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Post by Cap'n on Feb 3, 2016 10:21:58 GMT -6
I am good friends with Jake's grandad. ACU for sure contacted Jake but Mac Brown got a really early commit and Jake really wasn't interested after that. For what it's worth, he loves UT and will likely see he field quiet a bit this year. There is no point in the coaches pursuing a red herring. My experience is that if I give them a name, they check him out. Often they just don't have an interest. Remember, we can tell the coaches about someone, but they cannot talk to us about them during recruiting so they just say nothing to be on the safe side. Great Point on not chasing Red Herring and the recruiting limitations. My comment was based upon a discussion with his dad who said he was not pursued much by ACU and again was not offered per that discussion. My point is more that had ACU been out front or even offered the kid the worst thing that happens is he goes to UT. The cost of recruiting is minimal for an Abilene kid compared to the potential payoff. With the family ties to ACU, we will never know, but perhaps he could have been swayed?
I couldn't agree more. I've known a few families over the years whose kids have gone to big schools over ACU. My observation is that our perceived lack of pursuit bothers the parents more than the player. I do think that as an FCS school with a new stadium we may get some of those recruits in the future.
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Post by wildcat90 on Feb 3, 2016 10:38:07 GMT -6
Great Point on not chasing Red Herring and the recruiting limitations. My comment was based upon a discussion with his dad who said he was not pursued much by ACU and again was not offered per that discussion. My point is more that had ACU been out front or even offered the kid the worst thing that happens is he goes to UT. The cost of recruiting is minimal for an Abilene kid compared to the potential payoff. With the family ties to ACU, we will never know, but perhaps he could have been swayed?
I agree. We have a problem with local community support. Abilene fans just don't turn out for ACU games. I gotta think that if we signed a few more local kids, it would help fill our stands on Saturdays. I don't want to take anything away from the great job our coaches are doing though. They obviously know how to recruit. Just look at the class we are lining up today. I think if you support the community by recruiting locally then the community will support you. I agree not taking away from what is being done and not saying recruit every local kid, but year in and year out there has to at least 1 kid out there worthy to be recruited in the area. Amongst the Abilene area football parents unfortunately there is the opinion that ACU does not look at local kids to the point it is hurting local support for the team. This opinion goes back to the Thompson era and has been around for a while.
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Post by wildcat90 on Feb 3, 2016 10:45:43 GMT -6
Great Point on not chasing Red Herring and the recruiting limitations. My comment was based upon a discussion with his dad who said he was not pursued much by ACU and again was not offered per that discussion. My point is more that had ACU been out front or even offered the kid the worst thing that happens is he goes to UT. The cost of recruiting is minimal for an Abilene kid compared to the potential payoff. With the family ties to ACU, we will never know, but perhaps he could have been swayed?
I couldn't agree more. I've known a few families over the years whose kids have gone to big schools over ACU. My observation is that our perceived lack of pursuit bothers the parents more than the player. I do think that as an FCS school with a new stadium we may get some of those recruits in the future. Definitely! I think we could get some now IF we were more aggressive in that pursuit. In many ways we are still recruiting like a DII school waiting for the "big boys" to eat so we can get the crumbs. Why not at least sit at the table with them. Early offers and recruiting in the Junior, not just Senior year can't hurt! Is it a budget issue? Philosophy issue? or something else? ACU has many things to offer recruits we just need to be better at the educating the kids on what those are. Just my opinion, now back to signing day and good job this year by the staff so far!
