Pitt Gorilla
09-25-2008, 11:07 AM
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/812513.html
By JEFFREY MARTIN
The Kansas City Star
Booze flowed freely, there was hootin’ and hollerin’, and Ron Prince grinned widely as he posed for pictures while donning a cowboy hat.
Nearly 400 fans ponied up $15 per ticket for a ballroom seat inside Kansas State’s Alumni Center. The occasion was a bizarre phenomenon at the school — a new football coach staging what he later labeled a “party” with the sole intention of celebrating his first recruiting class.
Highlight videos were aired, hors d’oeuvres were served, and promises were made.
“We will not miss on a Kansas kid, and we will not let those guys down the road (Kansas) beat us, either,” said Matt Wallerstedt, a former Wildcat who was beginning his first season at K-State’s linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator.
The date was Feb. 1, 2006.
Fast forward two and a half years.
Wallerstedt is now the assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach at the Air Force Academy. And as for missing out on kids from Kansas and, more specifically, getting beaten by KU, take a look at Rivals.com’s preseason top 15 for 2009.
Four players in the top 10 have already committed to the Jayhawks. Another, Girard tight end Tanner Poppe, said during the summer he was a heavy KU lean.
Four, and almost five, of the state’s alleged finest to KU. The count for K-State? Zero.
“To put it in perspective, both schools want to recruit their home territory, and it’s not a great year for talent,” said Jeremy Crabtree, Rivals.com’s national college football recruiting analyst. “But not getting many of these kids is going to be disappointing.”
Consider Louisiana-Lafayette, the Wildcats’ opponent Saturday at Snyder Family Stadium. Fifty-six players on the Ragin’ Cajuns’ roster hail from within the state. Granted, Louisiana’s population is higher. Even so, K-State isn’t too far behind with 43, although walk-ons comprise a large portion of that amount.
“In some states, like Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana and Oklahoma, you’ll probably have somewhere between 50-75 Division I players,” Prince said. “Part of that is population and other things, but we just don’t have those numbers here.”
But with fewer players, shouldn’t there be a higher premium on what’s available? How does this happen? Why are the state’s best saying no to K-State?
“You’d have to ask them,” Prince said. “I have my ideas and my opinions, but I think we’ve done a positive job of being out front early and identifying and making our intentions known. The difference between college and the pros is we don’t draft the players. They draft us.”
Wichita Northwest’s Chris Harper was regarded by Rivals.com as a four-star recruit last year. He chose K-State in mid-December, but then changed his mind. Part of the reason was the departure of offensive coordinator James Franklin, with whom Harper grew close during the recruiting process, but it was also something else, something Harper, who might be the starting quarterback in Oregon’s game Saturday against Washington State, still has trouble describing.
“My family felt something was weird,” Harper said. “We didn’t trust him. Something was off. We couldn’t pinpoint it.”
Crabtree is in a similar state when asked what’s ailing Prince and his staff within the Sunflower State. He believes the losses of Wallerstedt and Franklin have hurt, but he also thinks the Wildcats’ recent woes — coupled with KU’s sudden success — have only aided the indecisiveness of already fickle teenage prospects.
“There’s a little of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ going on,” Crabtree said. “They’ve utilized their resources and the effort is there. I wish I could put my finger on a singular reason why this is happening, but I still think these are 18-year-old kids that easily get caught up in what’s happening right now.”
Harper agrees.
“If K-State was winning, if they were having the same success that Bill Snyder had, I think the kids would come,” he said. “If you’re an average team, it’s hard to compete with KU. They’re winning, and that makes it easier for kids to go there.”
And he was going to be one of them.
He grew up a fan of Snyder, if not K-State, and the prospect of spending the next four years in Manhattan didn’t bother Harper. Plenty of his friends were already on campus, and his family was nearby. But he changed his mind. By then, Prince and his new assistants were scurrying to pick up the pieces, but it was too late.
“It’s not like they weren’t trying,” Harper said. “It just didn’t work out.”
Crabtree wonders if Harper’s presence might have begun a recruiting domino effect.
“The few marquee guys in the state during Prince’s tenure have gone elsewhere,” said Crabtree, citing the Brown brothers (Arthur is at Miami, while Bryce, a senior at East, is committed to the Hurricanes) and Harper as examples. “For one reason or another, K-State hasn’t been much of a factor.”
Maybe not a factor in the state’s high schools, but the Wildcats are a presence in the junior colleges.
The ideal, according to Prince, is a “balancing act” of juco and high school talent. With so many junior colleges within the state, the K-State coach said he’d be foolish not to tap the system’s resources.
But he insists he isn’t conceding anything.
