Losing another recruit?

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WolfontheProwl

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Rivals has a message that another verbal is opening up his recruitment do we know who that is?
 

i wonder who it is. it says its minor so i'm curious to find out
 

dt doral willis. says he is looking at powerhouses wake forest, florida altantic, ill. state, and western michigan. how can we be expected to compete with those schools?
 

I wonder what this is about? With scholarships running low could it be a mutual decision? Personally, I love those big guys clogging the middle, I'd still love to see him as a Gopher.
 

maybe it was mutual. maybe the coaches were hoping that they were going to land him and one of his teammates. wake forest has teammate or two of his so maybe he wants to play with them who knows. maybe Beau will commit so its not a loss at all
 


Sotakid said:
maybe it was mutual. maybe the coaches were hoping that they were going to land him and one of his teammates. wake forest has teammate or two of his so maybe he wants to play with them who knows. maybe Beau will commit so its not a loss at all
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Dunno...Badgers usually stick together like flies on sh*t. If both of his parents are indeed Badgers, then I doubt he will end up as one of their biggest rivals. Hopefully I'm wrong.
 


Per www.gopherillustrated.com (Makes a great Christmas gift) it's Doral Willis who's a 2* DT commit from Florida.

It's believed he may have been encouraged to look around. He was a sleeper recruit, who has nice size and plays on a solid Florida program. I wish him the best of luck at another program & will root for him when I see him on ESPN down the line. He was however only the 3rd best DT on his team and was likely expected to help woo some of his multiple higher profile teammates, which never happened. IF anyone remembers Padraic Scott from Florida a few years ago, this sounds similar.

This may also indicate that another DT has committed or is on the process of committing. Just wishful thinking but maybe this means Beau Allen has gotten serious about the U and we're trying to find a spot for him?
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Per www.gopherillustrated.com (Makes a great Christmas gift) it's Doral Willis who's a 2* DT commit from Florida.

It's believed he may have been encouraged to look around. He was a sleeper recruit, who has nice size and plays on a solid Florida program. I wish him the best of luck at another program & will root for him when I see him on ESPN down the line. He was however only the 3rd best DT on his team and was likely expected to help woo some of his multiple higher profile teammates, which never happened. IF anyone remembers Padraic Scott from Florida a few years ago, this sounds similar.

This may also indicate that another DT has committed or is on the process of committing. Just wishful thinking but maybe this means Beau Allen has gotten serious about the U and we're trying to find a spot for him?
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Fantastic post. I do remember Padric Scott and this synopsis seems very plausible to me. I got the impression that maybe Antoine Lewis was told the same thing- that we are overselling the flight and some people might have to be left behind.
 



I have a feeling too that part of the reason he received an early offer was in the hope that his committment would result in others from Pahokee following suit (Ash?). When that didn't happen, it was likely that the two (he and the Gophs) would go their separate ways.
 

I wonder if Brandon Green didn't sign if Johnny Johnson would have been encouraged to "look around" too. Hard to say. Johnny has turned into a solid special teams player but I'm guessing thats where he will max out.
 

I can't see the gophs telling a DT recruit to look around if we don't have something else lined up. But I suppose it could be true anyway.
 

hopefully we dont lose harold leguina(sp). he was/is visiting texas tech this weekend. it would be bad to lose two DTs in this class with signing day not too far away
 



LOL! These responses are so predictable.

Brew sings a 2* player he;s a "diamond in the rough" or a "sleeper" or a "hidden gem of the 20__ class"

That player opens up his recruitment because he possiblt could be getting better offers, he all of a sudden sucks and is not a big loss.

LOL!
 

Art Vandelay said:
LOL! These responses are so predictable.

Brew sings a 2* player he;s a "diamond in the rough" or a "sleeper" or a "hidden gem of the 20__ class"

That player opens up his recruitment because he possiblt could be getting better offers, he all of a sudden sucks and is not a big loss.

LOL!
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I see exactly one quote here that says not too big a loss (and that's only Pete :rolleyes:). Willis was a high three star on ESPN (77) and, of the three DTs from his HS team going to D1 schools, he is the only one that was a three year starter. I, for one, am sorry to see him go. The reality is as we get down to the end here on recruiting, there is bound to be some shifting around. We can only bring in 28 without gray shirts and with this decommit we are at 26 (including Campion gray shirting from last year).
 

Isn't Searcy gray-shirting as well?

Anyway, never happy to see this happening, but I wonder if when he committed, we were in the hunt for some of the other Pahokee kids (Ash, Ford, and Allen--who according to Rivals we all offered) and when those guys chose to go elsewhere, Minnesota lost some luster for Willis. The Padric Scott comparison (good call, by the way) is another plausible scenario.

I've always been a strong believer in a good defense starts when you shut down the first option (regardless of any offense you are facing) and that's usually the stuff up the middle. A team always needs strength, bulk, and quickness in the middle of the defensive line and Willis has all of those qualities.

