I decided that taking a break from ‘What was he Thinking?” was necessary last week after the rushed schedule from the Baylor camps. Besides, I wasn’t thinking of anything. I had no opinions or anything. I also forecasted that Baylor was going to have a busy week in commitments (You didn’t know that but I did. Oh and thank you for believing that bunk.)
Anyway the Juke Box returns with a great song from the 1990s. Have you had your share of the Crash Test Dummies? I know I haven’t. I love the name of the group. I also love the song because they didn’t put a lot of thought into the title and yet they made millions. It’s great work if you can get it.
***
This past week is a perfect indication as to why recruiting has no semblance of order to it. When Frisco Lone Star safety Chris Miller committed to Baylor on April 24, it took another 44 days for Baylor to secure its next in Daingerfield athlete Denzel Mims. And then it was another three for Mesquite Horn wide receiver Jared Atkinson to become a Bear.
Finally, Spring DT Bravvion Roy announced Sunday he was also committing to Baylor. If you think about it, this did make sense. Baylor spent all of May on the road evaluating prospects and looking at their top choices to be sure those were the guys they wanted. Then everything transitioned over to the camp season.
Family connection notwithstanding, the Mims commitment is something that really was faster than expected. I anticipated the offer to come maybe in the early part of last week. But to have less than 18 hours of turnaround time between evaluation, offer and commitment was downright meteoric.
There was no doubt that Baylor really liked him and wanted to figure out the best way to get Mims to be a part of the program. All it had to do was convince him that if he came to Waco the coaches would find a way to get the most out of his ability. That could be wide receiver. That could be cornerback. And Mims accepted that premise when everybody else has been looking at him at wide receiver. For a receiver – and we know those egos are huge at that position – to accept Baylor’s message and join the 2016 class is a credit to the staff.
And you all have watched Art Briles staff enough to know that when this group locks on to an athlete it really wants, it moves in fast. That’s what happened a couple of years ago with Terrence Singleton. Remember, he came to Baylor from Port Arthur Memorial wanting to play quarterback. Now, he’s a valued member of the secondary.
With Atkinson, there was a part of me that thought that he could commit on May 31 when he arrived with his parents to take an unofficial visit. When talking to a couple of experts about Atkinson’s ceiling, their faces lit up with excitement. A 10.5 100 for someone who is 6-3, 205 is something you can’t describe. Maybe the offer is still there in November. Maybe it’s not. It’s irrelevant now. Atkinson isn’t going anywhere.
There can be no doubt that Baylor wants to get Saches’s Devin Duvernay but must wait. As for Navasota’s Tren Dickson? If Baylor winds up getting him back, great. If Dickson chooses elsewhere, that’s fine too. With Atkinson in the fold, I think that changes the urgency there.
Roy’s commitment didn’t surprise me. I’m just wondering what took Texas Tech so long to offer. The Red Raiders didn’t offer until they came to Spring for their camp last week. Obviously, they’ve known Roy for years and tracked him. Why they waited this long to offer is a question only Kliff Kingsbury’s staff can answer.
But then again, I look at Baylor not offering Southlake Carroll 2016 DB Obi Eboh and waiting a long time to offer Frisco 2017 offensive lineman Jack Anderson and wonder what’s going on there.
I think what this tells you is that there are certain elements in each player’s game that a staff needs to see. That element can’t leave a staff to say, “Well, yeah. Maybe.’’ In Baylor’s case, that element has to reveal yes or no. That’s the only thing I can think of when it comes to Eboh. For sure, Baylor saw him enough during the 2014 camp season to know everything about him. I’m sure the coaching staff had 2014 game film to review as well. If I recall, they may have seen him play a game last fall that left them saying, “Well, yeah. Maybe.’’
***
Evaluations are in the eye of the beholder, of course. But I don’t think Baylor reached a point of winning 22 games and consecutive Big 12 titles in the last two years because it missed a lot. Yes, Texas and Oklahoma aren’t in golden eras. But that’s their problem.
I know Baylor fans have become irritated with the trend that whenever this program offers, the Longhorns and Sooners are soon to follow a couple of days later. That lead me to think of a comment that another recruiting colleague said about that very thing: “No one trusts their own evaluations.’’
He may have been right. Experience is the biggest part in determining if a prospect can play at the highest level. But even those long in the tooth can get it wrong. What any evaluator has to be above anything else is honest. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing the green and gold of Baylor or the Cardinal and gold of USC. He can’t offer someone because everybody else is doing it and there’s the pressure to get on board. If he buckles, then he’s lost perspective and the foundation for which he does his job.
