College football recruiting

[TruffleShuffle]

 

Dressed in a sharp black suit accented by a Maryland-red tie, 17-year-old Antonio Logan-El sat before a television camera yesterday at ESPN Zone in Baltimore, surrounded by Maryland football fans waving red pompoms and holding Terps signs.

 

Highlights of his football games at Forestville High School in Prince George's County flashed on a giant screen behind him as the top offensive lineman in the state turned his college commitment into prime-time entertainment.

 

Logan-El first pulled a Florida cap out of a bag before declaring it wasn't the school for him and tossing it aside. Then he held up a Tennessee cap, said a few words and threw it aside.

 

Finally, the senior got to the Maryland cap, said a few nice words about the program he originally committed to as a sophomore and then dropped it on the floor!

 

And so went the jaws of the Maryland fans.

 

Logan-El then held up a picture of him and Penn State coach Joe Paterno and committed to playing for the Nittany Lions.

 

link

 

On top of this, Tayler, Mybrick, and Logan-Els parents were reported to have been yelling F-Maryland after he announced. (no link, so if its not true, please let me know. I saw it posted on a couple different message boards, so I apologize if it is wrong)

 

Penn State fans, were he not committing to PSU, would you be saying this is a classless act by this kid, the way he announced and all?

 

No, because pretty much all of the accounts you have heard are wrong. Nobody yelled "F Maryland" - someone yelled "Traitor" at Logan-El and his mom yelled "Hater" back at them. You'll also want to consider that the woman who wrote the Baltimore Sun article used to cover PSU at the Centre Daily Times in State College and is known to have written very anti-PSU pieces there as well. And, much of the stuff you have read on message boards is by bitter Maryland fans. Here's an account written by a moderator on the PSU board who was in attendance:

 

Since I was at ESPNZone yesterday for the ALE announcement, I am going to try to shed some light on what really happened and cut through the very high amount of garbage that is being posted on all sides of the issue.

 

First of all, things were very disorganized, and early in the afternoon there was talk of moving the announcement due to some technical difficulties. ESPN and the coordinators on site were unaware that Taylor was even there. The crowd by the time of the announcement was roughly 50/50 between Penn State and Maryland fans, but was not standing room only, and was not overly crowded. Underscore Tom, John Pavoncello and I had a table less than 5 feet from the seat where ALE made his announcement.

 

As things cleared up, and a lot of disorganized misinformation was being passed around, it was determined that ALE's announcement would go on at about 4:50, and that Taylor's would not go on ESPN. For a short time, Taylor debated making his announcement at a later time, but the news had already leaked through family members in attendance prior to ALE's announcement that Taylor would commit to Penn State, so Taylor did make it official moments after ALE announced.

 

Mrs. Fridgen was there, and she walked around distributing red pompoms and Maryland paraphenalia to the Maryland fans in attendance. The Terp logo table placards she handed out contributed to the perception that the crowd was overwhelmingly Maryland - the Penn State contingent for the most part wore PSU gear, but did not have signage, etc. I did not see Mrs. F. leave, but she did leave very quickly after the announcement was made.

 

ALE brought four hats in, in a bag when he sat down to do his announcement. In his announcement, he addressed the fact that his final decision had come down to four schools, and he went on to pick up each hat one at a time, and say a few good words about each school. ALE was on a high stool with no table to place hats or other material on, so as he finished talking about each school, he dropped their hat beside him on the floor. There was no throwing hats across the room, or malicious throwing them down as has been reported in some places. A Florida hat came out first, drawing gasps from those in the room until everyone could see what ALE was doing, however audio in the room was turned off for TV, so it was impossible for anyone beyond 5-6 feet to be able to hear what was being said. ALE dropped the PSU hat on the floor along with the other three after talking about each school, then announced.

 

"I will show you what it was that made my decision." and at that point, he pulled an envelope out of his bag, and removed the photo of himself and Joe Paterno, holding it up for the cameras, and continuing - "This was the clincher - I'll be attending the University of Penn State"

 

The crowd reaction was delayed - since it was impossible to hear what was being said in the room, and it wasn't until ALE reached down to pick the PSU hat back up that it sunk in to the crowd what had happened. The negative screaming "Traitor," and "Didn't anyone teach you to keep your word" were very quickly shouted down by a We Are Penn State cheer.

