• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

2016 Football Recruiting Thread - Notes from NSD Press Conference and Reception

While I respect this coaching staff and know they most definitely have a better eye for talent than I ever will, I do question some of these early offers. I feel like some of these players could have been offered later in the year if some of the other big board targets fell through. Hopefully I'm wrong and the staff just grabbed these these guys before their recruiting took off.
 
If that happens, they can still switch anyway. Still 10 months until signing day.
 
THE TIGHT ENDS

Here’s a look at the possibilities for the tight end position. This position group has become one of the more interesting ones because of a number of recent offers. There appears to be so much attention being paid to this position that the question must be asked about whether the staff is planning on taking two tight ends. For such a small class that would be an interesting development. I will try and organize the list by likelihood (higher, medium, lower).

HIGHER

Robert Tucker (Atlanta, GA)
Rating: Unrated
Other P5 offers: Louisville, N.C. State and Syracuse
Confirmed Visits in 2015: Yes. He visited for Junior Day and the first scrimmage
Measurements: 6’3 / 229 (per Rivals)
Commentary: Recently named Wake Forest as his leader. In doing so he used some of the strongest language that I have seen from an uncommitted prospect. There is no doubt that he likes Wake Forest. He was the subject of the following Scheier tweet: “Gr8 hanging w/1 of the BEST TEs from The ATL @ Zicks 2nite. Pizza, wings & a lesson on the pool table. U will learn more than just football!”. He lists N.C. State as being another school in contention, and it is no secret that he wants an offer from Georgia and/or Auburn. He visited Auburn in early-March.

Brandon Chapman (Grove City, OH)
Rating: Unrated
Other P5 offers: Kentucky
Confirmed Visits in 2015: Yes. For the first scrimmage
Measurements: 6’5 / 240 (per Rivals)
Commentary: Another recruit that really likes Wake. After his unofficial visit he tweeted “It’s telling you something when I was upset to leave….”. He also tweeted two of the posters mailed to him by the staff (the Sports Illustrated cover and the Most Wanted posted). I think that Kentucky might be full at TE for this class. If I’m correct then Wake might be his only P5 opportunity right now. He has visited Cincinnati and Illinois in 2015, but does not have an offer from either yet. He does have offers from programs like Bowling Green and Toledo. I assume those programs would be the fall back plan.

MEDIUM

Noah Davis (Cincinnati, OH)
Rating: 3-star / #27 recruit in Ohio
Other P5 offers: Arkansas, Boston College, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pitt, and Purdue
Confirmed Visits in 2015: Not yet, but he is expected to visit on April 8.
Measurements: 6’5/235 (per Rivals)
Commentary: Former lacrosse player. Now focused solely on football. Despite having the longest offer list of any tight end on my list, I think that Wake Forest is a legitimate contender for Davis. He has said that academics will be a big factor for him and he has backed that up by prioritizing visits to Wake Forest and Boston College during his spring break over opportunities to visit Arkansas, Nebraska, Kentucky etc. Michigan State may ultimately factor in his recruitment as well. They have been rumored to be close to offering and Davis will travel to East Lansing for their spring game. 247 thinks that Boston College has the inside track on Davis (he has 5 Crystal Balls to BC). Note that the Eagles already have a commit from former Wake-target TE Scooter Harrington.

Alexander Marshall (Andover, MA)
Rating: 3-star / #1 recruit in Massachusetts
Other P5 offers: Pitt
Confirmed Visits in 2015: No
Measurements: 6’7 / 225 (per Rivals)
Commentary: New offer. Formerly a UNC commit for lacrosse. Now focused solely on football.