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Post by OscarWildeCat, Admin on Feb 4, 2016 4:03:40 GMT -6
I couldn't agree more. I've known a few families over the years whose kids have gone to big schools over ACU. My observation is that our perceived lack of pursuit bothers the parents more than the player. I do think that as an FCS school with a new stadium we may get some of those recruits in the future. Definitely! I think we could get some now IF we were more aggressive in that pursuit. In many ways we are still recruiting like a DII school waiting for the "big boys" to eat so we can get the crumbs. Why not at least sit at the table with them. Early offers and recruiting in the Junior, not just Senior year can't hurt! Is it a budget issue? Philosophy issue? or something else? ACU has many things to offer recruits we just need to be better at the educating the kids on what those are. Just my opinion, now back to signing day and good job this year by the staff so far! You raise some interesting points. I'll add my two cents worth. Budget. I don't have access to ACU budgets, so this is just based on general knowledge and things coaches have said over the past few years. I recall vividly Coach C's comments re: his first signing class after we declared our intent to move to D1. To paraphrase, we didn't realize how much additional money would be required to recruit at the D1 level and we didn't realize how early and relentlessly D1 coaches go after prospects. Our first year, we started too late and spent too little. Our spending and effort have improved since then. Whether our budget equals our peers at this point I can't say but we are at least catching up apparently. Early Recruiting. We identify a lot of junior or sophomore prospects at our own and other summer camps as well as via the high schools where we have contacts. If you will check our coaches Twitter page you will find they are already following a lot of 2017 prospects. Your observation that we don't extend many if any early offers is spot on though. I'm not sure this is due to a D2 mentality so much as a philosophy grounded in the idea that we want to be relatively certain the player buys in to what we are trying to do at ACU and not simply whether or not they have the on-the-field sill set we need. Local Recruiting This one baffles me. I don't have enough history about university-school-coach relationships to venture a guess as to why, but I agree that we don't invest very heavily in going after local kids, especially those that big schools may chasing.
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Post by acuwildcat86 on Feb 4, 2016 7:51:22 GMT -6
RE: Local recruiting I don't buy that local kids will bring local fans. 15 years ago we had as many as 5-6 local, including some studs (Jerale Badon, Sneezy Beltran, Cody Kelley, Michael Walker from AHS, Tony Cunningham from Cooper, Brett Unger from Wylie...probably others). That didn't impact attendance whatsoever.
I think we recruit who needs to be recruited (we don't hear about it, though). I just don't think they want to be here. We've beaten our heads against the wall collectively about the perceived indifference that most of Abilene shows towards ACU sports. That is especially true in high schools. Ask our own Mr Sims. He'll tell you he looked down his nose at ACU. It wasn't even a consideration. There's also pressure to get out of here, or to "make it big-time". ACU is small potatoes to Abilene. Look at the way we are treated by the local Media. You think TTU gets that treatment? Or even Angelo State for that matter. We get less respect from our local community and media than every LSC member gets from theirs. This happened over several generations and it will take several generations or high-level athletic accomplishments to change that.
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Post by OscarWildeCat, Admin on Feb 4, 2016 8:16:24 GMT -6
RE: Local recruiting I don't buy that local kids will bring local fans. 15 years ago we had as many as 5-6 local, including some studs (Jerale Badon, Sneezy Beltran, Cody Kelley, Michael Walker from AHS, Tony Cunningham from Cooper, Brett Unger from Wylie...probably others). That didn't impact attendance whatsoever. I think we recruit who needs to be recruited (we don't hear about it, though). I just don't think they want to be here. We've beaten our heads against the wall collectively about the perceived indifference that most of Abilene shows towards ACU sports. That is especially true in high schools. Ask our own Mr Sims. He'll tell you he looked down his nose at ACU. It wasn't even a consideration. There's also pressure to get out of here, or to "make it big-time". ACU is small potatoes to Abilene. Look at the way we are treated by the local Media. You think TTU gets that treatment? Or even Angelo State for that matter. We get less respect from our local community and media than every LSC member gets from theirs. This happened over several generations and it will take several generations or high-level athletic accomplishments to change that. Fair enough. Thanks for filling in a bit of history I was not familiar with. I have noticed a change in attitude in the past couple of years toward ACU by local media. Both the Big Country Homepage and even the Reporter news are doing a much better job of covering ACU sports. Not that it means much in the case of the Reporter News which appears to be floundering around trying to keep the presses running.
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Post by Cap'n on Feb 4, 2016 8:59:27 GMT -6
HSU and McMurry recruit a lot of local players. The Cowboys signed 4 Wylie kids yesterday. But there's just not much D1 talent in the area these days. I've heard that we've been on Coy McMillan for a while now so the coaches are paying attention.
