SOCON top 35 recruits 2013

[chattownmocs]

The national list was so lame that it got my mind focused on the SOCON. I did plenty of research and came up with the following. This list is based on recruiting ranking, highlights, and offer lists.



1. Jay Ellison DT Georgia Southern
2. Taylor Reynolds DT Chattanooga
3. Anthony Covington CB App State
4. James Julius CB The Citadel
5. Aaron Black TE Furman
6. Tyrecous Garrett RB Western Carolina
7. Chaz Thornton RB Georgia Southern
8. Taylor Lamb QB App State
9. Connor Rafferty OT Samford
10. Alphonso Stewart WR Chattanooga
11. TJ Jenkins LB Chattanooga
12. Jared Holloway DT Samford
13. George Vinson LB Appalachian State
14. Dakota Dyent OT Elon
15. Matthew Breida RB Georgia Southern
16. Alejandro Bennifield QB Chattanooga
17. Tyrail Hawkins CB Georgia Southern
18. Ryan George DE Georgia Southern
19. Jamerson Blount WR Samford
20. Jamie Major LB Samford
21. DJ Prather DE Chattanooga
22. Sam Pettway S Samford
23. Jordan Hawkins DT Furman
24. Xavier Borishade WR Chattanooga
25. Chris Martin RB Wofford
26. Rashaad Townes S App State
27. Lee Wright ATH App State
28. Hunter Townson OT Chattanooga
29. Trevor Vasey QB Elon
30. Tevin Floyd LB The Citadel
31. Colby Gossett OT App State
32. Tyrell Brown S App State
33. James Elliot DE Furman
34. Fred Payne CB Western Carolina
35. Richard Hayes QB Furman

[PaladinFan]

Not a bad rundown. Only distinction I'd make is that Aaron Black, who was a TE in high school, will be playing tackle at Furman. As a 6'6 nearly 270 pound freshman, that's probably not a bad idea.

[seantaylor]

I would say Tobler and Mitchell from GSU would certainly be in the top half of that list. Especially Mitchell.

[PaladinNation]

I would add two more Furman recruits to the top 35

Adekunle "AK" Olusanya, DB
5-10, 195
Tampa, Florida (6 A Sickles High School)

Scout.com 2-Star...totaled 107 tackles, two sacks, and three caused fumbles Earned all-conference, Tampa Tribune second team All-Hillsborough County, and Associated Press honorable mention all-state honors.

Chose FU over Western Kentucky, Air Force, Bowling Green, Kent St, UAB, Western Mich.

http://www.tampabay.com/hometeam/blog/cant-spell-gryphons-name-then-just-remember-it/10848/
http://www.tampabay.com/hometeam/blog/sickles-ak-olusanya-bound-furman/16506/


And IMO the best overall player in Furman’s recruiting class;

Nic McBride, LB
6-2, 225
Lyons, Georgia (2 A Vidalia High School)

Scout.com 2-star...racked up 98 tackles, including eight for-loss, three sacks, five interceptions, and two caused fumbles in keying Vidalia to 11-1 season, region championship, and second round state playoff appearance in 2012...named region defensive player of the year, Atlanta Journal-Constitution first team all-state, and 2A South Georgia defensive player of the year by the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association his senior year...Associated Press/Georgia Sportswriters Association second team all-state...starter in Georgia North-South All-Star Game.

Chose FU over MTSU, S Alabama, Mercer

AJC first team all state isn't too shabby.

[PaladinFan]

Fowler has really ramped up recruiting. In the note today, around 75% of Furman's roster is either a freshman or a sophomore. Only 11 seniors.

Add to that, Furman has already signed 7(!) committed for 2014. From time to time the Paladins would lock up guys in the summer, but not nearly that many. If you figure 11 seniors are graduating (and maybe a few others), Furman already has about half its next recruiting class locked and ready.

[ThompsonThe]

Beginning to think that Furman is taking football seriously again. And I do mean again. Many do not remember Furman being the steamroller that they were for so many years. When they literally killed North Carolina, there were not too many raised eyebrows. Still think they should have got Bobby Lamb to stay, but that's just me. SoCon may be in for a rude awakening soon. Major stadium improvements only help the Paladins also.

[PaladinFan]

Beginning to think that Furman is taking football seriously again. And I do mean again. Many do not remember Furman being the steamroller that they were for so many years. When they literally killed North Carolina, there were not too many raised eyebrows. Still think they should have got Bobby Lamb to stay, but that's just me. SoCon may be in for a rude awakening soon. Major stadium improvements only help the Paladins also.