Sam Letton (Marietta, GA)
Rating: 3-star.
Other P5 offers: Kentucky, N.C. State, Syracuse and West Virginia.
Confirmed Visits in 2015: No. He plans to visit in April.
Measurements: 6’3 / 220 (per Rivals)

LOWER

Andrew Trainer (Alexandria, VA)
Rating: Unrated
Other P5 offers: Virginia, N.C. State and Illinois
Confirmed Visits in 2015: No
Measurements: 6’7 / 240 (per Rivals)
Commentary: Virginia is the very early favorite as evidenced by 2 Crystal Balls for UVA. Trainer also plays basketball and he delayed unofficial visits until that season was over. He was scheduled to visit UVA last Friday. ECU has made Trainer a priority and he visited ECU a week ago.

Other TEs that I am keeping an eye on:

Irvin Smith (New Orleans, LA) was just offered this weekend. I will be taking a look this week at whether to add him to the board. His offer list seems light considering his ranking (#13 TE in the country), but Miami has offered and established themselves as early favorites. Schools like LSU and Notre Dame are heavily involved but haven’t pulled the trigger on offers yet. Son of 1993 first round NFL draft pick Irv Smith.

I mentioned on Saturday that Wake Forest just missed out on a visit from recently offered TE Noah Turner (Mundelein, IL) who just wrapped up a visit to North Carolina.

ETA: It look like Wake also offered Irvin Smith's Brother Martin teammate Peyton Aucoin this weekend. His other P5 offers are Vanderbilt, N.C. State and Arizona State.

With the flurry of tight end offers it makes me worry about whether there are longer-term concerns about Bo Archibald's injury, however I have heard nothing about any concerns extending past 2015. If they do take two TEs, it would seem to have more to do with their desire to feature 2 TEs and the loss of Jake Bargas from last year's class. It is also worth noting that any 2016 TEs will have more distance (in terms of years of eligbility) from Cam Serigne and Devin Pike.
 
Last edited:
PhDeac said:
So much for thinking they'd be selective with a small class.
Click to expand...

Well I am obviously going to be wrong on my prediction that the class will have the highest average star ranking that Wake has ever had. However I don’t look at it as the staff not being selective. The learning for me is that part of the staff’s strategy will continue to include finding “diamonds in the rough” that have very high upside. I think that they trust their evaluations and would rather take a guy that they think could be developed into a star rather than taking more established prospects that have a higher floor but a lower ceiling.

It is noticeable that the more that we learn about the overall Clawson strategy the more it resembles the Grobe strategy, especially when you consider that aggressive redshirting is part of the Clawson strategy. The Clawson strategy involves executing it better, which I think they will do.

After the Ray commit I obviously asked myself whether I should continue working on this thread. If our commits are going to be in the Phil Haynes / Je’Vionte Nash / Jake Benzinger / Christian Matthew / Alex Bachman / Andrew Rector category then, while they might turn out to be fine football players, there is no point in my putting in work on this thread by writing about which mainstream recruits we are targeting. I could just wait to hear about commits and then add the obligatory “oh, we got a (insert position), you can never have too many (insert position)” comment. However, I am going to give it a bit longer. It seems like some people are still reading the thread, and I am convinced that there will be some mainstream recruits in this class. There are certainly a lot visiting.
 
Please don't stop doing the great work. We have no right to ask it of you, but it is VERY much appreciated Deac94.
 
Deac94 said:
It is noticeable that the more that we learn about the overall Clawson strategy the more it resembles the Grobe strategy, especially when you consider that aggressive redshirting is part of the Clawson strategy. The Clawson strategy involves executing it better, which I think they will do.
.
Click to expand...

First, please don't stop doing what you are doing! We appreciate it.
Second, I am no expert but I never thought Grobe's strategy was wrong--it was the execution that failed--particularly after the first few years.
Third, I suspect Clawson thinks he can reach higher once the program gains in prestige. Isn't that what Duke has done? Is there any reason we can't be as successful as Duke?
 
94 - you are the primary reason for looking at the forums. Please keep it up.
 
94 - not sure if you've had him up before, but it seems like Darron Johnson out of Ridgeway HS is someone we are actively recruiting.
 
Here is my projection of how the class could break down by position. I assumed a class of 16 recruits, and used the volume of offers as a guideline.

