THE EXTRA SEASON
Del Olaleye: If you are locked into college football recruiting, you are among friends
Del Olaleye
Jan 31, 2018, 5:29 am
Alabama won the national title, but winning again may happen because of events in the next week. Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Plenty of people think the College Football season ended when Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa hit Devonta Smith for the game winning touchdown in the national title game. Those people would be wrong and maybe you should disassociate yourself from them. Smith, the WR who caught the pass, wasn’t on Alabama’s roster at this time last year. He didn’t even decide he wanted to play for the Crimson Tide until Feb. 1, 2017. Smith is one of many elite high school prospects who wait until National Signing Day to make a decision on where to play college football. In some cases the journey to a decision is a three-year process. Late January to early February is closing time in college football. We’re gonna talk a little ‘crootin.
In Alabama’s comeback win against Georgia two different freshmen caught touchdown passes. The aforementioned Tagovailoa was a freshman as well. Tagovailoa played the entire second half after replacing an ineffective Jalen Hurts. Standing next to the freshman signal-caller for most of the second half was top-ranked running back and true freshman Najee Harris. Harris wasn’t featured in the first half but finished the game as Alabama’s leading rusher. The first of Tagovailoa touchdowns went to another highly touted freshman, Henry Ruggs III. Four freshmen all contributed to Alabama’s comeback. Ruggs, just as in the case of Smith, waited till the very end to decide to play for Alabama. Game-changing talent everywhere. All just out of high school.
Securing that talent is the lifeblood of any program and the pursuit of that top end talent turned perhaps the biggest curmudgeon in college football into someone we don’t recognize. It is the only viable explanation for why Nick Saban of all people is doing the cupid shuffle in some kid’s living room. Thankfully the recruit decided to film the whole thing and now Saban has gone viral. I’m not sure Saban knows what “going viral” is but he just did it. If I was that kid I’d commit to Tennessee. I fear what Saban will do him as retribution once the wining and dining is over. Saban isn’t alone in his apparent out of character actions. Adults of all backgrounds will tweet directly at kids who are considering playing for their favorite school. If a high-profile kid tweets something as simple as “Where the FSU fans at” you can expect over 300 RTs and 3,000 likes in response.
Showing twitter love is really the public face of a fanbase and their obsession. Message boards are where the real underbelly of following recruiting exists. Every major school has more than one board. The basic models can be found at Rivals and 247sports. You’ll find the real diehards at fan-run sites. Posters on those board will spend the entire month of January tracking what obscure city an assistant is traveling to. If they want to be updated about which players have made the decision to take an official visit to their school there is an app for that. Analyzing the words an 18-year old kid texts to a reporter about his college plans is absolutely a thing as well. Understand this, if you haven’t rationalized away a recruit picking your rival over your favorite team then you’re not a true college football fan.
Posters on message boards during the stretch run of recruiting season can be placed into easily recognizable categories.
Optimist: Believes their coaches are recruiting monsters. Any kid who shows their team any type of attention can be snagged. They are usually disappointed on National Signing Day because there is no way any coaching staff can live up to their expectations
Pessimist: They believe every recruit is playing the coaches for fools. They post things like: “Player X is just using the official visit as a free vacation. We’re wasting our time.” Pessimists position themselves as realists. The Pessimist thinks their job is to keep the the Optimist’s expectations in check.
Above the Fray: This poster will tell the board that NSD (National Signing Day) doesn’t matter a bit if the coaches don’t “coach’em up.” They will also point out that it is a little weird that grown men are so focused on the whims of 18 year old kids.
Insider: This poster somehow, someway has inside information. They may have a “source” on the coaching staff. They might be a family member of a recruit. Sometimes a local high school coach decides to interject. They know a guy who knows a guy.
Troll: A troll takes a run at everyone. Sometimes the troll pretends to be the Insider. This poster plays on the admittedly irrational emotion of other posters who really want a recruit to play for their favorite school. They are the worst.
If you happen to fall into four of the five categories you’re more than ok. You’re amongst friends and we understand. If you fall into the fifth and final category you’re not ok and everyone hates you. Once again, you’re the worst.
We’re a week away from the official end of this college football season( NSD is Wed. Feb. 7th) and less than two months away from the start of the 2018 season. Syracuse starts spring practice March 3rd and thank the college football gods for that.
No one wants to pay attention to baseball in March.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.