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Post by wildcat90 on Feb 4, 2016 13:00:24 GMT -6
RE: Local recruiting I don't buy that local kids will bring local fans. 15 years ago we had as many as 5-6 local, including some studs (Jerale Badon, Sneezy Beltran, Cody Kelley, Michael Walker from AHS, Tony Cunningham from Cooper, Brett Unger from Wylie...probably others). That didn't impact attendance whatsoever. I think we recruit who needs to be recruited (we don't hear about it, though). I just don't think they want to be here. We've beaten our heads against the wall collectively about the perceived indifference that most of Abilene shows towards ACU sports. That is especially true in high schools. Ask our own Mr Sims. He'll tell you he looked down his nose at ACU. It wasn't even a consideration. There's also pressure to get out of here, or to "make it big-time". ACU is small potatoes to Abilene. Look at the way we are treated by the local Media. You think TTU gets that treatment? Or even Angelo State for that matter. We get less respect from our local community and media than every LSC member gets from theirs. This happened over several generations and it will take several generations or high-level athletic accomplishments to change that. Can't say I disagree with your post here. But what has changed? I go back to the 70's and 80's when going to the ACU game was a every other week family event! I remember being at ACU games and not just one but both sides reasonably full at Shotwell. My thoughts are this with no basis in fact..............during that time the local HS teams were not winning and ACU was winning. Abilene historically follows a winner period. I think our worst season in my years was 7 and 3 and we were competitive beating several D-1 AA schools............SE Missouri, Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona to name a few. Bottom line in my opinion is win. You do that the stands will fill over time.......Same thing happenned to the HS in town when they win they come to the game. I think the on-campus stadium is going to help with the attendance to an extent. Kind hard to recruit or generate excitement at a game where the endzone's belong to the local Highschool. We also need to learn how to put on a show to an extent get the big time feel to our games. Last game I attended I felt a little like I was at a social gathering with a game going on in the background sitting in the stands! I have not been in a while so maybe that has changed. Lets face it.............to a certain extent this is entertainment and if you don't entertain they don't come back to the show. Bottom line we gotta win first!
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Post by wildcat90 on Feb 4, 2016 13:05:41 GMT -6
HSU and McMurry recruit a lot of local players. The Cowboys signed 4 Wylie kids yesterday. But there's just not much D1 talent in the area these days. I've heard that we've been on Coy McMillan for a while now so the coaches are paying attention. We do have 1 or 2 a year in the area that should get recruited in my opinion. Next year Abilene High is sitting on 3 kids that have definite DI possibilities and all 3 are good kids. I hope ACU is working on all 3. Quashawn Washington WR/Safety Abram Smith - RB Coy McMillon - DE/TE
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Post by Cap'n on Feb 4, 2016 16:27:38 GMT -6
Aside from McMillon, they should look at Smith. If for no other reason, they are really going to need to recruit RB's next year. I haven't seen Washington so I have no opinion.
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Post by acutrackfan on Feb 4, 2016 16:38:37 GMT -6
Abram Smith is 5-11, 197 and has been timed in a 4.47 in the 40. He has over 2600 rushing yards thus far at AHS. He looks like the real deal. I have only seen his highlight runs, but he appears to have a tremendous burst through the hole and a higher gear once he is in the open field.