“We want to be in on the very best high school players in the state of Kansas every year,” Prince said.
By JEFFREY MARTIN
The Kansas City Star
Booze flowed freely, there was hootin’ and hollerin’, and Ron Prince grinned widely as he posed for pictures while donning a cowboy hat.
Nearly 400 fans ponied up $15 per ticket for a ballroom seat inside Kansas State’s Alumni Center. The occasion was a bizarre phenomenon at the school — a new football coach staging what he later labeled a “party” with the sole intention of celebrating his first recruiting class.
Highlight videos were aired, hors d’oeuvres were served, and promises were made.
“We will not miss on a Kansas kid, and we will not let those guys down the road (Kansas) beat us, either,” said Matt Wallerstedt, a former Wildcat who was beginning his first season at K-State’s linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator.
The date was Feb. 1, 2006.
Fast forward two and a half years.
Wallerstedt is now the assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach at the Air Force Academy. And as for missing out on kids from Kansas and, more specifically, getting beaten by KU, take a look at Rivals.com’s preseason top 15 for 2009.
Four players in the top 10 have already committed to the Jayhawks. Another, Girard tight end Tanner Poppe, said during the summer he was a heavy KU lean.
Four, and almost five, of the state’s alleged finest to KU. The count for K-State? Zero.
“To put it in perspective, both schools want to recruit their home territory, and it’s not a great year for talent,” said Jeremy Crabtree, Rivals.com’s national college football recruiting analyst. “But not getting many of these kids is going to be disappointing.”
Consider Louisiana-Lafayette, the Wildcats’ opponent Saturday at Snyder Family Stadium. Fifty-six players on the Ragin’ Cajuns’ roster hail from within the state. Granted, Louisiana’s population is higher. Even so, K-State isn’t too far behind with 43, although walk-ons comprise a large portion of that amount.
“In some states, like Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana and Oklahoma, you’ll probably have somewhere between 50-75 Division I players,” Prince said. “Part of that is population and other things, but we just don’t have those numbers here.”
But with fewer players, shouldn’t there be a higher premium on what’s available? How does this happen? Why are the state’s best saying no to K-State?
“You’d have to ask them,” Prince said. “I have my ideas and my opinions, but I think we’ve done a positive job of being out front early and identifying and making our intentions known. The difference between college and the pros is we don’t draft the players. They draft us.”
Wichita Northwest’s Chris Harper was regarded by Rivals.com as a four-star recruit last year. He chose K-State in mid-December, but then changed his mind. Part of the reason was the departure of offensive coordinator James Franklin, with whom Harper grew close during the recruiting process, but it was also something else, something Harper, who might be the starting quarterback in Oregon’s game Saturday against Washington State, still has trouble describing.
“My family felt something was weird,” Harper said. “We didn’t trust him. Something was off. We couldn’t pinpoint it.”
Crabtree is in a similar state when asked what’s ailing Prince and his staff within the Sunflower State. He believes the losses of Wallerstedt and Franklin have hurt, but he also thinks the Wildcats’ recent woes — coupled with KU’s sudden success — have only aided the indecisiveness of already fickle teenage prospects.
“There’s a little of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ going on,” Crabtree said. “They’ve utilized their resources and the effort is there. I wish I could put my finger on a singular reason why this is happening, but I still think these are 18-year-old kids that easily get caught up in what’s happening right now.”
Harper agrees.
“If K-State was winning, if they were having the same success that Bill Snyder had, I think the kids would come,” he said. “If you’re an average team, it’s hard to compete with KU. They’re winning, and that makes it easier for kids to go there.”
And he was going to be one of them.
He grew up a fan of Snyder, if not K-State, and the prospect of spending the next four years in Manhattan didn’t bother Harper. Plenty of his friends were already on campus, and his family was nearby. But he changed his mind. By then, Prince and his new assistants were scurrying to pick up the pieces, but it was too late.
“It’s not like they weren’t trying,” Harper said. “It just didn’t work out.”
Crabtree wonders if Harper’s presence might have begun a recruiting domino effect.
“The few marquee guys in the state during Prince’s tenure have gone elsewhere,” said Crabtree, citing the Brown brothers (Arthur is at Miami, while Bryce, a senior at East, is committed to the Hurricanes) and Harper as examples. “For one reason or another, K-State hasn’t been much of a factor.”
Maybe not a factor in the state’s high schools, but the Wildcats are a presence in the junior colleges.
The ideal, according to Prince, is a “balancing act” of juco and high school talent. With so many junior colleges within the state, the K-State coach said he’d be foolish not to tap the system’s resources.
But he insists he isn’t conceding anything.
“We want to be in on the very best high school players in the state of Kansas every year,” Prince said.