A lot of awesome stuff for us

Huge recruiting weekend on campus. James doin’ work with the coaches and current players to keep the 16 commits who will be in town this weekend along with the four prospects who will also be visiting. We have 22 spots filled. I’ve read now where we can take four more, as two of the commits in this class have signed and are ready for spring ball; four-star quarterback Johnathon McCrary and high three-star offensive lineman Sean Dowling. Included in our list of 16 commits visiting this weekend is Johnathan “Rudy” Ford, the four-star running back (247 sports) out of New Hope, Alabama. James is going to put a full court press on Rudy to lock him in with us. I think James will get it done. It’s an impressive group of players who are committed. Watched film this week on high three-star corner Darrius Sims (Memphis), solid three-star wide receiver Latevius Rayford (Memphis) and McCrary. Very impressed with all three commits. McCary can make all the throws and is highly mobile. Very accurate with a pretty strong arm, which he can get stronger while working with Coach Gault and reps in spring practice. Sims is fantastic. Darrius is a playmaker at corner, who can change games with his ball- hawking ability. Really like Darrius. And I was also very impressed with Latevius. Excellent receiver with good size who makes a lot happen after he catches it. Very good speed. I really like what we are getting in this class. James will lock them all down this weekend. A couple of commits are not coming this weekend including quarterback Chad Kanoff, who couldn’t make it, but is good to go. Our kicker commit, Tommy Oppenheimer, won’t be here either, but he looks good to go as well. Love this class. James has loaded up on playmakers with wide receivers and dbs. He’s thrown in two  ols, an excellent defensive tackle in Jay Woods, a tight end, a running back, a couple of linebackers and two qbs. We’re going to be a lot deeper at linebacker and on the offensive line next year, so James wanted to upgrade some more on the offensive perimeter and in the defensive backfield.

We have four interesting targets visiting this weekend. Four-star tight end Mitch Parsons out of Colorado and solid three-star juco tight end Brandon Vandenburg will be visiting. Not sure we can take them both. Vandenburg is described as a guy who will be ready to play next year and looks like a guy who can play on Sundays. Parsons is highly sought after and would be a nice get as well. Also visiting is four-star (Rivals) wide receiver Jordan Cunningham, who has a highly impressive list of suitors. He’s got offers from all over the place. He has broken it down to VU, Alabama, FSU, Oklahoma State and Stanford. Jordan stands 6’3″ and weighs 185. He compares favorably to Jordan Matthews, our top flight receiver. Jordan Cunningham caught 53 passes for 817 yards and seven TDs this year. He is from the University School in Fort Lauderdale. Would be an excellent land here. I like our chances with James on Jordan this weekend. The final target in town is wide receiver Juwaan Williams, a high three star prospect (5.7 Rivals, 87 by 247 sports). I say lets get commits out of all four, lock in the guys we have on the board, keep them committed and sign them Feb. 6, though there is one more guy I would love to add. He is Matt Dayes, a three-star running back out of Fort Lauderdale. Matt had an awesome year and James is very interested in him. Sounds like an excellent second back to go along with Rudy. James will get it worked out where we may be able to take all five.