1 QB
1 RB
2 outside WR
1 SLOT
1 TE
2 OL (Je'Vionte Nash plus one more)
2 DL (Johnny Ray plus one more)
3 DB
1 Punter (Dom Maggio)
2 more spots to be used for either: a 2nd TE, an all-purpose back or a linebacker.

Some thoughts on individual position groups:

I would be surprised if we don't take a LB. I know that there are only two LBs in the defense and the roster depth is pretty good, but Wake took only one in 2015.

Whether Wake takes an all-purpose back in 2016 might depend on whether they can land Jordon Brown.

I think that DB will be a big area of focus. At one point the 2015 class had 3 safety commits (Christian Matthew, Dior Johnson and Andrew Rector) but ended up with only one signee (Jessie Bates). Surely that means multiple safeties in this class. Also Clawson said on the coaches show last fall that they were considering adding a 3rd corner to last year's class, and that was before Daiquan Lawrence left the program. So you would expect that Wake would add there as well.

2 outside WRs seems like a lot given how many were taken in 2015, but that appears to be such an area of focus I would really be surprised if Wake didn't take at least 2.

My projection would have more scholarships allocated to the offense than the defense. Maybe as much as 10 offense to 5 defense. This would come after a year in which the offense got 14 scholarships and the defense only 9.
 
Add me as a fan of deac94 posts, always love reading your findings. Keep it up!
 
Just saw that LB Elysee Mbem-Bosse will visit Wake again for the spring game. He previously attended Wake's Elite Junior Day. I had crossed him off my list after he got Michigan and Tennessee offers. Since then he picked up offers from Alabama and Auburn. This will be another recruit to keep an eye on.
 
simosfrostyone said:
First, please don't stop doing what you are doing! We appreciate it.
Second, I am no expert but I never thought Grobe's strategy was wrong--it was the execution that failed--particularly after the first few years.
Third, I suspect Clawson thinks he can reach higher once the program gains in prestige. Isn't that what Duke has done? Is there any reason we can't be as successful as Duke?
Click to expand...

Three years ago we had a 12-game winning streak against Duke and they were having big-$$ booster and former player summits basically to try and figure out how to emulate Wake's success. We can now only hope they also take our cue on how to get to a higher level only to get complacent/lazy and fall off the face of the earth again.
 
Playing a cupcake ooc schedule like Duke does would help.
 
Another piece of good news today. Safety JJ Givens (Mechanicsville, VA) reportedly made visit #2 to Wake Forest earlier this week. He also put Wake in his early top 3 with Arizona State and Michigan State.

Wake Forest gave him his 2nd P5 offer on February 15th during Junior Day. Since then he added the Arizona State and Michigan State offers, as well as Duke, Indiana, Louisville, Maryland, Michigan, N.C. State and West Virginia.

Rivals currently ranks him as the #31 safety in the country and the #13 overall recruit in Virginia.
 
DownEastDeac said:
Three years ago we had a 12-game winning streak against Duke and they were having big-$$ booster and former player summits basically to try and figure out how to emulate Wake's success. We can now only hope they also take our cue on how to get to a higher level only to get complacent/lazy and fall off the face of the earth again.
Click to expand...

When I look at Duke football’s success factors I see 4 things:

1. Recent on-field success (am I correct that their recent teams have been loaded with older, more experienced players??)
2. Recognized athletics brand driven by the basketball program gives them credibility in recruiting
3. Successful fund raising that drove $100 million in facilities improvements (some completed and some planned). Note: these improvements are across all of Duke athletics, not just football
4. A football coaching staff that relentlessly markets their program as the destination of choice for high-character, high-academics type players. Their staff tweets constantly on those themes. For example, a typical tweet from their staff might say “if we don’t like the kind of things that we see on your Twitter account we won’t recruit you” or “don’t send me your highlight film until I’ve seen your grades and test scores”. It doesn’t sound all that effective, but certain recruits eat it up. If a kid sees himself as a high-character / high-academic kid, then he associates himself with this Duke football brand.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top