I liked Lamb. Still do. I think the last few years was a perfect storm of lack of administrative support for the program, poor recruiting, and complete disregard for facilities enhancements. I've heard from numerous folks that Fowler walked in on a situation that was a lot worse than most imagined.

The facilities enhancements are huge. There are not many, if any, smaller college football programs that can offer a student athlete the package Furman can. Greenville is exploding, strong academic reputation, beautiful location, etc. Until now, Furman's biggest issue was that it didn't have the shiny new facilities many other programs had, and lost recruits because of it. Now they do.

Furman's got the right guy running the program, a group of energetic young coaches, and things are really starting to look up.

[PaladinNation]

Since Fowler has come to Furman, in his first three classes Furman has signed 9 players at DL (I'm including DE).
And out of the seven early commits for 2014, four play DL… 2 DT, and 2 DE… that's 13 players.

Why such a commitment at DL? I think two things, BF was influenced by his days at Vandy playing in the SEC… where the DL is king.
And, Furman might just have one of the best DL coaches and recruiter at the FCS level… Jimmy Lindsey.

from Football Scoop underemployed coaches: "Jimmy Lindsey - Defensive Line, Furman. Lindsey has produced great results Chattanooga, Tennessee - Martin, Miami (Ohio), Gardner-Webb and, most recently, Furman. He was described to us as someone who "recruits the Atlanta area as well as anyone on any level."

http://www.footballscoop.com/news/8438-un-underemployed-coaches-round-one

[PaladinFan]

Since Fowler has come to Furman, in his first three classes Furman has signed 9 players at DL (I'm including DE).
And out of the seven early commits for 2014, four play DL… 2 DT, and 2 DE… that's 13 players.

Why such a commitment at DL? I think two things, BF was influenced by his days at Vandy playing in the SEC… where the DL is king.
And, Furman might just have one of the best DL coaches and recruiter at the FCS level… Jimmy Lindsey.

from Football Scoop underemployed coaches: "Jimmy Lindsey - Defensive Line, Furman. Lindsey has produced great results Chattanooga, Tennessee - Martin, Miami (Ohio), Gardner-Webb and, most recently, Furman. He was described to us as someone who "recruits the Atlanta area as well as anyone on any level."

http://www.footballscoop.com/news/8438-un-underemployed-coaches-round-one

Well, Furman also lost two key rotational guys this year with due to a paper work issue from the previous regime.

In reality, Furman has arguably the best defensive line coach in the SoCon (built UTC's unit and is now reconstructing Furman's). You have a defensive guy as head coach who was a part of building some of the great defenses in SoCon history.

Remember, Lamb reconstructed the defense midway through his tenure into the 4-2-5. That style morphed a bit, but it still focused on speed and cover skills over size and tackling. Fowler is going back to the old Furman defense. To do that, you have to have a deep rotation of linemen and some linebackers that can shut down the run. You look at some of the measureables on the linebackers Furman is brining in, and they conjure imagies of Bouton, Killian, Ritter, and Freeman. Guys that are 6-2/6-3 and 225+lbs.

[SU DOG]

No arguing from me at all about Furman coming on strong, I definitely agree that is happening. When it comes to DL coaches, however, I think that Samford is second to none. Our DL coach, Rory Segrest was on the 1992 NC Bama Team, was on the Philadelphia Eagles Staff from 2006-2010, coached in the NFC Championship Game, and in the 2009 Pro Bowl. His DL ranked second in all of NFL in 2009 in sacks. Last year he had a Samford DL drafted and how often does the SoCon have a DL selected in the NFL draft? Just had to S/O for our man. Lots of other accolades at http://www.samfordsports.com/coaches.aspx?rc=907&path=football
Since FU is similar to us in many ways I'll also comment on this: We have a total of only 10 seniors on this year's squad. Like Furman, our underclassmen comprise 73% of our roster. At this time of year, however, any roster will include lots of walk-ons and partials, many of which will not stick it out.

