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I just noticed that every recruit (Pending Hunter Hill and Tyrese Jackson) who has visited USU with Gary has committed.

Pretty solid job Coach!

AggieUprising50 wrote: ↑

January 30th, 2019, 10:34 pm

I just noticed that every recruit (Pending Hunter Hill and Tyrese Jackson) who has visited USU with Gary has committed.

Pretty solid job Coach!

Not 100% accurate. We didn't get KJ Trujillo (Colorado), Dadrion Taylor actually committed and then de-committed and we are also waiting on Cole Thomas (we are in his final 3) to take his official visit to Texas Tech this weekend.

You're counting those guys as Gary's? Weren't they on their visits when he was hired?

BustaMcNutt wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 7:41 am

You're counting those guys as Gary's? Weren't they on their visits when he was hired?

They all had an opportunity to speak with Gary on their final day here because he had agreed in principal to become the new Head Coach. Each kid has also been actively recruited by the new staff. So I guess it's just up to how each individual looks at it and open to interpretation.

aggies22 wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 8:19 am

BustaMcNutt wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 7:41 am

You're counting those guys as Gary's? Weren't they on their visits when he was hired?

They all had an opportunity to speak with Gary on their final day here because he had agreed in principal to become the new Head Coach. Each kid has also been actively recruited by the new staff. So I guess it's just up to how each individual looks at it and open to interpretation.

I mean, isn’t this whole notion torpedoed by the fact thay Hilborn just visited last week and committed to Hawaii? Don’t even need to deal in technicalities

ineptimusprime wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 8:21 am

aggies22 wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 8:19 am

BustaMcNutt wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 7:41 am

You're counting those guys as Gary's? Weren't they on their visits when he was hired?

They all had an opportunity to speak with Gary on their final day here because he had agreed in principal to become the new Head Coach. Each kid has also been actively recruited by the new staff. So I guess it's just up to how each individual looks at it and open to interpretation.

I mean, isn’t this whole notion torpedoed by the fact thay Hilborn just visited last week and committed to Hawaii? Don’t even need to deal in technicalities

Haha! I'd already forgotten about Hilborn.

has Legas visited yet?

ViAggie wrote: ↑

January 31st, 2019, 9:27 am

has Legas visited yet?

I think this was actually an unofficial visit. But obviously he has visited in some capacity.

I think some of the credit has to go to Wells, Gary did a good job, but many of initial contacts were done by Wells staff.

This could have been a disaster, switching coaches when they did.

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Jjoey53 wrote: ↑

February 6th, 2019, 5:32 pm

I think some of the credit has to go to Wells, Gary did a good job, but many of initial contacts were done by Wells staff.

This could have been a disaster, switching coaches when they did.

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This is simply not true about Wells having 1st contact! Well ok your correct about that on the guys we signed in the early signing peroid. But most if not all of today's signings were because of GA and his staff. MW didn't really recruit the state of Utah! That's a fact.

JFW_AGGIES wrote: ↑

February 6th, 2019, 6:44 pm

Jjoey53 wrote: ↑

February 6th, 2019, 5:32 pm

I think some of the credit has to go to Wells, Gary did a good job, but many of initial contacts were done by Wells staff.

This could have been a disaster, switching coaches when they did.

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This is simply not true about Wells having 1st contact! Well ok your correct about that on the guys we signed in the early signing peroid. But most if not all of today's signings were because of GA and his staff. MW didn't really recruit the state of Utah! That's a fact.

Which makes absolutely no sense.

You’ve got to recruit California, Texas the Pacific Northwest. But why completely ignore your backyard?

U has gotten “too good” for many of the local recruits, we should have always been snapping them up.

Wells did recruit Utah. I don't know what resources usually go into recruiting locally, but I know several kids that received monthly visits from Frank Maile and other assistants. One of them signed with Utah State.


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dyedblue wrote:Wells did recruit Utah. I don't know what resources usually go into recruiting locally, but I know several kids that received monthly visits from Frank Maile and other assistants. One of them signed with Utah State.


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Of course he did. I think the point being made is that he didn’t recruit Utah “enough”.


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Just because we had a presence in the state doesn't mean we'd offered kids. I'd never even heard of offers to Legas or Hill until GA took over. Matt simply never offered kids in Utah!

Didn’t we just have arguably our best season ever with Wells “not recruiting the state hard enough”? Just because it’s a different recruiting approach than St. Gary doesn’t mean it’s wrong. As long as we get talent and produce on the field I could not care less where the talent is from.

I think I care. I mean, I'm one of the few around here (apparently) that still likes Wells, and I didn't have a problem with his recruiting in general. But this sport is about more than just winning, for me. Having local kids is a bonus worth having.

I think something that a few of you are missing is this. We need to continue to grow our fan base and one way to achieve this is to get quality in State talent. Their family and friends will hopefully want to come and watch them play. Once this happens we need to be able to persuade them to remain lifelong supporters of the program.

JFW_AGGIES wrote: ↑

February 7th, 2019, 5:21 pm

I think something that a few of you are missing is this. We need to continue to grow our fan base and one way to achieve this is to get quality in State talent. Their family and friends will hopefully want to come and watch them play. Once this happens we need to be able to persuade them to remain lifelong supporters of the program.

Not sure I agree with that...lets say you get 20 locals a year, does that translate into perhaps 100 new fans who may become disinterested after a couple of years when local is gone? That is a small percentage of the thousands we need to find. In my opinion, winning, is the way to fill the seats, and the way to win is with the best talent we can find, regardless of residency.

