Michael Dyer and Dakota Mosley. Dig the congratulatory banner. Photo via Auburntron.
Signing Day is forever. Or at least, coverage of it is, where “forever” is defined as “the following two to three weeks or so.” This is a good thing, since the last few days have proven there’s plenty of HOT RUMORS that can still trickle out regarding last Wednesday’s results. Track ‘Em serves up a healthy portion of them from Scout writer Mark Murphy, this one being the most intriguing (of a dozen different candidates) to me:
Antonio Goodwin – Had Trooper Taylor extremely anxious over his commitment. He’s a hard guy to get a hold of because he couldn’t afford a cell. We didn’t have contact with him for days at a time and we never felt 100% until his signature came in. Georgia was always a huge player here. Apparently Troop went nuts when his letter came through. He likes his ability a ton and worked on him a lot.
Goodwin became something of an afterthought after Trovon Reed committed and we didn’t hear much about him at the Under Armour game, but in case you’ve forgotten, he had offers from the entire Southeast. If Taylor was this excited about him, maybe it’s time he quits getting overlooked.
Over at Warblogle, Kurt reprints an e-mail from a guy who knows a guy as part of a big krootin’ reaction roundup, offering another clutch of rumor HOTness regarding Seastrunk, Markeith Ambles, etc. The highlight:
DJ Howard and Lattimore were talking to each other the whole time. The coaches were telling Lattimore that Howard was going to be moved to safety right away and then they would tell Howard he would get a shot at running back. They felt they were being misled and that turned them off of Auburn. That being said, Howard begged the coaches for his offer and would have come to Auburn if he had the opportunity.
I’m not sure this entirely passes the smell test–why would the coaches have to reassure Lattimore about competition from Howard when Dyer was already in the fold?–but the HOT timeline at the time had Howard calling Chizik and Co. to ask for his offer between Lattimore notifying the coaches of his decision and his announcement. So maybe there’s something to the idea the two of them communicating.
In any case: all water under the bridge now. Water that’s lots of fun to read and guess about.
Kudos. You’ve no doubt seen this elsewhere by now, but: Trooper and Luper both wound up on Rivals’ list of the top (non-head coach) recruiters of the year. It’s richly deserved, but let’s also throw a shout-out to Grimes and Rocker, who between them signed 10 linemen ranked four stars or better. It’s not a surprise with Rocker, really, but the low-key hiring of Grimes has turned out to be just as shrewd a move for Chizik as the rest of his decisions on the Plains.
Grades. A popular question Signing Day question (and topic of discussion since) is which members of Auburn’s class might not qualify. That’s the sort of thing that mostly gets whispered and rumored about until the class actually arrives this August, but we do have two media-confirmed academic risks. As you probably know by now, one of them is Jeremy Richardson, though after what he’s been through no one can fault him. As for the other, it’s just a tidbit in Luke Brietzke’s Signing Day post, but …
Justin Delaine
Position: DE
Height, weight: 6-5, 225
School: Linden
Notes: Three-star defensive end runs a 4.58 40-yard dash… Grades could be an issue for Delaine.
That would be quite a shame: Delaine is described by virtually everyone as one of Auburn’s most impressive physical prospects but also a player who needs a lot of polish, the kind of polish Tracy Rocker would provide a lot more of than a JUCO d-line coach. Here’s to hoping.
(And while we’re discussing Brietzke … I’ve e-mailed back and forth with Luke a couple of times and generally think he does an excellent job, but what the hell was up with his story on the Lattimore decision? Missing out on Latt hurt, sure, but “Any remaining dreams Auburn had of winning a mythical recruiting championship slipped away Tuesday”? “A cold finish could shift perception of the job Gene Chizik and his staff have done this year. Lattimore’s decision launched that potential slide”? “With Lattimore’s decision, though, the Tigers could whiff on their last three prospects”? Even at the time, Lattimore’s choice was hardly a disaster for Auburn; you can’t be the “crown jewel” of a class that’s already got a five-star, sure-thing running back, can you? I’m more than willing to give Brietzke the benefit of the doubt, and assume things got away from him as he looked for the angle that made his Lattimore story as important as possible … but these kinds of wild prophecies of doom and gloom for Auburn aren’t going to do much to change the perception the state’s media write with a crimson slant.)
Lemonews. If you read EDSBS–and who doesn’t?–you’ve probably gotten wind of these Facebook-filched pictures of Corey Lemonier in a closet full of … unusual … firearms and sitting in a Corvette. Seeing as the pictures don’t mean anything other than “Lemonier needs to be a lot more careful with his Facebook account”, he’s probably in the clear, but I remain worried we’re going to be subjected to some kind of talk-radio-grade media squawking over them in the next few days.
Lemonier also has a cameo in Mark Schlabach’s blow-by-blow account of Jimbo Fisher’s first Signing Day at Florida St. Fisher’s not particularly gracious in the wake of Lemonier’s decision to sign with AU, to which Auburn fans would like to say: HA-ha.