 

Moments later, Taylor confirmed his decision, and within a few minutes, the Penn State coaches entered, almost unnoticed in the swarm of people rushing to talk to ALE and Taylor. Maybin was very active in leading the cheering, and within a couple of minutes, Bill Kenney had Joe Paterno on a cell phone which he handed to ALE.

 

John Pavoncello did a good job with documenting the event in photos http://www.yorkdispatch.com/gallery and I was able to speak individually for a few moments with both ALE and Taylor - their audio clips are contained in our story on the front page of FOS.

 

Hope this account clears up some of the many misconceptions and semi-truths circulating around the ALE announcement, and sorry for the long winded approach.

 

 

Plus, make sure you watch the full clip of the announcement before you judge him. I was very surprised by Maryland fans saying that he deliberately tried to make them look bad. He said that he was going through his elimination process, and started with the three schools and held up the Penn State hat last. Watch his hands... does it really look like he is throwing hats or slamming them down to the ground? They forgot to mention in that clearly one-sided article that he also dropped the Penn State hat on the ground so that he could hold up the picture of him and JoePa... I guess the dropping of the PSU hat was not disrespectful though. Turn up the volume and try to hear people yelling "F*** Maryland"... I can assure you that you won't because it didn't happen.

 

Seriously, it's sad that some people get so overzealous about this that they feel the need to drag an 18 year old kid's name through the mud. If he did what Kevin Jones did on his announcement to VTech - pull out a PSU hat just to throw it aside and take off a jacket, showing that he was wearing a VT jersey - that is classless. Getting up on a stool, saying some nice words about every program that recruited him, and then making the choice is not classless. Seriously, if wearing a red tie has Maryland fans all fired up, then they really need something better to worry about.

 

 

I'll be interested to hear what you think of him after you watch the video.

[Chocolate Milk]

Sconsin never gets super cool recruits.

 

:(

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Sconsin never gets super cool recruits.

 

:(

 

UCLA rarely does too. :(

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Sconsin never gets super cool recruits.

 

:(

 

UCLA rarely does too. :(

 

Neither does Iowa, but it's actually been working well here.

[Chocolate Milk]

Sconsin never gets super cool recruits.

 

:(

 

UCLA rarely does too. :(

 

Neither does Iowa, but it's actually been working well here.

 

Yeah, I can't really complain.

[Jon]

Don't have the numbers just for football, but for all men's sports, Wisconsin is 10th in the Big Ten in recruiting expenses at $379,056 (Northwestern spends $297,680). Ohio State leads the conference with $673,493. Michigan State and Penn State are also above $600,000.

[sethuel1]

Don't have the numbers just for football, but for all men's sports, Wisconsin is 10th in the Big Ten in recruiting expenses at $379,056 (Northwestern spends $297,680). Ohio State leads the conference with $673,493. Michigan State and Penn State are also above $600,000.

 

You know Ohio State spends millions more than that.

[adamb0719]

 

 

I'll be interested to hear what you think of him after you watch the video.

 

I couldn't get the video to play very long, my computer has not been the same since I installed firefox. However, the F-Maryland thing, I admit, was simply heresay, and I made that clear when I wrote it. If it did not happen, I apologize for relaying that it did.

 

As far as the article, I did not know the writer was anti-PSU, but the video didn't show what he did with the hats, at least as far as I could watch, until it got frustrating. It doesn't really matter, I just thought it was classless, based on the article I read. If he did it in good taste, then good for him. So in short, I am sorry Truff, I read an article, and posted it (and that article was in multiple newspapers, so I think a lot of people may be thinking the same thing about the kid, which is too bad, if it is untrue).

 

Just an aside, I would find it (the supposed actions) to be just as classless if it was a ND commit.

[Jon]

Don't have the numbers just for football, but for all men's sports, Wisconsin is 10th in the Big Ten in recruiting expenses at $379,056 (Northwestern spends $297,680). Ohio State leads the conference with $673,493. Michigan State and Penn State are also above $600,000.

 

You know Ohio State spends millions more than that.

Well, those are only based on what the universities actually say...