Baylor’s staff appears to be pretty comfortable in its own skin when it comes to pursuing players. Yes, it will get in the running for the big-name players because that’s where it is right now in this era of football. But for the most part, this staff seems to be sticking to its core principals. That’s why you will still see future recruiting classes that involve players like Mims or Devin Chafin or Eric Ogor. Baylor’s team rankings will be impacted because of this. But if the tradeoff is the ability to compete yearly for hardware, I’m pretty sure this staff will take it. So will the fans.
***
Definitely a tough deal losing Trophy Club offensive lineman Kellen Diesch to Arkansas on Sunday (that was minutes before Roy committed to Baylor). But when I was at Nelson’s spring game on May 21, I got word that Arkansas was really making a play here. This was after I posted my “Recruiting is weird” thread about Diesch’s forthcoming decision. At least we were right it was coming.
Before I went out there, my information indicated that Baylor was in the lead. And if Diesch makes that decision at the spring game, he’s probably a Bear. But the more time dragged on, the worse it became for Baylor and the better it became for Arkansas.
I get the frustration. There’s no doubt this one stings. But Diesch has to do what he thinks is best for him. There had to be something in his gut that kept telling him that Arkansas was a better fit. That’s OK. That’s what happens.
I’m sure there are some of you wondering why he would go to a program that will allegedly have to keep looking up at Alabama, LSU and Auburn every year in the SEC West. Just remember Oklahoma and Texas fans were probably saying the same things about Baylor in 2010. And look where we are as the 2015 season approaches. As a postscript, I do think Baylor will still check in every now and then and see how comfortable Diesch is with this decision.
***
With the baseball coaching search now over with the hiring of Pepperdine’s Steve Rodriguez, Baylor has a coach who knows how to take a team to the NCAA tournament. There were eight appearances. That’s really impressive when you’re coming from a small school that doesn’t have the resources like other West Coast Powers - UCLA, Stanford to name two - have.
Look at what Rodriguez’s team did in the NCAA tournament this year. Before it fell to eventual College World Series participant Cal-State Fullerton, Pepperdine knocked out Arizona State and Clemson.
I tweeted this out on Friday but I’ll expand here. Pepperdine was in Fort Worth for TCU’s regional in 2014. I have a DFW coaching colleague who went to check out their batting practices for a couple of days.
Now, this was just batting practice. But the colleague liked what he saw from Rodriguez. He saw a coach whose temperament is even, supportive, tough when needed to be and challenged his players to excel.
As one source shared with me: “One of the most impressive coaches. Great character and interpersonal skills.’’
Rodriguez wasn’t Baylor’s first choice. That’s why these are called searches. And sometimes when a school doesn’t land the presumed first option, the search is looked at as a disaster. Admittedly, I had to wonder where this was going after Dallas Baptist’s Dan Heefner turned it down.
But Rodriguez is a solid coach with a track record of success. That’s what any program wants when it hires. Art Briles had that at Houston. Rodriguez recruited to a private school where the tuition is high and baseball scholarships are limited to 11.7. He has to be creative and shrewd how he allocates them in future years.
What Rodriguez has to do first is overhaul this lineup. To put it bluntly, the Baylor offense over the previous three seasons was brutal. Now, college baseball offensive numbers have declined since the bats have been deadened and pitchers are throwing in the 90s and have added a cut fastball.
However, you can still be respectable with the bats. Baylor wasn’t. I wouldn’t expect an NCAA tournament berth in 2016. But you want to see signs that this program is on the uptick.
***
Great run by sophomore sprinter Trayvon Bromell at the NCAA track & field meet. He winds up being an All-American with personal bests in the 100 (9.88) and 200 (19.58) but finished second and third in each event. No shame in that. He made history.
Bromell became the first Baylor male athlete to earn All-American honors in two individual events at the NCAA Outdoor Championships since Bill Martineson did so in the 100 and 220-yard dashes in 1946 and 1947.
I’m going to guess that Bromell’s times were faster than Martineson’s.
Also, Baylor track and field senior Rachel Johnson earned All-America honors in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for a second-straight year with a sixth-place showing Saturday at the NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field.
Johnson is the fourth Baylor female athlete to earn All-American honors in cross country, indoor and outdoor track in the same school year, joining Natalie Nalepa (1990-91), Sherri Smith (1998-99) and Lauren Hagens (2007-08).
After taking third in the race a year ago, she ran a season-best time of 9:42.93 to secure her fourth All-America honor of the 2014-15 school year.
***
Vacations are coming for Matt and myself. I know we haven’t finalized anything yet. But we’ll keep you posted when we’re getting out of dodge. Even when I’m out, I’ll probably sneak in and check on things. I can tell you that whatever my plans are, they will occur in July. I just have to dance around basketball tournaments.
