Recruiting: Embrace it or Fail

Arguably, the jewel of this recruiting class is cornerback Anthony Davis of Gateway and probably not arguable is that cornerback is the one position where Temple needs immediate help.

Say what you will about Matt Rhule and we haven’t been shy about saying a few thousand words about him over the last few months, the facts of life in college sports start with a head coach who excels in recruiting.

Sure, you need a little bit on the ball on game day but, if you have better players, you are usually going to make the better plays.

247Sports' AAC recruiting rankings.

247Sports’ AAC recruiting rankings.

Back to Rhule, though. The guy’s most positive trait is that he’s embraced recruiting pretty much like Al Golden did and that’s a very good development for Temple football going forward. Kids like him and he seems to like hopping aboard airplanes and trains to solidify relationships. He’s also good on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and that’s just part of the recruiting game these days. For all of those reasons, I think Rhule will hold together a pretty good recruiting class and have Temple ranked No. 3 or  No. 4 in the AAC in recruiting this season. That’s outstanding coming off a 2-10 season because a belief system that would have been there for 10-2 doesn’t exist at 2-10. At 2-10, you are asking kids to come to your school based on blind faith.

One of the reasons Bill O’Brien left Penn State was that I don’t think a whole lot of guys who spend extended time in the NFL have a zeal for recruiting. Reading between the lines of O’Brien’s comments today, it looks like he saw it as a necessary but not exciting part of the job. O’Brien also seemed miffed with the “Joe Paterno” faction of the Penn State fans.

Now he just has to concentrate on football and I think he will do a good job as head coach of the Texans.

Matt Rhule has got to get better on game day and I thought one step in that direction would have been hiring part-time CBS Sports Analyst Tom Bradley to be his new full-time defensive coordinator. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but Penn State defensive line coach (and great recruiter) Larry Johnson is out there and probably will be looking for a job soon and Temple so happens to have an opening for a defensive line coach. (Unless, of course, Johnson goes to the pros.)

Seems like a no-brainer to me but a lot of things seemed like no-brainers this season that turned into brainers.

12 thoughts on “Recruiting: Embrace it or Fail

  1. Speaking of “brainers” thought it was pretty low of O’Brien telling recruits last week that he was staying. He didn’t even have the decency to set forth his intentions and now all those kids who bought his spiel that they had to remain loyal to PSU and stay must feel like they’ve been had. Welcome to the world of college football. On the other hand, a little schadenfreude ain’t so bad either for those “holier than thou” PennStaters

    • I think they all do it. Al was telling recruits he was going to be at Temple for a few years a couple days before he left. Kids are smart; most of them are quoted as saying they go for the school, not the coach (necessarily).

  2. Any word on Dayshawn Reynolds out of AC? He committed last year but I think he went 2 prep school.

  3. Karma is bitch for Vanilla Joe and State Penn, John, LOL

  4. bowl season is almost over, and the big takeaway for me is how well you develop and scheme the talent you have is more important than the talent you recruit. perfect example is UCF over Baylor…, Baylor had a higher ranked recruiting class over the last three years, and look what UCF did…,, best thing about AG was he recruited two and three stars and turned them into four star, play on Sunday, athletes.

    yes, Rhule has to out-recruit the other teams in the AAC. More importantly, he has to develop and scheme those players better than the other teams – that is the key to consistent winning….., so far he sucks

  5. Rhule was a recruiter, QB coach, and OC under AG and Daz. which two of those three positions did he enjoy the least success? the facts are what they are, he is what his past record of performance says he is – a good recruiter and nothing more, end of sentence.

  6. If Rhule was honest, he would come out and say his performance as a head coach was unacceptable this season. The closest he came to saying that was that “I am embarrassed” after Fordham and “this will get fixed.” He never said he was embarrassed again, even though he had two weeks to fix things for Idaho and that was an even more embarrassing loss. Then the finger-pointing turned to the kids. Really distasteful IMHO.

  7. I hope Larry Johnson would consider Temple. He deserves and wants the PSU job and would be angry if he is dissed. On another point, the Owls QB and WR positions were fixed in season, and the defensive backfield is being fixed now. Recruiting is job one. TMBB is thin from lethargic recruiting, despite Dunphy’s coaching skills. Fran would be a great NBA coach but is not a top level college recruiter.

  8. Funny. Fran is a GREAT … and I mean GREAT gameday coach and a terrible recruiiter (I think Fran’s best recruiting pitch is “look at what we have, a 10K state-of-the-art arena to play in and a $4 mil practice facility and if you want to come here, great, if not, that’s OK, too” …Rhule is a TERRIBLE gameday coach and a great recruiter….. can we meet in the middle for both sports, please?

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