Merry Pervy Christmas, Auburn fans! This is the post: between now and the end of the day, this is where you’ll come for every update, all the official TWER reactions, breakdowns, and breaking newsbits.
Also, immediately below: our Signing Day liveblog. It’s done, but you can reread it if you like. The ground rules:
1. Whatever happens today, it’s a great, great day for Auburn. The positives of the LOIs that do come into Auburn’s fax machine will outweigh the negatives of the ones that don’t by a factor of kajillion.
2. Unless a recruit takes the hat dance to a new level by publicly urinating on an Auburn cap, the bad-mouthing of 17-year-old kids is strictly prohibited.
3. As always: any recruit that does not choose Alabama is one that Alabama didn’t want to sign anyway.
Let’s do this.
UPDATE 2:44 p.m.: Notes and quotes from Chizik’s press conference are available from Tate and Bitter. Money quote:
“As the commitments were built behind the scenes, they stayed in touch with each other. There was really an uncommon bond, really different from what I’ve ever seen. It seems like they’ve already been playing together for a year.”
What Auburn sold this recruiting cycle wasn’t just Auburn or playing time or the coaches–it really was atmosphere, belonging, and at the risk of sounding a little too in the tank for our head coach … family. It helps explain why Auburn suffered so few decommitments; a recruit didn’t just have to leave behind the coaches, he had to leave behind the other commitments he’d grown to know and enjoy. Think about the picture taken at the Under Armour bowl with Dyer, Mosley, Goodwin, and Mack: even though Mack later disavowed his decision to pose for that picture, it made it clear that a) Auburn had something b) Mack wanted to be a part of it.
This is why I’m not worried about this success being a one-year phenomenon. It won’t surprise me if maybe this is the high point, if Auburn’s class next year and the year after aren’t quite as highly regarded. But as long as Chizik and Co. can keep offering this kind of atmosphere, the kinds of failures that marked the final few years of Tubby’s tenure are well behind us. It’s a hell of beginning, today, but it’s only the beginning.
This is all for today from WBE–read the liveblog if you really need the content–but I’ll be back tomorrow with all kinds of Signing Day stuff. See you then.
UPDATE 1:15 p.m.: Reed has signed after a curious delay, giving Auburn their 5th top-55 Rivals player. Reed was the kind of player Auburn didn’t really have elsewhere in the class, that elite slot receiver who could line up just about anywhere and scare the pants off of whoever’s lined up across from him. Caps a massive day.
Joel Bonomolo’s LOI is also in, meaning Auburn has finished this recruiting cycle with one–ONE–decommitment, and that from a kid who by a lot of accounts tried to re-commit anyway. Unbelievable. Auburn’s coaches swore they’d build relationships with their recruits, and that’s what they’ve done–the kind of relationships where recruits just have a hard time telling Auburn no. Phenomenal.
UPDATE 11:58 a.m.: Corey Lemonier signs with Auburn, icing the nation’s No. 3 or 4 class with Trovon Reed and Joel Bonomolo the only holdouts. Lemonier is Auburn’s 4th top-60 (Rivals) signee of the day, with Reed a possible 5th.
Massive week for Tracy Rocker and the Auburn DL–Whitaker and Lemonier are an incredible DT-DE pairing, with Rocker cited as a principal reason for both’s commitment. One more high-profile DT might have been nice, but Auburn’s d-line should be good to go for years regardless.
NOLA.com reporting Reed to sign with Auburn … any second now.
UPDATE: 11:15 a.m.: Jake Holland, Ryan White, and Chad Slade are on board. Holland you should know about by now–possibly the most polished LB in Auburn’s class. White I’m excited about–coaches took him over several more highly-ranked CB prospects.
Lemonier to announce in 15 minutes and though Florida St. has been on a tear today, many, many signs pointing towards Auburn right this second. Would be Auburn’s second huge win of the day after Shon Coleman.
UPDATE 10:25 a.m.: The first of Auburn’s major targets today has gone elsewhere: Byran Jones signs with Arkansas. Not a surprise after Phillips signed with Auburn this morning, but still a bit of a disappointment. On the positive side: LaDarius Owens has signed. Owens is going to be Ted Roof’s pet monster in the coming years … if he’s not Rocker’s monster at DE.
HOT RUMORS at the moment: Auburn might get Calvin Smith as a package with Corey Lemonier; on the downside, Trovon Reed is seriously considering LSU and may not sign today. YAY to the first, BLEAH to the second.
UPDATE 9:39 a.m.: Auburn’s sleeper commits are in: Linden DE Justin Delaine and Woodlawn ATH Chris Davis. Both have immense physical skills that weren’t recognized early on thanks to their inability to make camps or, you know, play for schools that aren’t metro B’ham or west Alabama. Here’s to betting one or both make a big impact in their time at Auburn.
