I hate this bullshit. 3 of the 4 guys who are going to get drafted were 4*. I listened to the press conference and he actually said that Keith Taylor was a lowly 2* and now he's going to be a high NFL draft pick. Sounds like Jimmy's already getting his talking points ready for another subpar class.
https://twitter.com/mikevorel/status/1387799550367174658
Yep. To Jimmy's credit, he has done really really well with blue chip db recruits. Probably in the top 5 in the nation when you look at guys like Buddha, Murphy, Molden, McDuffie. Those guys came in as studs but were also developed really well, which is why I hate the narrative of "Jimmy finds diamonds on the rough and makes them into All-Americans." He has developed a few lower ranked guys but his crown jewels have been 4 stars who left as 5 stars.
Which brings me to...HOW THE FUCK IS OUR DB RECRUITING SO BAD!!!?????
How can you not sell a kid on choosing UW over Oregon by comparing the development of Byron Murphy to Deommodore Lenoir or the production of Buddha Baker to Steve Stephens (highly ranked safety who is still on their bench after 3 years). Even Javon Holland is likely not a day 1 pick now.
Per 247 rankings, here's how our DB recruits under Jimmy stack up (ratings Composite because 247 doesn't go deep enough to rank a lot of these guys):
Four stars
Baker - 54
McDuffie - 126 (61 by 247, big gap)
Byron - 95
Irvin - 156
Molden - 179
Gordon - 187
Jacobe Covington - 189
Joyner -226
Gilchrist - 241
Taylor - 256
McKinney - 266
Turner - 300
A lot of Hale in his life - 328
High 3 stars
[/b]KamFab - 378
Love - 402
Williams - 404
Rapp - 471
McCutcheon - 478
Spears - 510
Elijah Jackson - 536
Makes Easteen - 602
Lavon Washington - 623
Gardenhire - 681
Lower 3 stars
[/b]James Smith - 820
Hampton - 855
McIntosh - 896
Jordan Miller - 970
Brandon Lewis - 1028
SMFJ - 1107
Nunley - 1350
Zeke Turner - 76 JUCO (how did I not remember he went to JUCO?)
So a few things stand out:
So far, 5 of the top 6 are clear hits (with time for Irvin to hit as well). Bodes well for Covington. Taylor and Joyner were hits too so of the guys who have had time to show anything you've got 7 out of 9 hits, and that's if we count Irvin as a miss. Gilchrist is the one clear whiff in the top 9. Clearly Lake does well with composite top 256 talent. His next 3 four stars may all be misses though, making him 7 of 9 overall with 4 stars (with Covington, Irvin and Turner jury still out but likely two misses non that group).
Things get fuzzy in second tier as we don't have a lot to go off of. Williams the jury is still out. KamFab too soon to say (but trending positively). Rapp home run. Then you get to the new guys and 2014 flyers. Scary that we don't have a single top 15 Lake DB recruit in this class and only one (Covington) in the last class. Of those with a track record here Washington was a miss and Gardenhire was decent until he had issues, you could rank him either way.
Then the bottom seven looks great. Too soon to know on Smith. Jury is out on Hampton but trending right. McIntosh was definitely a hit. Miller was a hit who got drafted. SMFJ was a first rounder if he didn't blow his Achilles. Lewis was a miss. And we don't know with Nunley.
Lake is great when he gets great talent and seems to be really good when he's taking guys at the bottom whom almost no one is offering. He hasn't taken a ton of guys in between until recently. And obviously if you want to move McKinney, Turner and Hale up a tier as they were all four tier guys you can do that and that knocks down the first tier some.
If we're going to continue to be DBU we're going to have to have the kind of success with high 3 stars that we've had with 4 stars.
The real question is why can't we get 4 star DB's anymore?
#FireTerrenceAndWillip