I vividly recall in the early 1960's when John Ralston imported a host of players from California. We won big. And folks were calling us "The University of California Logan" We packed the stadium during his tenure.

I don’t really care where we get our kids, just get the best.
What I don’t understand is ignoring great talent like Legas and Hill when it’s under your nose.
Seems MUCH more efficient to get good local kids than to fly here there or everywhere.

Not really fair to Wells. Gary’s strength is recruiting Utah . He is one of the best at that. Wells has other strengths. Recruiting Utah wasn’t what he felt most comfortable with. However did he not leave us with a top 25 team?

Chatman wrote: ↑

February 7th, 2019, 10:19 pm

Not really fair to Wells. Gary’s strength is recruiting Utah . He is one of the best at that. Wells has other strengths. Recruiting Utah wasn’t what he felt most comfortable with. However did he not leave us with a top 25 team?

Wells put us in a great position. He was able to build upon what Coach Andersen built the first time and I appreciate his work for USU. Both have strengths and weakness, just like you and me. I think Gary's strength is building a program, where Matt's might be sustaining it. I don't know for sure, just what I observed. I'm excited for what Gary brings, I think it has been missing for the last 5 or years

Seems Matt isn’t really interested in recruiting Texas either.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wreckemred ... ruits/amp/

Winning matters and fills the seats. If a team is winning, no one really is very concerned whether they came fro Smithfield, Texas, Logan, Florida, Hyrum, California or Ogden.


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Sl7vk wrote:Seems Matt isn’t really interested in recruiting Texas either.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wreckemred ... ruits/amp/

He had a rough start, Texas Tech is going to be a major challenge for him.


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For Aggs22 or Tania, Are Taquelin Harris or Demarcus Ross still possibilities (push forward or fall enrollments)? Or are we done recruiting for this cycle, until December? I noticed they still show up as “warm”. Or better yet are we still looking at athletes who are in the portal?

bullshot wrote: ↑

February 8th, 2019, 6:38 am

For Aggs22 or Tania, Are Taquelin Harris or Demarcus Ross still possibilities (push forward or fall enrollments)? Or are we done recruiting for this cycle, until December? I noticed they still show up as “warm”. Or better yet are we still looking at athletes who are in the portal?

We've left Harris and Ross on warm because we aren't 100% sure if they are off our radar yet. Harris could stay in JuCo and be a 2020 kid. I don't get the feeling that we are done yet. We still have at least 1 MAYBE 2 scholarships to give. I would be very surprised if we took another Grad Transfer or a transfer at all. We have pretty good depth and typically a grad transfer is taken out of desperation.

I hope Wells is successful. He is still an Aggie. We recruit Utah because we want their kids to come back and play. Think about the impact of having top talent from Utah stay at home and play for us. It makes a difference for sure.

The other thing not mentioned about recruiting Utah, is that the High School coaches start an easy pipeline to your school with those kids.
Some random coach in California isn't going to prod kids to Logan. Coaches in Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis county that develop relationships with our coaching staff, will prod kids our way.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting more kids from Orem in future years after what happened on Wed.

Sl7vk wrote:The other thing not mentioned about recruiting Utah, is that the High School coaches start an easy pipeline to your school with those kids.
Some random coach in California isn't going to prod kids to Logan. Coaches in Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis county that develop relationships with our coaching staff, will prod kids our way.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting more kids from Orem in future years after what happened on Wed.

Yes, it is important those relationships with HS coaches in-state be developed and maintained, but you can make inroads with any school and they can nudge players towards a school.

Look at Mt. San Antonio JC in CA. We’ve got Matt Austin, Bojay, Suli, Jordan Nathan, and now Mosese Manu from there. Pretty good pipeline IMO.

Bondar4Aggies wrote: ↑

February 7th, 2019, 3:07 pm

Didn’t we just have arguably our best season ever with Wells “not recruiting the state hard enough”? Just because it’s a different recruiting approach than St. Gary doesn’t mean it’s wrong. As long as we get talent and produce on the field I could not care less where the talent is from.

I don't think you can criticize too much a recruiting formula that works for a particular coach but long term sustained success at USU depends on successfully recruiting Utah's poly community and the mission kids. Utah has a disproportionate amount of DI kids due to this advantage who have for the most part played in a competitive environment more on par with some of the Texas and Florida schools than you may think.

We shouldn't give Wells too much grief for this class's lack of Utah talent though. Almost the entire O line had Utah, Poly, or LDS ties as well as much of the D-line. Without them the season would have never happened. Excited to see what Andersen and Maile can do going forward to build on that.

Bondar4Aggies wrote: ↑

February 8th, 2019, 1:51 pm

Sl7vk wrote:The other thing not mentioned about recruiting Utah, is that the High School coaches start an easy pipeline to your school with those kids.
Some random coach in California isn't going to prod kids to Logan. Coaches in Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis county that develop relationships with our coaching staff, will prod kids our way.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting more kids from Orem in future years after what happened on Wed.

Yes, it is important those relationships with HS coaches in-state be developed and maintained, but you can make inroads with any school and they can nudge players towards a school.

Look at Mt. San Antonio JC in CA. We’ve got Matt Austin, Bojay, Suli, Jordan Nathan, and now Mosese Manu from there. Pretty good pipeline IMO.

We got Aaren Vaughn's from there too.