UPDATE 9:26 a.m.: Dyer and Mosley are in, Dyer giving Auburn 3 (3!) Rivals 5-star recruits. Also in: Shaun Kitchens.
UPDATE 8:52 a.m. White and Whitaker sign along with three-star ATH Ryan Smith of Cordova, a Kentucky commit since October. Smith will almost certainly play safety at Auburn and it’s a damn good bet he got his offer when the coaches decided they weren’t going to bother with D.J. Howard. Good news: AU needed another safety in the class somewhere, even though I think McNeal is probably underrated.
UPDATE 8:42 a.m.: Per Jay Tate, Shon Coleman has signed. Massive signing for Auburn; Alabama really put the full-court press on by all accounts. Count this as a head-to-head win for Chizik, even if ‘Bama got into the game very, very late. Also in: Mincy, McNeal, Kitchens.
UPDATE 8:34 a.m.: There had been some chatter Auburn could flip Corey Grant, but I don’t think there was ever any legs to it. His LOI has gone to T-town.
UPDATE 8:17 a.m.: Commitments in: Parkey, Goodwin, Carter, Clark, Richardson, Mack, and Christian.
We’ve also got our first Mystery Recruit signee of the day: Handley High two-star Ladarius Phillips is in the fold. Phillips is a FB/DT who made 4A All-State at defensive tackle and was apparently headed to Georgia Southern before getting an Auburn offer. I have to think he’s bound for DT at Auburn, and I also have to admit that this makes Byran Jones’s signing look a little less likely.
CALL FOR HELP: OK, so I’m on DSL out here in the frozen wastelands of northern Arizona, and after the hoops liveblog experience the other night and my Internet connection acting a bit slower than usual today, I’m a little worried about handling the flow of comments during the liveblog tomorrow. John and J.M. will be around to help out from time to time, but if there’s any regulars out there who’d like to just click a little button from time to time to help the liveblog run smoothly, leave a comment indicating so with your e-mail in the little e-mail part of the comment form. Thanks.
UPDATE 6:57 p.m.: Two quickie links for you: 1. Garnet and Black Attack is glad SC kept Lattimore away from “powerhouses” like Auburn, Oregon, and Penn St., and let it not be said that we can’t take a compliment 2. Jeremy Richardson is officially a grades risk, and a big one. Here’s hoping that after all the pain he’s endured, he gets some good news over the summer.
UPDATE 4:10 p.m.: As I think an awful lot of people expected by the time the announcement rolled around, Marcus Lattimore will sign with South Carolina. Instant reax:
1. Good for him. Seriously. We’re not in the business of knocking any 17-year-old kid for his decisions, but choosing to stay close to home with family and friends and making the attempt to help pull your hometown team to the next level–as opposed to joining a team that’s already there–is a choice I can particularly get behind. Best of luck to him.
2. Having Stephen Davis bring out your ‘Cock hat, though? Hoooooo boy, bold decision there. Stephen, how could you? (Note: I’m not actually hurt.)
3. This hurts Auburn a little more than I think the section of fans who are thinking “Who cares, we’ve got Dyer” might, uh, think. Yes, we’ve got Dyer, but it appeared for all the world that part (not all, but part) of Chizik and Co.’s decision to stop recruiting Lache Seastrunk was based on their confidence with Lattimore. Now Auburn’s got neither Seastrunk nor Lattimore nor D.J. Howard, leaving Dyer as the only running back in the class (unless there’s a surprise tomorrow). Auburn’s really not so deep at RB that I can imagine the coaches will be happy with Dyer carrying the ’10 weight alone.
But that said … 2011’s probably the only season where the lack of backs in this class might hurt. This fall there’s Fannin, Aycock, Smith, Dyer, and McCalebb, and that should be plenty; but Fannin’s really the only one of those guys who we absolutely know can tote the rock as the primary back over the course of a whole season. The odds are high that one of the other candidates will prove himself between now and ’11 … but what if Smith gets canned? If Aycock’s not up to it? If Dyer hurts himself–he did have a lot of carries in high school–or just isn’t that good? (It happens.) If the true freshmen aren’t ready? All four of those scenarios not panning out is awfully unlikely, but with Lattimore, there would have basically been no way Auburn would go into ’11 without a great feature back. Now there’s a little tiny bit of worry.
After ’11, though? This staff will find someone else. If there’s any place where they’ve proven they’ll be able to recruit top-notch talent going forward, it’s the skill positions. There’s some worry, yeah, but only for ’11 and even there, not much.