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Post by acucatdad on Feb 4, 2016 21:24:54 GMT -6
RE: Local recruiting I don't buy that local kids will bring local fans. 15 years ago we had as many as 5-6 local, including some studs (Jerale Badon, Sneezy Beltran, Cody Kelley, Michael Walker from AHS, Tony Cunningham from Cooper, Brett Unger from Wylie...probably others). That didn't impact attendance whatsoever. I think we recruit who needs to be recruited (we don't hear about it, though). I just don't think they want to be here. We've beaten our heads against the wall collectively about the perceived indifference that most of Abilene shows towards ACU sports. That is especially true in high schools. Ask our own Mr Sims. He'll tell you he looked down his nose at ACU. It wasn't even a consideration. There's also pressure to get out of here, or to "make it big-time". ACU is small potatoes to Abilene. Look at the way we are treated by the local Media. You think TTU gets that treatment? Or even Angelo State for that matter. We get less respect from our local community and media than every LSC member gets from theirs. This happened over several generations and it will take several generations or high-level athletic accomplishments to change that. Can't say I disagree with your post here. But what has changed? I go back to the 70's and 80's when going to the ACU game was a every other week family event! I remember being at ACU games and not just one but both sides reasonably full at Shotwell. My thoughts are this with no basis in fact..............during that time the local HS teams were not winning and ACU was winning. Abilene historically follows a winner period. I think our worst season in my years was 7 and 3 and we were competitive beating several D-1 AA schools............SE Missouri, Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona to name a few. Bottom line in my opinion is win. You do that the stands will fill over time.......Same thing happenned to the HS in town when they win they come to the game. I think the on-campus stadium is going to help with the attendance to an extent. Kind hard to recruit or generate excitement at a game where the endzone's belong to the local Highschool. We also need to learn how to put on a show to an extent get the big time feel to our games. Last game I attended I felt a little like I was at a social gathering with a game going on in the background sitting in the stands! I have not been in a while so maybe that has changed. Lets face it.............to a certain extent this is entertainment and if you don't entertain they don't come back to the show. Bottom line we gotta win first! So, to put what you're saying in a nutshell, Abilene football fans are in the same classification as Houston Astros baseball fans. When they are losing, the stands are 1/4 full and sold out when they are on a roll. Except for the all-u-can-eat hot dog and popcorn section, it's always sold-out. (hey, there's a reason we're called the fattest city in America)
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Post by bogeyman on Feb 4, 2016 22:58:55 GMT -6
I wrote out a long post but...why bother? Our culture has to change (ACU culture, Abilene culture) and it may be too late in the game to do that. We live in a culture that is no longer loyal to about anything except self. Support your local college team when you can go to Dallas? Are you kidding me? Go to a basketball game when you could watch a reality show on TV or play Death Angel 67 on the computer. We don't have 50K students to draw from nor 1,ooo,ooo in population to draw from. We're just little ole Abilene and the best we can do is hope someone leaves a few crumbs for us to pick up. It's the whole 2nd class attitude. Support winners, are you kidding? 2010 ACU (11-0) vs. Central Missouri in playoffs--attendance 6400 (and I think that was inflated-the stands were empty). Interview with Ronnie Vinson, ex-ACU all-conference wide receiver back in the day. Lives within 50 miles of Abilene and hasn't gone to an ACU football game since he graduated. What?
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Post by acucatdad on Feb 5, 2016 0:11:14 GMT -6
Guess I could post this here under "needs". It's very unfortunate to hear a few things you posted, bogeyman, especially the one in which we had an 11-0 team in the playoffs with an attendance of 6,500. That will change for the better with the new stadium and the move up to D-1. Vinson not attending since he graduated.....well, there's no excuse for that unless he didn't pay attention in class and didn't receive his degree and ended up bussing tables at I-Hop and can't afford the gas to travel to the stadium, or worse yet, he's hooked on crack, doesn't own a car and lives under a bridge somewhere. (Hey, don't laugh, it's happened to a few ballplayers in Houston, J.R. Richard is one that comes to mind, a former 100 mph flame-thrower.
Forward thinkers bring change. We had one who just left in Mosely but one who came in right behind him in De Leon. One of the things that will bring in more fans is the tailgating, of which I already seen progress made in this area this past year. To get to the level of others in the Southland is going to take time. What I've seen at other schools didn't happen over-night. I'm going to add a few other things but on the right thread, including my experience at the Lamar tailgate since I saw a few posts from one of their fans earlier.
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Post by acufan1111111 on Feb 10, 2016 1:56:47 GMT -6
why didnt we offer Lb cameron gonzaque? he is a great player
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