Big East recruit class has few headliners, lots of sleepers

By Darrell Laurant  |   Thursday, February 07, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

College Football
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2007 was a watershed year for the Big East. Two teams -- West Virginia and South Florida -- climbed as high as No. 2 in the national rankings, and six of the eight conference schools were ranked in the top 25 at some point in the season. Five Big East teams went to bowls.

So why is it that of ESPN's top 150 high school recruits, only four opted for this up-and-coming conference? (All four signed by Pittsburgh.)

It could be that there remains a time lag between performance and perception. The blue-chip athletes coming up now don't think in terms of Cincinnati, Connecticut or South Florida, but dream about high-profile programs like Southern Cal, Oklahoma or Ohio State. Nor does it help that Big East teams aren't on national television as often as, say, the SEC or Big Ten.

The good news is, there aren't all that many blue chippers -- and the ones who opt for the big-name schools often find themselves caught in traffic, stuck behind equally highly regarded recruits. The kids the Big East schools are getting tend to be at the next level down from "blue chip," players who have confidence in their ability but want to make sure they'll get the opportunity to showcase it.

So how did Pittsburgh manage to land wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin (No. 25 on the ESPN list), inside linebacker Shayne Hale (No. 101), running back Chris Burns (109) and two-way lineman Luke Nix (123)?

As they say in real estate, location, location, location. Western Pennsylvania is one of the top prep football areas in the country, and Pitt is right in the middle of it. Moreover, two of the four top 150 recruits reeled in by Dave Wannstedt and his staff had prior Pitt connections -- Baldwin's father, Jerry, was a Panther and Luke Nix's brother Nate was a Pitt redshirt last season.

These factors helped Pitt beat out Southern Cal, Michigan, Florida and Miami for Baldwin, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound wide receiver out of Aliquippa with 4.4 speed. Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee also wanted Hale (rated the No. 2 run stopper among linebackers at the U.S. Army All-Star game), while Burns and Nix also had a wide range of other offers. In all, 14 of Pitt's 19 signees were in-state.

Another Pitt recruit, DB Jarred Holley of Easton, Pa., was listed in CNN's top 100. And kicker Kevin Harper, out of Mentor, Ohio, nailed a state-record 62-yard field goal in 2007 and added 50 touchbacks.

If you're into stars (as in those assigned to recruits by Rivals.com), here's how the Big East fared:

Pitt had the only five-star recruit in Baldwin, plus a trio of four-star signees (Nix, Hale, Holley, Burns and pint-sized but dangerous athlete Cameron Saddler out of Monroeville) and nine 3s.

Rutgers' class was led by four-star prospects Art Forst (6-8, 288, offensive line), Keith Stroud (a wide receiver from Fork Union prep school in Virginia) and Scott Vallone (a defensive tackle from Long Island). The Scarlet Knights' seven 3s include promising in-state running back Rashad White and Florida QB D.C. Jefferson, a 6-6, 230-pounder who has been compared to JaMarcus Russell.

With a disappointing 2007 season and heavy graduation losses, Louisville needed help fast, especially on defense. Thus, eight of Steve Kragthorpe's 22-member class were junior college players, highlighted by 6-1, 205-pound DB Josh Wiley from Poplarville (Mississippi) Community College, the only four-star. Other prizes among the 11 three-star players included a couple of Texas imports -- 6-4, 285-pound tackle Mario Benavides and WR Jacques Caldwell -- and QB Zack Stoudt of Dublin, Ohio, son of former NFL QB Cliff Stoudt. Caldwell has, according to the Louisville Web site, been clocked as low as 4.28 in the 40. Louisville also slid into the territory of conference rival Cincinnati to snag three players from St. Xavier high School.

The departure of coach Rich Rodriguez for Michigan had a chilling effect on the recruiting efforts of conference heavyweight West Virginia, which lost several de-commits. The Mountaineers did, however, manage to hold onto four-star OT Josh Jenkins from Parkersburg and another four-star, DE Tevita Finau (6-5, 275) from Phoenix. A second Arizona import, DB Brantwon Bowser, was recruited to fill one of the holes in the secondary, and the nine 3s include highly regarded LB Donovan Miles from Stafford, Va., and a quarterback from Daphne, Ala., named Corey White. Yup, Pat White's little brother.

Cincinnati was a Big East school whose recruiting didn't match its 2007 success -- Brian Kelly's staff landed only six 3s and no 4s, staying mostly within Ohio. Florida DB Dominique Battle could be an instant starter, however, and running backs Isiah Peed (Columbus) and George Winn (Southfield, Mich.) had impressive high school careers. Wide receiver D.J. Woods of Strongsville, Ohio (a de-commit who re-committed), has run a 4.35, according to Rivals.

Syracuse brought in the biggest class because, well, it had to. With the school's biggest-name recruit, four-star Rochester RB Averin Collier (New York State's top prospect), the depths to which the program has sunk was actually an incentive -- Collier said he wanted to be part of turning things around. Greg Robinson also hooked three other four stars, two of them (LB Romale Tucker and DE Mikhail Marinovich) from post-grad power Milford Academy and WR Marcus Sales from just down the street at Christian Brothers Academy. Utica product DeAndre Preaster -- who also wants to play basketball at SU -- could blossom into a star at wide receiver or DB if he can qualify academically. Marinovich, the brother of former NFL QB Todd, is 6-6 and runs a 4.5 40. What SU really needed was offensive linemen, and the Orange got five, including Upstate New York monsters Nick Lepak (6-4, 340) and Ian Allport (6-5, 300).

It's always fun for South Florida to tweak in-state rival Florida in recruiting, and the Bulls snatched QB B.J. Daniels (ranked as having the fifth-best arm among top 100 quarterbacks by Rivals) out of Tallahassee. Daniels and DE David Bedford were USF's only four stars, but Jim Leavitt and staff also signed eight 3s, sticking mostly with Florida talent.

Finally, there was Connecticut, which managed to sign only two of the top 10 prospects in ... Connecticut. Not good. There are some bright spots in Randy Edsall's class, however, including 6-8, 270-pound Virginia tackle Jimmy Bennett, who runs a sub-5.0 40, and promising running back Jordan Todman out of Massachusetts,

(Next week: A team-by-team look at the Big East Class of 2008).
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