[stuy119]

No, because pretty much all of the accounts you have heard are wrong. Nobody yelled "F Maryland" - someone yelled "Traitor" at Logan-El and his mom yelled "Hater" back at them. You'll also want to consider that the woman who wrote the Baltimore Sun article used to cover PSU at the Centre Daily Times in State College and is known to have written very anti-PSU pieces there as well. And, much of the stuff you have read on message boards is by bitter Maryland fans. Here's an account written by a moderator on the PSU board who was in attendance:

 

I didn't really watch the video, since I don't care too much about the scene it caused. What's really interesting, is that he supposedly re-confirmed his commitment to UM last weekend, and was seen at their basketball game wearing a UM jersey. It was also ALE who invited The Fridge and his wife to attend the ceremony, and never mentioned to them that the PSU coaches were anywhere nearby.

 

Another tidbit that I've come across is that the whole thing was set up by Scot Van Pelt, a UM alum on ESPN. He's pretty P.O.'ed, since it wasn't going to be done unless he was attending UM (which is probably a recruiting violation itself).

 

All in all, these kids need to learn that they haven't done anything yet and really aren't deserving of the attention that is given to them this early in their "careers."

[Derwood]

 

All in all, these kids need to learn that they haven't done anything yet and really aren't deserving of the attention that is given to them this early in their "careers."

 

These kids act this way because certain scouts put them on that pedestal. Same goes for NFL draftees who are "encouraged" to hold out of training camp.

 

If these kids are acting too self important I guarantee they'll get their peter whacked by JoePa on day 1. That attitude doesn't fly in Happy Valley

[sethuel1]

Another tidbit that I've come across is that the whole thing was set up by Scot Van Pelt, a UM alum on ESPN. He's pretty P.O.'ed, since it wasn't going to be done unless he was attending UM (which is probably a recruiting violation itself).

 

I sincerely doubt that. Every top 50 recruit has a live ESPNews broadcast of their choice. ALE having done it is nothing special.

[Andy]

Another tidbit that I've come across is that the whole thing was set up by Scot Van Pelt, a UM alum on ESPN. He's pretty P.O.'ed, since it wasn't going to be done unless he was attending UM (which is probably a recruiting violation itself).

Too bad.

 

 

I actually liked Scott Van Pelt before I found out he's a UM alum.

[dougdescenzo]

Every top 50 recruit has a live ESPNews broadcast of their choice.

 

That is not true.

 

Coaches being there for these sort of things is a violiation. Fridge's wife was there early in the day to decorate the whole place in UM colors and invited many friends of the program. The UPS coaches (As he calls it) were across the street at the Best Buy watching the thing. He was obviously leading the UM coaches on to the last second. I don't care how hard-core a UPS fan you are you have to admit that this kid lacked alot of class in this process. It's almost shocking that he didn't choose UF (the Harvard of the southeast) for their "good academic program and everything".

[sethuel1]

They have all called it UPS this year. it's some sort of inside joke, I think.

[Jon]

The Orlando Sentinel has rated how difficult it is for I-A schools to admit football players. May not be the most scientific study, but interesting nonetheless.

Ratings were compiled after discussions with conference officials and recruiters across the nation.

 

10: Rice

9: Wake Forest, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Army, Navy

8: Duke, SMU, Tulane, Air Force, UCLA

7: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Missouri, Buffalo, Miami (Ohio), Georgia, Notre Dame

 

Certainly some interesting names already. Cal was rated just a 6. USC was a 3. I would think they're missing something when it came to Texas.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I must say that I wouldn't have guessed Mizzou being that tough.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

The Orlando Sentinel has rated how difficult it is for I-A schools to admit football players. May not be the most scientific study, but interesting nonetheless.

Ratings were compiled after discussions with conference officials and recruiters across the nation.

 

10: Rice

9: Wake Forest, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Army, Navy

8: Duke, SMU, Tulane, Air Force, UCLA

7: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Missouri, Buffalo, Miami (Ohio), Georgia, Notre Dame

 

Certainly some interesting names already. Cal was rated just a 6. USC was a 3. I would think they're missing something when it came to Texas.

 

Yeah, that sounds about right for Cal. Jeff Tedford made it a stipulation that Cal would lessen their academic standards for football players when he was hired (which were a little harder than UCLA at the time).

 

Meanwhile, UCLA insists they are a football school as much as a basketball school, but still has higher academic standards for football players.

[TruffleShuffle]

I didn't really watch the video, since I don't care too much about the scene it caused. What's really interesting, is that he supposedly re-confirmed his commitment to UM last weekend, and was seen at their basketball game wearing a UM jersey. It was also ALE who invited The Fridge and his wife to attend the ceremony, and never mentioned to them that the PSU coaches were anywhere nearby.

