Friday, May 14, 2010

Recruiters


With the promotion of Joker Phillips to Head Coach, how would you now rank the Recruiters at UK? Who is #1 and why? Who is best Churck Smith, Mike Summers, or David Turner? or is someone else #1 on this list?

5 comments:

  1. Frankly, it is too early to answer this question. This gets pretty far into apples and oranges. David Turner and Mike Summers haven't recruited for UK in two decades, and Tee Martin has never recruited for UKbefore. So time will tell.

    But here is a fact. Aside from Joker himself, Chuck Smith recruited more kids and more states than anyone else on UK's staff during the last two years.

    Here's another factor to consider. Even though Summers might not be the primary recruiter on every OL prospect on UK's board, Summers' presence on the staff will effect their recruitments since he would become their position coach at UK.

    Under Rich Brooks, UK's coaching staff took more of a team approach to recruiting than most other D-1 staffs. I expect the team approach to continue under Joker. All these guys are on the staff because Joker has confidence in their recruiting skills. And Joker is giving some of them new territiorial assignments. I have noticed that Joker has recently given Steve Brown new territorial recruiting responsibilities in the Cincinnati area. Chuck Smith is more active in Florida than he has ever been before. Tee Martin has been in Illinois and Indiana this spring. Different territorial responsibilities may bring out the best in some of our assistant coaches.

    An interesting question might be whether the familiar pattern of signing lots of prospects out of Georgia and South Carolina will continue. I think Georgia will continue to produce lots of Wildcat signees, but I have a feeling we will see a surge of signings from states that are geographically contiguous with the Commonwealth. We will see.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good comments. I have no doubt that Joker will place more emphasis on recruiting and that he has improved our recruiting a great deal with our new additions. Even the Rock will add to it.

    We have some very good and proven recruiters on our staff now. But I wouldn't be surprised if Tee Martin turns out to be a surprise factor, I remember Joker saying when he was at Sanders ESPN game that he thought he was well known but he was really impressed at the people, young and old, that knew and were attracted to Tee. He said he made a note then to keep an eye on him, and sure enough, here he is. He isn't that far removed from today's athletes and he has pretty much done it all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would think that question would be better asked towards the end of the season instead at the beginning of a new era under Joker Phillips.

    We are not the Longhorns or Bama which can just sit back and reel in the recruits based on tradition and a couple trips to the National Championship, we UK will have to have help on the field which will be in the fall. Till then I don't see alot more commits happening. Maybe one more possibly two thats it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mike Summers and David Turner have a proven track record of great recruiting, but, as stated above, they've done it at other school and not for UK. But, I can not imagine either falling off in that category.

    As far as the current UK assistants, it would be between Chuck Smith and Chris Thurmond. Both have done an excellent job for the 'Cats.

    But, if we look to the future, no one holds more potential to be the next Joker Phillips than Tee Martin. The kid has the charisma, energy, and connections to become one of the top recruiters in the country.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Don't forget about Randy Sanders. He's pretty good too and has a nice track record.

    ReplyDelete