Best Inside Linebacker in OVAC

[Leroy Jenkins]

I agree with you vinman I went to the middle school up at the ville to watch my brother play summer league ball. I saw the weight lifting results for 7th and 8th graders on the wall. If you weren't benching 200+ for 8th grade you werent even on the sheet. They had 3 kids already pressing 265 in 8th grade! You can go to a varsity team and find players that start not getting 265 some not even 200! If I had a kid I'm sending him to the ville. I kno he will have a great opportunity to learn football and how to play the game. Nobody in the valley can play with these guys lets be real. Lol the valley teams would be lucky to win 2 games off their schedule yet alone be able to field a team for 10 weeks

[cas8043]

There was a kid at Central who benched 300 pounds in front of the coaching staff when he was in the 8th grade (April to be exact). So it doesn't take a program just dedication.

[Leroy Jenkins]

I'll say he is the exception... It takes a program as well ask anyone. I doubt he was just doing his own workout. I'm sure it was a structured workout program

[osu92]

I appreciate all the gentlemen who defend their small schools, that is normal. Especially when your kid is involved. But the facts do not lie and Big Red makes the committment as a community to be great in football. Their training is second to none and therefore the other sports are the beneficiary of this program. Linsly has come light years in their training and you can see it in their kids. I know a family down there who has a kid playing there now and when he was in middle school, he had no hope! Through their training, he is a solid contributor to their team. As for the one Central kid, that young man is uniquely dedicated and has had tremendous training from his father. Nobody has a program for training like Big Red, and it has to be that way to compete against the teams they play. THAT is why their kids go places. It is all part of life, if you play a small school schedule, you risk the kids being recruited as aggresively. Linsly gets kids in good schools because their entire reputation is based on that. If I had to fork over $12,000.00 a year, I hope to hell someone was helping my kid if he had some potential!! Plus, that great reputation of Big Red continues to grow and kids from all over (who are totally dedicated and don't have intruding parents!) want to go their to play for a big time program and possibly get recruited to the next level. Unfortunately the opposite occurs with the small schools. Not all, but a lot of parents will direct their child to the smaller school because they have a better chance to play. If they turn out to be talented, it kind of backfires with not as much attention form the colleges. AHHHHHHH, high school football!!!!!

[Weez]

Everyone agrees big red has a nice program, but your point about small school players not getting attention is my original position. And to this, I still completely disagree. Good players get looks if they have support from their schools, big or small. And, although a private school, Linsly has done just as well as big red at getting kids athletic scholarships. Your tuition post makes no sense. Is it because they have to pay for high school the reason their players are getting college scholarships? I don't think so. Maybe you meant that Linsly puts more of an effort to get their students and athletes better positioned for the next level. I would agree with that. I give all the credit in the world to Linsly for setting my foundation which led me to notre dame. No way would I have gotten that opportunity without them. And for that, my private education and hopefully my childrens, was well worth the tuition

[osu92]

Sorry there Weez, the tuition jab was just a joke! But my point was the families DO get something in return for their investment. They do a wonderful job helping kids get placed at colleges (football wise) and please don't get mad, but some of these kids were boarder line to be able to play at the next level. But Linsly deserves the gist of the credit for getting them in along with the fact most of those kids were probably academically strong. When I help get involved with the recruiting of certain high school football players, I love to be able to report to the coach that their character and academics should be the closer. But I have to say the coaches I work with and it is really evident at the DI level, still look much closer at kids who play at the higher level of competition. They know there are some good kids in smaller schools, but the problem is when you play a smaller school in football there are too many of the starters who are not near as physical or talented as those few select kids. That is why the stats can be so huge. I would love to see how many football players went onto the different levels of college and from what size high school they came from. It wopuld be interesting. I'm talking full or partial scholarship driven. There have been some kids who have walked on at some places but never got to see the field. I would not count them because the premise of the discussion is the interest level from the college coaches.

[Wooster87]

But I have to say the coaches I work with and it is really evident at the DI level, still look much closer at kids who play at the higher level of competition. They know there are some good kids in smaller schools, but the problem is when you play a smaller school in football there are too many of the starters who are not near as physical or talented as those few select kids. That is why the stats can be so huge. I would love to see how many football players went onto the different levels of college and from what size high school they came from. It would be interesting. I'm talking full or partial scholarship driven. There have been some kids who have walked on at some places but never got to see the field. I would not count them because the premise of the discussion is the interest level from the college coaches.

I know you and I have agreed on this point in previous threads and posts. I will add that it isn't just at the D1 level, it is at the 1AA (FCS) and D2 levels as well. I can't tell you how many times in the last 4 years when looking at the stats of a player from a small school and those stats are tremendous, I have had other coaches tell me......"you have to remember what kind of competition he got those stats against. 95% of the kids he played against can't play at this level, and 60% of them couldn't play D3". This is from any coach I have talked to from several different universities at both the D1, D1 FCS, and D2 levels.