What happened to June? We’re halfway through it.
Let’s have a great week.
Anyway the Juke Box returns with a great song from the 1990s. Have you had your share of the Crash Test Dummies? I know I haven’t. I love the name of the group. I also love the song because they didn’t put a lot of thought into the title and yet they made millions. It’s great work if you can get it.
***
This past week is a perfect indication as to why recruiting has no semblance of order to it. When Frisco Lone Star safety Chris Miller committed to Baylor on April 24, it took another 44 days for Baylor to secure its next in Daingerfield athlete Denzel Mims. And then it was another three for Mesquite Horn wide receiver Jared Atkinson to become a Bear.
Finally, Spring DT Bravvion Roy announced Sunday he was also committing to Baylor. If you think about it, this did make sense. Baylor spent all of May on the road evaluating prospects and looking at their top choices to be sure those were the guys they wanted. Then everything transitioned over to the camp season.
Family connection notwithstanding, the Mims commitment is something that really was faster than expected. I anticipated the offer to come maybe in the early part of last week. But to have less than 18 hours of turnaround time between evaluation, offer and commitment was downright meteoric.
There was no doubt that Baylor really liked him and wanted to figure out the best way to get Mims to be a part of the program. All it had to do was convince him that if he came to Waco the coaches would find a way to get the most out of his ability. That could be wide receiver. That could be cornerback. And Mims accepted that premise when everybody else has been looking at him at wide receiver. For a receiver – and we know those egos are huge at that position – to accept Baylor’s message and join the 2016 class is a credit to the staff.
And you all have watched Art Briles staff enough to know that when this group locks on to an athlete it really wants, it moves in fast. That’s what happened a couple of years ago with Terrence Singleton. Remember, he came to Baylor from Port Arthur Memorial wanting to play quarterback. Now, he’s a valued member of the secondary.
With Atkinson, there was a part of me that thought that he could commit on May 31 when he arrived with his parents to take an unofficial visit. When talking to a couple of experts about Atkinson’s ceiling, their faces lit up with excitement. A 10.5 100 for someone who is 6-3, 205 is something you can’t describe. Maybe the offer is still there in November. Maybe it’s not. It’s irrelevant now. Atkinson isn’t going anywhere.
There can be no doubt that Baylor wants to get Saches’s Devin Duvernay but must wait. As for Navasota’s Tren Dickson? If Baylor winds up getting him back, great. If Dickson chooses elsewhere, that’s fine too. With Atkinson in the fold, I think that changes the urgency there.
Roy’s commitment didn’t surprise me. I’m just wondering what took Texas Tech so long to offer. The Red Raiders didn’t offer until they came to Spring for their camp last week. Obviously, they’ve known Roy for years and tracked him. Why they waited this long to offer is a question only Kliff Kingsbury’s staff can answer.
But then again, I look at Baylor not offering Southlake Carroll 2016 DB Obi Eboh and waiting a long time to offer Frisco 2017 offensive lineman Jack Anderson and wonder what’s going on there.
I think what this tells you is that there are certain elements in each player’s game that a staff needs to see. That element can’t leave a staff to say, “Well, yeah. Maybe.’’ In Baylor’s case, that element has to reveal yes or no. That’s the only thing I can think of when it comes to Eboh. For sure, Baylor saw him enough during the 2014 camp season to know everything about him. I’m sure the coaching staff had 2014 game film to review as well. If I recall, they may have seen him play a game last fall that left them saying, “Well, yeah. Maybe.’’
***
Evaluations are in the eye of the beholder, of course. But I don’t think Baylor reached a point of winning 22 games and consecutive Big 12 titles in the last two years because it missed a lot. Yes, Texas and Oklahoma aren’t in golden eras. But that’s their problem.
I know Baylor fans have become irritated with the trend that whenever this program offers, the Longhorns and Sooners are soon to follow a couple of days later. That lead me to think of a comment that another recruiting colleague said about that very thing: “No one trusts their own evaluations.’’
He may have been right. Experience is the biggest part in determining if a prospect can play at the highest level. But even those long in the tooth can get it wrong. What any evaluator has to be above anything else is honest. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing the green and gold of Baylor or the Cardinal and gold of USC. He can’t offer someone because everybody else is doing it and there’s the pressure to get on board. If he buckles, then he’s lost perspective and the foundation for which he does his job.
