Urban's First Recruiting Class

[Tswam]

With all the different posts on recruiting, I thought I'd take a look at the first recruiting class from the Urban Meyer/Gregg Brandon regime. At the February '01 signing deadline, the names of 21 recruits were announced. We added an additional 4 players after the signing deadline (Steve Sanders, Pascal Kokke, Joe Gutierrez, Luis Llamas). The class consisted of 23 high school kids and 2 juco's. Here's what's happened to the Class of 2001.

6 of the high school players have completed their eligibility: T.J. Carswell, James Hawkins, Cole Magner, Corn McGrady, Keon Newson, Daniel Sayles

11 are still in the program: Mitchell Crossley, Mike Crumpler, Jonathan Culp (recruited as a tight end but never played there......imagine that), Nate Fry, B.J. Lane, Derek Lett, John Nicholson, Chuck Sharon, Mike Thaler, Steve Sanders, Rob Warren

4 guys were in the program but have since left: DL Jamal Bryant (thought by many to be the stud of the whole class; had academic and injury problems), RB Marlon Burt (never played; left after 2 seasons), DL Pascal Kokke (in the program 3 seasons; played sparingly), Jeff Waaland (huge OT from Florida who left after 1 season)

The 2 JUCO's: Joe Gutierrez (long-snapper for 2 seasons) and Luis Llamas (OLB was red-shirted in '01 and played a lot in '02; don't need to mention what happened to him after he left the program).

2 non-qualifiers: LB Darius Blackmon and RB Ronald Bailey

Warren actually committed to BG while Gary Blackney was still coaching and stuck to his commitment. Corn McGrady enrolled while GB was stii coach but was a non-qualifier his first year at BG.

This wasn't considered to be a great class back in February '01 given the late start the new staff had and BG's football reputation at that time. I'm sure "The Insiders" didn't have many of these players highly rated. We didn't successfully recruit a single quarterback even though we had only 3 in the program at that time and the offense in 2000 had been putrid

After going 37-12 over the past 4 years, you could say this has been a pretty good recruiting class (that's an understatement). It's probably not worth getting overly excited as we see commitments to this year's recruiting class. i think that staff knew what they were doing and I think our current staff is in the same place. Only time will tell.

[Schadenfreude]

Great post. Interesting stuff.

[Falcon30]

Great post. Interesting stuff.

Ditto - that is why I love this board. Thanks.