I know it upsets people who love to trumpet the accolades of the small school kids, but WHO they played against to get those stats is in reality MORE important than the stats themselves. One of the comments we hear from HS coaches is the "he isn't as big or as fast as some, but boy he will run through a wall for you....". Well, they could stop at the "he isn't as big or as fast" part, because we don't want the kid that will "run through a wall for you", we want the kid that will jump OVER the wall or run around it faster than the kid who will run through it.

[Weez]

Any recruiter worth their weight doesn't look too much at stats. They look at results. They look at all of the other things that have been discussed. Even the powerhouse on the hill And again, in the OVAC, size of school doesn't matter. If you are talking nationally, I would agree. And upset may be a strong word for those of us who trumpet small schools.

[Wooster87]

Any recruiter worth their weight doesn't look too much at stats. They look at results. They look at all of the other things that have been discussed. Even the powerhouse on the hill And again, in the OVAC, size of school doesn't matter. If you are talking nationally, I would agree. And upset may be a strong word for those of us who trumpet small schools.

Sorry to have to disagree, but there isn't a recruiter in the country that DOESN'T look at stats. If "recruiters worth their weight" didn't look to much at stats, then why do coaches kill 100 trees running off pages of player stats to give to the coaches who are there doing the recruiting? Stats are what get you noticed in the first place, and the next question is who did those stats come against? Do you think recruiters look at the 25th ranked rusher in the conference, or the top 5 rushers?? Out of those top 5, the ones from the biggest schools will get looked at first. When they look for a QB, do they look at the kid who completed 45% of his passes for 1800 yds and 10 TD's with 6 INT's whose team may have went 8-2 in Class A(those would be your results) or do they look at the kid who completed 65% of his passes for 3000 yds, 25 TD's and 4 INT's but his team went 4-6 in AAA??? They will look at the AAA kid first EVERY TIME.

When the NFL scouts (they are "recruiters" as well) come on campus, the first thing they do is look at a players stats, then ask to see the film against our BEST OPPONENT, not the game where the player had his best performance. I would have to say that if the "recruiters" at the highest level of the sport look at stats and want to see performance against the highest level of competition we faced, then EVERYONE who recruits looks at stats and level of competition........common sense tells you that.

I came from the HS level having coached from the Jr High to Varsity level for over 17 years prior to moving up, and came with the same viewpoints as you have. Those views quickly changed over the last 4 years. Once I became involved in this side of the recruiting process, and spoke to other coaches I knew from various levels about recruiting when we would meet at the recruiting nights offered by alot of conferences, I got a quick lesson in what is actually looked at and for what reasons. I remember coming back from one of my first trips (to the DC area) my first year with over 150 recruiting videos and stacks of stats for each video thinking that every one of those kids were legitimate recruits for us. We quickly narrowed that down to about 25 based on those stats and the size school they played for. Sorry to disappoint you, but rushing for 1500 yds in Div VI or class A is NOT the same as rushing for 1500 yds in Div II, Div I, or class AAA......it just isn't. Reality is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.

[Superndfan]

Nm

[Leroy Jenkins]

Linsly is getting kids in the Ivy league. Nothing wrong with that but there is a big difference between where Big Red recruits go and Linsly recruits. But both kids are getting their school paid for, playing football, and getting an education. Thats what it is all about right?

[Weez]

Not completely true, but I'll take that Leroy. And Wooster- thanks for spreading your wealth of knowledge from the powerhouse on the hill. Not the results to which I'm referring. But, please continue to enlighten me. I will bow out of this recruiting discussion-don't want fingers to cramp with all of the narratives being composed as responses.

[flyman]

Wow! Love is blind!!

[Colts76]

I do not know much about recruiting and what schools look at but I will say this. If schools do not give a kid as much credit for being at a small school then shame on them. Besides some of the comments about Linsly only putting kids in the Ivy league and not the big time is just wrong. They have had kids play for Penn State, Pitt, and other BCS schools.
Remember this, think to yourself about who you think are the best payers in each sport that this valley has ever seen. Make yourself a list and I bet you will find that most of the elite came from small schools.
Track=Drummond
BBall= Hornyak, havlicek
wrestling=Bobby Douglas
Baseball=Neikros
All of these guys plus many more were small school guys. Football may be a little different but I doubt it. Who the best are is very debateable but Chuck Howley might be the answer and once agian from a very small school.

[MANOWAR]

Puck Burgwin was the best ever in football, and he was from Steubenville.


No doubt many great players have come from smaller schools, but realistically you have to absolutely dominate at that level to be recruited by the big schools (like Curtis Enis did at the small D6 school in Dayton).