Baylor’s staff appears to be pretty comfortable in its own skin when it comes to pursuing players. Yes, it will get in the running for the big-name players because that’s where it is right now in this era of football. But for the most part, this staff seems to be sticking to its core principals. That’s why you will still see future recruiting classes that involve players like Mims or Devin Chafin or Eric Ogor. Baylor’s team rankings will be impacted because of this. But if the tradeoff is the ability to compete yearly for hardware, I’m pretty sure this staff will take it. So will the fans.
***
Definitely a tough deal losing Trophy Club offensive lineman Kellen Diesch to Arkansas on Sunday (that was minutes before Roy committed to Baylor). But when I was at Nelson’s spring game on May 21, I got word that Arkansas was really making a play here. This was after I posted my “Recruiting is weird” thread about Diesch’s forthcoming decision. At least we were right it was coming.
Before I went out there, my information indicated that Baylor was in the lead. And if Diesch makes that decision at the spring game, he’s probably a Bear. But the more time dragged on, the worse it became for Baylor and the better it became for Arkansas.
I get the frustration. There’s no doubt this one stings. But Diesch has to do what he thinks is best for him. There had to be something in his gut that kept telling him that Arkansas was a better fit. That’s OK. That’s what happens.
I’m sure there are some of you wondering why he would go to a program that will allegedly have to keep looking up at Alabama, LSU and Auburn every year in the SEC West. Just remember Oklahoma and Texas fans were probably saying the same things about Baylor in 2010. And look where we are as the 2015 season approaches. As a postscript, I do think Baylor will still check in every now and then and see how comfortable Diesch is with this decision.
***
With the baseball coaching search now over with the hiring of Pepperdine’s Steve Rodriguez, Baylor has a coach who knows how to take a team to the NCAA tournament. There were eight appearances. That’s really impressive when you’re coming from a small school that doesn’t have the resources like other West Coast Powers - UCLA, Stanford to name two - have.
Look at what Rodriguez’s team did in the NCAA tournament this year. Before it fell to eventual College World Series participant Cal-State Fullerton, Pepperdine knocked out Arizona State and Clemson.
I tweeted this out on Friday but I’ll expand here. Pepperdine was in Fort Worth for TCU’s regional in 2014. I have a DFW coaching colleague who went to check out their batting practices for a couple of days.
Now, this was just batting practice. But the colleague liked what he saw from Rodriguez. He saw a coach whose temperament is even, supportive, tough when needed to be and challenged his players to excel.
As one source shared with me: “One of the most impressive coaches. Great character and interpersonal skills.’’
Rodriguez wasn’t Baylor’s first choice. That’s why these are called searches. And sometimes when a school doesn’t land the presumed first option, the search is looked at as a disaster. Admittedly, I had to wonder where this was going after Dallas Baptist’s Dan Heefner turned it down.
But Rodriguez is a solid coach with a track record of success. That’s what any program wants when it hires. Art Briles had that at Houston. Rodriguez recruited to a private school where the tuition is high and baseball scholarships are limited to 11.7. He has to be creative and shrewd how he allocates them in future years.
What Rodriguez has to do first is overhaul this lineup. To put it bluntly, the Baylor offense over the previous three seasons was brutal. Now, college baseball offensive numbers have declined since the bats have been deadened and pitchers are throwing in the 90s and have added a cut fastball.
However, you can still be respectable with the bats. Baylor wasn’t. I wouldn’t expect an NCAA tournament berth in 2016. But you want to see signs that this program is on the uptick.
***
Great run by sophomore sprinter Trayvon Bromell at the NCAA track & field meet. He winds up being an All-American with personal bests in the 100 (9.88) and 200 (19.58) but finished second and third in each event. No shame in that. He made history.
Bromell became the first Baylor male athlete to earn All-American honors in two individual events at the NCAA Outdoor Championships since Bill Martineson did so in the 100 and 220-yard dashes in 1946 and 1947.
I’m going to guess that Bromell’s times were faster than Martineson’s.
Also, Baylor track and field senior Rachel Johnson earned All-America honors in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for a second-straight year with a sixth-place showing Saturday at the NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field.
Johnson is the fourth Baylor female athlete to earn All-American honors in cross country, indoor and outdoor track in the same school year, joining Natalie Nalepa (1990-91), Sherri Smith (1998-99) and Lauren Hagens (2007-08).
After taking third in the race a year ago, she ran a season-best time of 9:42.93 to secure her fourth All-America honor of the 2014-15 school year.
***
Vacations are coming for Matt and myself. I know we haven’t finalized anything yet. But we’ll keep you posted when we’re getting out of dodge. Even when I’m out, I’ll probably sneak in and check on things. I can tell you that whatever my plans are, they will occur in July. I just have to dance around basketball tournaments.
What happened to June? We’re halfway through it.
Let’s have a great week.