[PaladinFan]

No arguing from me at all about Furman coming on strong, I definitely agree that is happening. When it comes to DL coaches, however, I think that Samford is second to none. Our DL coach, Rory Segrest was on the 1992 NC Bama Team, was on the Philadelphia Eagles Staff from 2006-2010, coached in the NFC Championship Game, and in the 2009 Pro Bowl. His DL ranked second in all of NFL in 2009 in sacks. Last year he had a Samford DL drafted and how often does the SoCon have a DL selected in the NFL draft? Just had to S/O for our man. Lots of other accolades at http://www.samfordsports.com/coaches.aspx?rc=907&path=football
Since FU is similar to us in many ways I'll also comment on this: We have a total of only 10 seniors on this year's squad. Like Furman, our underclassmen comprise 73% of our roster. At this time of year, however, any roster will include lots of walk-ons and partials, many of which will not stick it out.

No doubt they've got a good one in Birmingham.

The slight distinction I would draw (like I drew with App State last year) is that while Samford is "young," they still are top heavy. Of the ten seniors on Samford's team, five are all conference and that does not count their highly experienced senior quarterback (who is back for like his 8th season of college football).

Furman will start a good chunk of their seniors, but the reality is they are not nearly as critical to the puzzle as Samford's group is. Of course, that is just my opinion. I just think that if Furman and Samford both sat all of their seniors, Samford would take a much bigger hit than Furman would.

[smallcollegefbfan]

Fowler has really ramped up recruiting. In the note today, around 75% of Furman's roster is either a freshman or a sophomore. Only 11 seniors.

Add to that, Furman has already signed 7(!) committed for 2014. From time to time the Paladins would lock up guys in the summer, but not nearly that many. If you figure 11 seniors are graduating (and maybe a few others), Furman already has about half its next recruiting class locked and ready.

That is a really good sign and I do think Furman is going to do better under Fowler. The only thing I'll say is that FCS schools never have a player locked up this early. FBS schools scoop in all the time but if you are either a power like App or GSU or you are great academically (Furman) you can potentially lure some kids who will turn down low level SEC, C-USA, ACC, MAC, etc.

[PaladinFan]

That is a really good sign and I do think Furman is going to do better under Fowler. The only thing I'll say is that FCS schools never have a player locked up this early. FBS schools scoop in all the time but if you are either a power like App or GSU or you are great academically (Furman) you can potentially lure some kids who will turn down low level SEC, C-USA, ACC, MAC, etc.

I can certainly understand that early signees may drop off to bigger programs. Still, it is showing a trend in the right direction.

You more or less are saying the same thing I did, though. Furman has plenty of boxes to check, but the one big negative was facilities. Now they've fixed the facilities.

[Milktruck74]

Since Fowler has come to Furman, in his first three classes Furman has signed 9 players at DL (I'm including DE).
And out of the seven early commits for 2014, four play DL… 2 DT, and 2 DE… that's 13 players.

Why such a commitment at DL? I think two things, BF was influenced by his days at Vandy playing in the SEC… where the DL is king.
And, Furman might just have one of the best DL coaches and recruiter at the FCS level… Jimmy Lindsey.

from Football Scoop underemployed coaches: "Jimmy Lindsey - Defensive Line, Furman. Lindsey has produced great results Chattanooga, Tennessee - Martin, Miami (Ohio), Gardner-Webb and, most recently, Furman. He was described to us as someone who "recruits the Atlanta area as well as anyone on any level."

http://www.footballscoop.com/news/8438-un-underemployed-coaches-round-one

I played with Jimmy, and was so sad to see him leave Chattanooga. He was a darn good football player and is a great coach, but is an even better person! Furman got a gift with Jimmy.

[PaladinNation]

Hopefully Furman can keep all these recruits in the barn… Furman just got #8

Terrell Bush 6-3 300 OT/DT from Tuscaloosa AL. Had offers from APP, ArkSt, JSU, USA, MurrySt, PENN.
http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=8&c=1&nid=6366018

[Accelerati Incredibilus]

The list omits some of Apps's more highly sought after signees.
OL Parker Collins ** Navy, So Miss, Ga So, Citadel, FU, Woff, Youngstown
RB Marcus Cox ** Buffalo, Miami Oh, Ohio U, MTSU, S Ala, Charlotte
OLB Kennan Gilchrist ** Air Force, Charlotte, Wofford
WR Dante Jones ** Duke

[Saint3333]

Based on practice reports the SoCon may get to know Gilchrist this year.

[PaladinFan]

Hopefully Furman can keep all these recruits in the barn… Furman just got #8

Terrell Bush 6-3 300 OT/DT from Tuscaloosa AL. Had offers from APP, ArkSt, JSU, USA, MurrySt, PENN.
http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=8&c=1&nid=6366018

They are doing something right. Impressive has been that several of these guys are in Alabama.