 

The key word above is "supposedly," as in "something I read secondhand on a message board on in an article by some disgruntled sportswriter." First of all, he was still being recruited by Maryland. They invited him to the basketball game and he went. He wore a Maryland jersey because he grew up in Maryland, has lived there his whole life, and has been a Terps basketball fan his whole life. While I have seen some Maryland message board people say they heard he re-confirmed his commitment, there hasn't been anything official.

 

Many Maryland fans have said that he invited the Fridge and his wife to attend the ceremony. This is not true because coaches are not allowed to attend the announcement. Maybe they asked him if she could attend and he didn't say no... but it's a free country and she can do what she wants. All I'm saying is that, think about it logically and ask yourself why he would recommit to a school and lead them on three days before screwing them over. This is a school he has been a fan of for a long time, and a coach with whom he had a good relationship, mind you... there was no incentive for him to try to embarrass Maryland and coach Friedgen.

 

One of the editors on the PSU board wrote this about him, which I hope you will take the time to read:

 

 

I wanted to take this time to share some of my thoughts on the recruitment of Antonio Logan-El. Today was obviously a very big day for Penn State fans and the Penn State football program. I had the opportunity to speak with Antonio Logan-El many times throughout his recruitment process in coverage for FightOnState, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt, talent and abilities aside, Penn State landed a very intelligent, personable, and likeable kid. I encourage Penn State fans to try to maintain a level of humility, especially with visiting Maryland fans (and all visiting fans for that matter). Remember, it wasn't long ago Penn State was struggling on the field, and losing in-state recruits to Michigan and Ohio State, among others.

 

Now, having said that, I wanted to talk about Logan-El's recruitment for Penn State because it was one of the most talked-about, and frequently misunderstood, in recent memory. I cringed sometimes when I saw some of the posts on various message boards of the speculation of the very aspects of Logan-El's recruitment. But, without a doubt, the questions I receive the most through e-mail and through private messages is always about Logan-El's recruitment. For that reason, I wanted to discuss everything here.

 

Off the bat, when I first talked to Logan-El in August, I thought he would commit to Penn State; or at least it would surprise me greatly if he did not commit. The reason? Beyond anything specific to his recruitment, a red flag should ALWAYS be raised when a recruit commits to a school, and then takes official visits elsewhere. When that happens and a recruit takes all of his official visits, a prospect almost never reaffirms the commitment (see Bani Gbadyu, Cedric Jefferies, Pat Devlin, Jason Evans, Anthony Morelli, among many many others) Those who do commit, and then take official visits, but still reaffirm their commitment to their original school (see Ben Tate, George Johnson, Mitch Mustain) ALWAYS have an intervening factor. With Tate, he cancelled his remaining visits. With Mustain, he just never took the visits he speculated he would take. But, as with Logan-El, when he takes all five visits, it's a good bet that he will head elsewhere. By in large, if not exclusively, recruits who commit and then look elsewhere on official visits aren't doing so to "see the sights", they are

 

I do not believe the race was as close as it was made out to be between Penn State and Maryland. In fact, the deal for Logan-El and Penn State was done on October 8, 2005 at the Ohio State game. There, Logan-El spent the day with Jared Odrick and Aaron Maybin, both Penn State commitments (who both told the staff that day of their intentions to play for Penn State). After the game, Logan-El told me in a direct quote that Penn State was his leader ("Penn State is at the top of my list"). It was the only time throughout his entire process he tipped his hat; he was one, if not the, saviest recuits I have ever spoken to, but that one time where he broke from his saviness told me a lot. After that, people got worried that he wasn't going to be taking an official to Penn State. People took that as a sign of his disinterest in Penn State. I didn't take it that way. He had already said to me previously, "I already know everything I need to know about Penn State." That said everything.

 

Looking in hindsight, that quote and the situation taken as a whole is evidence of Logan-El's certainty on Penn State. People looked at his failure to take an official visit to Happy Valley as disinterest was wrong. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He was sold. There was nothing more he needed to see. He already knew "everything he needed to know".

 

Congratulations to Penn State fans for the commitment of Logan-El. Like I said before, outside of his talents which speak for themselves, Happy Valley landed a really really great kid.

 

 

 

Another tidbit that I've come across is that the whole thing was set up by Scot Van Pelt, a UM alum on ESPN. He's pretty P.O.'ed, since it wasn't going to be done unless he was attending UM (which is probably a recruiting violation itself).

