohio State and Wisconsin look great, Penn State had that scare against App State, Michigan played badly on offense against Notre Dame and Michigan State has been a big disappointment. I don’t think anyone will push either Wisconsin or Ohio State based on early returns, but there are still some quality programs in the conference that could make a splash.
It’s a little early to give up on Chip Kelly and UCLA two games into his tenure. He’s a great coach, but right now he doesn’t have the personnel on his roster to do what he wants to do, especially on offense, and it could take a couple years for that to happen. The thing I don’t like so far, and haven’t liked about UCLA for a long time, is the overall effort of the team. They seem to be accustomed to losing and when things start going downhill, it looks like they stop trying as hard. Kelly needs to change the culture at UCLA, and that will take some time as well, but I’m confident that the Bruins will be competitive within the next two or three years under Kelly.
Kyler Murray has looked great, even better than expected, and might make the Oklahoma offense more dangerous than it was under Baker Mayfield, if that’s possible. His ability to run keeps defenses so off balance that it’s scary to think of what they will do against some of the weaker defenses in the Big 12.
As for Rodney Anderson, that’s a huge, huge loss. I had him as a potential Heisman candidate and one of the top running backs for the NFL Draft, so this setback hurts. He’s had such bad luck when it comes to injuries that it’s sad to see he’s going to miss the season and will have to rehab all over again.
Oklahoma has depth at running back, and I expect a guy like TJ Pledger will have to step up and play a bigger role now. Oklahoma will be OK, and the offense will miss Anderson, but it likely won’t miss much of a beat. The Sooners are that talented.
Time will tell about the Sooners defense, but so far it looks better than it did last year when it comes to consistent tackling and aggressive play. The defensive backs seem to be playing the ball a bit better, there seems to be more balance up front and they are using their athleticism to their advantage more so than last year. There are still some missed tackles that will infuriate any fan, but early on it doesn’t look like the offense needs to put up 40 or more points to win every game, and that’s a good sign.
Underperforming is a strong word for the USC coaching staff. Do they have a ton of talent? Yes. Is the team underachieving at this stage of the season? Yes. But they have a quarterback at the helm who should still be in high school and they showed some good signs against Stanford on offense and defense at times. Should USC win every game? That’s a bit unrealistic, but it is still the team to beat in the Pac-12 South, so I wouldn’t freak out or worry too much just yet.
Where will Bryce Berhart end up? A lot of people think the tall Minnesota lineman will end up at either Nebraska or Wisconsin, and if I had to guess right now it would be Nebraska. But that’s a pure guess because Benhart doesn’t like the limelight and doesn’t talk about recruiting much. There has been a feeling that he could be committed to Nebraska already and hasn’t made it public, so that’s why I’ll go with the Huskers. But he is a tough one to read. After a couple years of development, he could be a great one, because his ceiling is very high.