4:45 p.m.: As expected, the Tide have picked up lineman Arie Kouandjio. Some talk he might bite on USC; didn’t happen.
5:14 p.m.: Andrew Gribble provides some Lattimore quotes on his decision. Confirms he was an Auburn lean until late in the process. That Auburn was even that close to pulling both of the top 2 RBs in the nation two years after the ’08 disaster is still pretty staggering.
Let me read that #3 and answer with a resoundingly steady;
“Who cares, we got Dyer.”
I mean, come on, when you were fantasizing about the Dyer/Lattimore combo, Dyer was always 1a, wasn’t he?
Let me put it this way; Lattimore goes elsewhere, and I’m just kind of like “Well that kinda sucks.” But if Lattimore did commit here, but then Dyer decommited and signed elsewhere, I would be CRUSHED.
All the more reason to celebrated that fax with Micheal Dyer’s signature coming through tomorrow morning.
Yes, I’d have rather had Dyer. But for the reasons described, I’d have rather had both, and I think if you asked Auburn’s coaches they’d also tell you they wanted a second back in the class, too … or they would have stopped pursuing Lattimore when Dyer committed.
I agree, but still, RB is one of the least of my worries. (As long as we get Dyer.) We’ll see.
Either way, this page just temporarily replaced Google as my homepage for today and tomorrow. Lovin it.
yeah…this page will minimized and up on my desktop all day at work tomorrow.
While losing lattimore hurts, I spewed beer on the keyboard when I read (and instantly pictured in my mind):
“Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier sealed the deal on Saturday, when he apparently did the “cha cha slide” with Lattimore’s mother.”
Ummm…wow. I was unaware that the prospect of playing in the NFL is not nearly as impressive to a recruit as seeing a 50-something has-been put the moves on your mom.
Now now, I’m sure the slide wasn’t exactly the crucial factor. Lattimore’s not a dummy.
I’m also a little leery of using the “Why didn’t he go with the school that’ll get him ready for the NFL?” argument when you KNOW that same shtick is being used against our offensive staff by a certain cross-state rival (and Georgia, and Tennessee).
awww….come on jerry….it’s no fun when you’re serious. just picture spurrier doing the cha-cha slide with that creepy smirk of his and tell me you don’t laugh a little.
Well … it is a pretty funny image. Post-recruit bitterness is a pet peeve of mine, sorry. I’ll try to lighten up. But not too much.
This is one of those times where you have to go back and look at AU’s current class with some deserved appreciation and forget about the ones that got away.
If 12 months ago someone showed you this commit list and its ranking you would have taken it with no complaints and an ear-to-ear grin.
What about 14 months ago right after the 36-0 iron bowl?
The turnaround in such a short amount of time is nothing short of amazing!
WOO HOO! wake’um up time! Warm up those faxes and start dialing numbers! …… Do these kids even use faxes? Maybe I should say, Warm up those scanners and email those attachments! That’s probably not as exciting as watching the fax machine…. ah well… what do ya do… progress and all. 🙂
WJOX reporting that Sean Coleman has signed…
heck yeah!!! Shon Coleman just made my day!!!
Shon Coleman, b1tchez! 🙂
as Bob Davie likes to say, FOOOTBAWWW
This morning I saw mentioned that there are 26 5-star rated recruits on Rivals this year. We got over ten percent of the available 5-star athletes. Not bad.
What about Bonomolo?
Note to Bama: BUCKLE UP, BITCHES. We’re going to kick your ass.
Tunde Fairyike.
Tunde Fairyike.
What a hall of fame name that is.
OL.
Bonomolo is in.
I can see this page, but not the actual livechat. I hate websense
While Auburn’s class this year is outstanding I’m still going to hold my breath till I see each one of them enrolled and going to class. If each one gets in then I’ll be quite happy…
Well well well … would you look at that:
http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/TeamRank.asp?sort=0&year=2010&postype=2
Great job AU, current players, and staff. For AU to be top 5 in recruiting in 2010 is pretty unbelievable considering in 08 AU was considered down and out(not to mention racist for not hiring Gill). The way AU played last year was a big part in this too. I feel AU has something pretty big building, kind of like I felt in the early part of last decade as AU was stockpiling talent. Getting new assistant coaches ready to fill voids over the coming years as current assistant coaches move on will be the most challenging thing for AU the next few seasons I feel. WDE!!!!
1 Florida 28 4 18 5 3.89 2,938
2 Texas 25 2 19 4 3.92 2,728
3 Auburn 32 3 13 13 3.50 2,485
4 USC 17 4 12 1 4.18 2,484
5 Bama 26 1 15 9 3.62 2,308
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Coachbot!