 

You said it yourself... that cannot be done legally. If so, it is a booster of a school giving special favors to a recruit as an incentive to get him to attend that school, which would result in Van Pelt having no future association with Maryland, and Logan-El either losing his eligibility or being suspended for a time. I doubt either party is stupid enough to go for that. Also, ESPNZone in Baltimore has hosted other announcements before... it is an easy way for ESPN to televise the announcement without having to move their equipment elsewhere.

 

 

Anyway, if Maryland fans want to think of him as a classless boor who wanted to humiliate their program, so be it. During the whole recruiting process, from reading articles about him on Scout and Rivals, I always got the impression that he was very deliberate and measured about his decision-making process. He seemd a lot more considerate than a lot of kids who make a decision and then start to doubt it a few days later. He also seemed to talk more about academics, quality of department in what he wants to study, player-to-player relationships, and player-to-coach relationships than most of the other blue chip recruits that I read about.

 

I would agree that some kids are self-centered boobs, but I just don't agree about Logan-El. I have read a lot about this over the past few days. I think that, just like the sad situation in West Virginia where it was reported that all but 1 miner survived and this turned out to be terribly wrong, that some bad information reached certain sources and just spread like wildfire. Hopefully most people will choose to judge him on the character that he shows at Penn State, and not on what they read on a message board during his recruiting process.

[TruffleShuffle]

The Orlando Sentinel has rated how difficult it is for I-A schools to admit football players. May not be the most scientific study, but interesting nonetheless.

Ratings were compiled after discussions with conference officials and recruiters across the nation.

 

10: Rice

9: Wake Forest, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Army, Navy

8: Duke, SMU, Tulane, Air Force, UCLA

7: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Missouri, Buffalo, Miami (Ohio), Georgia, Notre Dame

 

Certainly some interesting names already. Cal was rated just a 6. USC was a 3. I would think they're missing something when it came to Texas.

 

Yeah, I had the same reaction about Texas. It's a pretty good school academically when it comes to the average undergrad, but they have been known to have some real academic disasters on their team.

 

I was surprised to see Florida State and Ohio State not in negative numbers.

[stuy119]

Another no-no from the recruiting trail:

 

Texas A&M is working to bring in 5 star LB Michael Morgan, who was favoring Florida State. In order to sway him, they have been harping on the player who passed away during spring conditioning, DeVaughn Darling, to his parents in order to get him to stick in-state.

 

What a crock. If Franchione doesn't have a program that's good enough to keep him on equal footing, and Texas doeesn't even want to consider him, this is pretty low level to stoop to.

[Andy]

The Orlando Sentinel has rated how difficult it is for I-A schools to admit football players. May not be the most scientific study, but interesting nonetheless.

Ratings were compiled after discussions with conference officials and recruiters across the nation.

 

10: Rice

9: Wake Forest, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Army, Navy

8: Duke, SMU, Tulane, Air Force, UCLA

7: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Missouri, Buffalo, Miami (Ohio), Georgia, Notre Dame

 

Certainly some interesting names already. Cal was rated just a 6. USC was a 3. I would think they're missing something when it came to Texas.

Notre Dame has varied over the past few decades based on how much they actually want a winning team. I still can't believe they once let in a Proposition 48 casualty (Tony Rice).

[stuy119]

Thought I would update some big info I've heard being passed around:

 

Vidal Hazelton most likely is wavering in his commitment to USC, and will sign with Penn State. Should excite Truffle and Derwood.

 

Percy Harvin is leaning more and more towards USC, probably to replace the departed Hazelton.

 

UF also lost out on Damian Williams today (switched to Arkansas), and also formally pulled the 'ship from Damon McDaniel (who is looking more and more like he'll end up at FSU - very strange saga).

 

Jai Eugene called Les Miles today and switched his commitment from Michigan to LSU. Should make Vance a happy camper.

 

Alex Rose won't be switching his commitment from Auburn to FSU. Surprisingly, I'm not at all up or down on this news.

 

Charles Deas is down to Auburn and FSU, but it looks like he won't have the grades.

 

That's all I've been bombarded with today that I can remember, but hopefully there will be some happy people out there (and, some unhappy ones as well!).

[CuseCubFan69]

Well...todays the day! I'm hoping for a little last second magic.

[Derwood]

PSU's expected # of signees today is 24. we'll see if there are any syrprises.