If he's truly gone--and it looks like he is--I'm hoping Beau Allen decides to take his place.
 

Art - better offers? fla atl, ill st, and western mich? c'mon! dont be dumb here. maybe wake is a better destination for him. who really knows? and if the guy was such a stud then why is he the 3rd best DT on his HS team?
 

Will this happen to JD Pride if Seantrel commit early elsewhere?
 

I know absolutely nothing about this kid. I never said I did. I'm just pointing out that whenever a player decommitts or opens his recruitment, the standard response is that he's not that good anyways or his scholly was pulled. You can't have it both ways.
 

Art Vandelay said:
I know absolutely nothing about this kid. I never said I did. I'm just pointing out that whenever a player decommitts or opens his recruitment, the standard response is that he's not that good anyways or his scholly was pulled. You can't have it both ways.
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But Art, the standard reply wasn't that he was no longer any good. There will always be those types of comments, but there are usually more saying it's too bad we lost him. After all, we aren't Wisconsin that claims they cooled on the kid before he de-commits. As for Willis, I'm sorry to see him go because DT is the hardest position to recruit. Now I'm hoping we bring in a quality player to replace him.
 

I for one hope he just changed his mind on his own and that the gophers did not tell him to look elsewhere. For no other reason than I don't want the gophers burning bridges with a solid Florida high school program.
 

GopherGod said:
I for one hope he just changed his mind on his own and that the gophers did not tell him to look elsewhere. For no other reason than I don't want the gophers burning bridges with a solid Florida high school program.
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You make a good point about how burning bridges can be dangerous especially with a h.s. that produces so many d1 players. However, I would also add a second scenario in that I don't think the gopher staff would burn bridges with the program if they were up front with the kid from the beginning in saying they were still recruiting other athletes and that there was a chance they may not have room for him.(Note: Not saying that's what happened as I have no idea what happened.)
 

Art Vandelay said:
I know absolutely nothing about this kid. I never said I did. I'm just pointing out that whenever a player decommitts or opens his recruitment, the standard response is that he's not that good anyways or his scholly was pulled. You can't have it both ways.
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Yes we were all here saying exactly that when Josh Huff or Kip Smith de-committed. LOL. You Iowa stiffs can't handle that we're blowing you out of the water in recruiting despite the best season in Iowa history this past year. :clap:
 

gophmeister said:
Yes we were all here saying exactly that when Josh Huff or Kip Smith de-committed. LOL. You Iowa stiffs can't handle that we're blowing you out of the water in recruiting despite the best season in Iowa history this past year. :clap:
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While we certainly have outrecruited Iowa the last two years, there's no way you can make that statement this year. They've gotten a fair amount of guys we've wanted.
 

Art Vandelay said:
LOL! These responses are so predictable.

Brew sings a 2* player he;s a "diamond in the rough" or a "sleeper" or a "hidden gem of the 20__ class"

That player opens up his recruitment because he possiblt could be getting better offers, he all of a sudden sucks and is not a big loss.

LOL!
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As are Art's responses. LOL!:horse:
 

Art Vandelay said:
I know absolutely nothing about this kid. I never said I did. I'm just pointing out that whenever a player decommitts or opens his recruitment, the standard response is that he's not that good anyways or his scholly was pulled. You can't have it both ways.
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Are you kidding? I've read a bunch of threads these last few weeks about kids decommitting or going elsewhere, and the standard response has largely been 'that sucks/the sky is falling/Brewster's tenuous situation is costing us players.' Then, once, the general consensus is 'eh...not a huge loss. Could mean a better guy coming in' (which is perfectly plausible, and happens all the time in recruiting) and suddenly everyone here is a blind homer? Have you missed the daily 'Fire Brewster' threads in here???
 

I notice Willis is indeed not on our commit list anymore. That's too bad. Hate to lose a DT ever.

On the flip side it does raise our rivals avg stars over three for those keeping track.
 

I was looking forward to Willis lining up next to Edwards next year, it would be really tough to move those two off the line of scrimmage.
 

StartGrayPlz said:
I was looking forward to Willis lining up next to Edwards next year, it would be really tough to move those two off the line of scrimmage.
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Willis would not have cracked the two deeps next year. Still a tough loss though.
 

gophmeister said:
Yes we were all here saying exactly that when Josh Huff or Kip Smith de-committed. LOL. You Iowa stiffs can't handle that we're blowing you out of the water in recruiting despite the best season in Iowa history this past year. :clap:
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as a gopher fan, i'm personally embarassed when you make statements like this. who the hell cares if we have a good recruiting class, if no one can coach them to wins? i'd trade our 39th ranked recruiting class last year (and i'm pretty sure that was with lipscomb, which took away 1 out of our 3 4stars), for their 63rd ranked recruiting class (fyi, they did have the same amount of 4 stars that we did) to go 10-2 vs. 6-6 anyday.

and yes, as gopherprof mentioned, they are beating us this year...not that it really matters, what teams do on the field is what really counts.
 

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