UCLA's Jim Mora makes good moves in football recruitment - latimes.com
"If you want to know how badly UCLA football recruiting had fallen, let me tell the story from Harbor City Narbonne Coach Manuel Douglas."
4 months ago
4everBruin
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Then vs now
If you want to know how badly UCLA football recruiting had fallen, let me tell the story from Harbor City Narbonne Coach Manuel Douglas. He said that during the City Section playoffs in 2010, a UCLA recruiter was on campus and didn’t know who the best player was at Crenshaw High.
“He didn’t know who De’Anthony Thomas was,” Douglas said. “If you don’t know in your backyard who the best player in the City was, you’re doing a crappy job recruiting.”
That's the lede
You gotta start with that in your fanshot man. Trying to figure out if there is any validity to that claim. That seems stunning.
Seriously
This is shocking. Even I knew who De’Anthony Thomas was at the time, and I barely follow recruiting.
I have talked to some folks about this closely connected to recruiting world ...
… ho are not necessarily fans of Neuheisel. Their thoughts is that the story is BS and a classic ignorant hit piece on UCLA. Neuheisel had his issues. Recruiting wasn’t really one of them.
Coach Neu was a pretty solid recruiter
according to the various scouting services. He was a huge upgrade over CD. On the other hand, I’m pretty certain that if Coach Douglas never made that statement to the LA Times writer, he would have been all over the LA Times for the false quote.
Because the quote was directly attributed to a respected
coach of a perennial HS football power, I believe it to be true. I hope that unnamed recruiter now works for Sark or SC.
That coach
has a soft spot for schools other than UCLA. If you don’ t think coaches influence their kids to pick certain schools, just look at Mater Dei. Their coach might as well be Tommy Trogan.
Regardless, he is lying, because up until signing day we all had an inkling of hope that Thomas would pick UCLA. That’s because he was being recruited and still had us on his list.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
What would be the point of a Times hit piece on Coach Neu so many weeks after his firing?
I just don’t see a reason for it on an article that ran just yesterday.
Without a doubt, coaches have school biases. That’s hardly a revelation though. Mater Dei coach Rollinson played for John McKay. He IS Tommy Toejam incarnate, so a push towards his alma mater is expected. Narbonne players are all over the map college wise, except UCLA as noted. Coach Douglas spent 5 days with Chip Kelly learning the Oregon offense which Narbonne then adopted, with stellar results. I expect Douglas should have a soft spot for Oregon, but that does not mean the quote is a lie or a fabrication. What would be the point of lying about it?
I’ve liked Neu since he played QB for the Bruins and I’m really sorry to see he couldn’t make it happen as our coach. He did manage to reverse the downward recruiting trend of his predecessor, but not where it really matters: the Ws. He is a Bruin through and through.
You think the Times needs a reason to bash on UCLA?
You haven’t been around here long, have you? More importantly, this story does not pass the smell test. No one who paid attention to recruiting under Neuheisel believes this because it doesn’t make sense that someone who recruited very well in the LA area would not be aware of who the best player in the city is. Come on now. The Times is pissing on your head and telling you it’s raining. Don’t let them do it.
This is interesting
The brother is administrator in charge of recruiting and he is saying bad about the brother.
Why?
The story is hard to believe.
The facts are that Coach Neuheisel's 2011 class
fell off the map down to #45 on Rivals and #55 on Scouts, after his prior recruiting classes ranked in the top 15 in both. That’s a pretty steep degradation in recruiting effectiveness any way you slice it. It is also consistent with the article’s claim.
Right - same thing will happen to UCLA's 2014 class
If Mora doesn’t produce in 12 and 13. We detailed as extensively as anyone that Neuheisel’s class last year slipped and that is why we put an urgency behind need for regime change. He slipped due to not meeting expectations, not because he was a bad recruiter. So the article’s claim that UCLA wasn’t recruiting intensely under Neuheisel is off-base.
Hurr Durr
It wasn’t the 4 win season at all. Recruits don’t pay attention to stupid things like wins and losses. I’m so desperate to believe the SUC Times’ latest BS even though it doesn’t make any frickin sense.
Seriously, this is just getting stupid. Pretty pathetic display of deductive reasoning from 4ever.
Lots of responses and arguments in this thread based on feelings and assumptions.
This article spoke of one, unnamed UCLA recruiter. It certainly wasn’t Coach Neuheisel because he had early success as a good recruiter, according to Sondheimer. The eventual fall off in recruiting was attributed (correctly, IMO) by the writer to the lack of wins commensurate with the recruiting successes. The timeline of the Coach Manuel quote fits in with the factually correct, steep drop off in the 2011 recruiting class ranking. Sondheimer gives Mora and his coaches an A for their recruiting approach and early results. He also points out that these recruiters must also prove to be good coaches (win), if their recruiting impact is to have lasting, positive results. Valid points.
If this an LA Times “hit piece”, it’s pretty weak on the hit, but pretty solid on the praise. The small irony of UCLA offering Narbonne’s junior QB was not mentioned. The one who plays for Coach Manuel who has been accused here of outright lying. Maybe Coach Manuel did fabricate a story to make his point about his perception of UCLA recruiting. Without a name to corroborate the claim, we won’t know. At the end of the day, none of it is going to matter if we don’t get the wins.
I don't really care about the "praise" from mostly a garbage outlet
When it starts with unsupported and dubious claim about recruiting done by a coaching staff that overall had done a good job of recruiting, until record on the field caught up with them. I trust folks who we talk to on he background more than who this LAT piece drudged up. As far we are concerned this story is moot and we don’t really care much about the weak hit on UCLA from this.
So basically you're letting the tail wag the dog
You like the praise so you’re willing to believe the rest of the garbage no matter how far fetched and nonsensical it is with the rest of the facts on the table.
Without a name of the scout, we have no idea who it was.
It could have been just a dude wearing UCLA gear. I don’t see this as a Neu hitpiece as much as it would be a UCLA recruiter hitpiece.
"I have one word for you...Be careful."
-Jose Guillen
Ugh
Very true. Coach Rollinson and the coach of Servite are well known $C homers. Same with Mission Viejo’s head coach Bob Johnson for a while due to the drama surrounding his elder son’s (not Rob) handling here. In recent years though, we’ve had a few MV guys, the Molines and Cyburt.
Dump Dan!
by bruinclassof10 on Jan 23, 2012 9:19 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah I'm going to go ahead and call BS on this hit piece
Look I was never much of a CRN fan but recruiting was one of the things he did best. He put together multiple top ten recruiting classes and brought in Brett Hundley.
Highly doubt the veracity of this
Unless that "recruiter" was Dan Guerrero
“Who’s DeAnthony Thomas?” “What’s a Black Mamba?” “Where’s the city of Crenshaw?” “Why’re we spending time and effort recruiting in the city of Crenshaw when the city of Mater Dei is closer?”
Dump Dan!
by bruinclassof10 on Jan 23, 2012 9:22 PM PST up reply actions
Crenshaw high had also been to UCLA
games since the ‘09 season with (you guessed it) De’Anthony Thomas tagging along. Bull crap article.
"A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it." Miles Davis
by milesdavis93 on Jan 24, 2012 11:27 AM PST up reply actions
Strange that UCLA offered a player they hadn't heard of
See the little check mark for “Offer” by UCLA’s name?
Someone appears to have known knew who De’Anthony was. This story is BS.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
B-B-But the timeline fits
I mean it also fits with the 4 win season thing, but the timeline fits therefore this article must be right. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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