BlAUgosphere. The Auburner’s posted actual content! It’s kind of all over the place, but who cares when you’ve got gems like this:
By the way, in 1977, the same year Alabama won a national championship, the movie “Apollo” won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was a movie about a champion with many championships who fought a loser and won. To enjoy the movie from any other perspective would’ve been stupid – only a loser would want to watch that movie since only losers applaud the efforts of fellow losers.
I LOL’d like hell. Elsewhere, John at the Sleeper Team goes over the offensive two-deep and here at TWER Jeremy finds a pair of bizarro ’80s PSAs filmed in and around Auburn.
Powers. As in, the kind that take you from being a junior at Auburn to starting in the Super Bowl in the space of a year. Like nearly everyone else I was rooting for the Saints–I mean, it’s New Orelans, c’mon–but it was still awfully, awfully cool to watch Jerraud Powers prove the doubters wrong.
Etc. Auburn’s No. 1 equestrian team holds onto their ranking vs. South Carolina … A list of names to know for 2011 in-state recruiting (Spencer Region among them) … Evan Woodbery looks back at Auburn’s 2005 signing class, which produced a ton of solid defenders, especially in the secondary, but whose best offensive product was Tommy Trott … Paul Westerdawg calls Auburn fans “passionately ambivalent” about our basketball program; wish I could argue with that description … I can’t stop laughing at this:
I am an AU fan and not trying to start a rumor but on Jermey Richardson and I quote from Mark Murphy. “But Troop has made a promise among his circle of friends that he will take care of him on a very personal level. Even his wife has made the same commitment. Troop is saying he will take him into his own family if he has to.” Is there anything that the Finebaums of the world can question as this being legal? I wish we had a clear explanation of what this means.
… Is that a Heisman pose?
pawpaw, I’m assuming that’s simply rank exaggeration on Murphy’s part, because you’re right that it sounds dodgy as hell. I’ve never heard of players or recruits living with coaches or coaches’ relatives.
AO, nah, the Heisman guy is stiff-arming rather than laying his palm flat. I think that’s just an “I’m a badass” pose.
I hope some coach will serve as a father figure to Richardson, more so than coaches normally do for their players. The kid needs someone to like that, someone to stick by him and be there for him. This is where “The Auburn Family” becomes more than rhetoric. I am not saying someone should buy him a car, give him a laptop, or pay for him to go on some trip. But the coaches should stay in touch with him through JUCO, honor his offer after JUCO (if he ends up having to go, that is) and give him special attention, advice, and direction once he reaches The Plains. When I was in high school, my football team got STOMPED each and every week it seemed like, but playing football was a hugely positive experience for me because of the life lessons it taught me and the role models that my coaches were. And I needed that but I can’t imagine how much I would need it if I went through what Jeremy has. Like I say, I hope Auburn gets to be the Family to Jeremy that we all believe it can be.
WAR EAGLE!
I’ll second that, Alum. I think that’s the principal thing to draw from Taylor’s connection with Richardson–that grades or no grades, prep school or JUCO, Auburn’s going to be an option for him.
I read the Jimbo Fisher ESPN piece and his comments about Lemonier were completely uncalled for and pissed me off. I thought he was a nicer and more classy guy than that. It makes me even happier than I already was about how CGC conducts himself, for example… “We don’t talk about the ones we didn’t get. We wish him the best.”
To be fair, it sounds like the sort of thing where Schlabach was “embedded” for the entire day, and Fisher may have forgotten he was there (and that Fisher was on the record). I’m not sure Fisher would have really chosen to make those kinds of remarks public, and I’m likewise not sure that our coaches might not have said similar things if we’d had a reporter in a similar situation.
That said: Fisher did say it, and with a reporter present. As I said: not gracious, at the least.
On Corey Lemonier;
A) I like guns too.
B) Jimbo Fisher is a jackoff, and his shot at Lemonier and our program is as lame as he is classless. I don’t care if reporters are there or not, a head coach (HEAD COACH) should never take a shot like that at anyone. It’s comforting to think that we have a coach that would not only never ever take shots at superior programs or 18 year old kids, but if one day it magically became acceptable and necessary to do so, then he would sound alot cooler than a Best Buy sales clerk.
I wish we could come across Jimbo’s ACC cupcake squad one day — but alas, there’s no way they’re ever going to smell New Year’s Day with him at the helm.
It makes me shudder to think that Dameyune Craig was in that same room, wearing those same colors.
Still, no matter how you look at it; Gene Chizik somehow comes off looking a little bit better, and Fisher comes out of it looking a little more like the loser he is, and a little nerdier too.
Re: Football and life lessons.
I was once on a little league football team (playing center and DL) that never scored. We had a good defense, so our won-loss record was 0-8-2, with no team scoring more than six points, but for the life of us we could never punch the ball across the goal line.
I credit the coaches of that team for how they handled the situation. For one thing, every single kid played in every single game. They picked team captains based on how hard the individuals worked in practice. As deflating and disappointing each game was, they had us holding our heads up high and our team spirit was strong.
I played on better scoring teams up through high school, even an undefeated team, but I rarely felt as strong a bond with my teammates as I did with that one.
A good coach is worth his weight in gold, and from what I’ve seen, Auburn has a slew of em.
Sullivan013