So we’ve just got to finish strong with this class. Love what we have so far. Now to next fall. I read a story in Bleacher Report about the top ten quarterbacks to look for next year. Austyn Carta-Samuels, our guy, was one of the qbs listed. Austyn put up some excellent numbers as a freshman at Wyoming before transferring to us two years ago. He can give us good passing ability and that great mobility like a Johnny Manziel has. I’m not saying he’s the next Johnny Heisman– there are very few who are– but I’m saying Austyn can be an outstanding qb for us. With Jordan Matthews and Chris Boyd to throw to among others and Wes Tate, Brian Kimbrow, Warren Norman and Jerron Seymour (who will be coming back from injury) and a solid front, we’ve got a good chance to have an excellent offense. Austyn will have competition in the spring though, as redshirt frosh Patton Robinette, whom the coaches are very high on and who has all the measurables, (6’4″, 210), along with McCary who also has the measurables (6’4″, 200) will be competing for the starting job. It will be an excellent competition and Kanoff, whom I’ve watched on film and put up out of sight numbers last year, will join the fray in the summer. We’ll be good at qb. Austyn is 6’1″, 220. Defense should be solid with some young linebackers who will be working to get in the rotation with Chase Garnham. They are talented. Line should be solid with Walker May, Barron Davis, Vince Taylor and Jared Morse back. Commit Jay Woods will also compete for playing time at tackle. Secondary has studs cornerback Andre Hal and safety Kenny Ladler back, and some of these young guys will be in the mix. I see another eight win season. We’ve got Ole Miss at home to open up, Georgia, Mizzou and Kentucky at home. We’re at South Carolina, A&M, Florida and UT. It doesn’t get any easier that’s for sure. Eight wins would be excellent. Non-conference games at home vs. Austin Peay and UAB. On  the road at UMass. Ole Miss will be a very important opener. Need to get it done there. Saturday, Aug 31. Need to fill the stadium up. Could be on ESPN. Pretty big game. If not regular ESPN, the Deuce or the U.Next year should be another excellent year for James and company, and I’m really excited about 2014. Could be very special.

Basketball lost a very tough one to Ole Miss Tuesday Night. We played so well and was really proud of the way we played. Dai-Jon scored 16 and looks to be the four-star player Kevin got a couple of years ago. Kedren continues to play well, and I love what Kevin Bright can do along with Sheldon Jeter. Kevin Bright hit that clutch three with three seconds left which looked like had won the game for us. Kevin Stallings looked at his bench after Bright drained the three from the corner and asked one of his assistants how many timeouts he had left. I thought I had seen a little indecision on that, but Kevin had used two or three timeouts towards the end of the game and wasn’t going to get a technical calling timeout when he didn’t have one. He had to make sure. Unfortunately, the time out was too late, and a couple of the guys were excited about the shot by K Bright sank and didn’t get on their man quickly enough. Then that annoyung Marshall Henderson drained a three-pointer from 35 feet to tie it and send the game into overtime. Henderson will flat out throw it up, but he can be a killer when he’s on. We also shot 10-of-23 from the line and that’s unacceptable. We would have won the game by eight or 10 had we been better at the line. Shouldn’t have come down to that. Anyway, we play at South Carolina tomorrow at 1:30 PM ET/12:30 CT on the SEC Network. Unfortunately,  the SEC Network has Ole Miss playing Missouri at the same time, so you may not be able to get the game unless you have a dish. I’ll give a complete report on Sunday though. We’re still competing hard and we have talent. Would like to see Rod Odom take on more of a leadership role along with Kyle Fuller. They’re the elder statesmen on the team, so they need  to lead. Would like to see both play better also. Thought Josh Hendo and Shelby Moats gave us some pretty good minutes inside. The free throws were just killers though. South Carolina is 1-2 in conference with a victory Wednesday Night over LSU, 82-73. They have losses to Auburn (74-71) at home and Miss State on the road (56-54). They are 11-5 overall. They don’t have any marquee wins this season. They lost to Clemson at home, 64-55, and to St. John’s, 89-65 at the Johnnies. They have four guys scoring in double figures led by Brenton Williams, who’s averaging 11.8. LaShay Page (11.7), the superb football and basketball player Bruce Ellington (10.7), and Michael Carrera (10.4) also score in double figures. Carerera averages 7.1 boards per game and Lakeem Jackson pulls down 7.3. Frank Martin is in his first year at SC coming over from Kansas State where he did a nice job. He brings intensity and tenacious defense to the program. He’s a pretty good coach. Highly emotional. Kind of more like a football coach than a basketball coach. But he does a good job. Kevin and company will have their work cut out for them.

Haven’t heard anything yet on three-star combo guard Darius Thompson, who we’ve been recruiting hard and may make a decision any day. Would be nice to get Darius in the fold and add another power forward. I still think this team can finish strong. Just have to take care of business tomorrow. The tournament is not totally out of reach yet. Prospects not great right now, but still got a lot of basketball left and we have a good team. I’m really excited about next year too. Add Thompson along with  6’10 signee Damian Jones along with another power forward, and we’ve got the makings of a pretty special team in 2013-14.

Baseball is not far away from starting their season. We open at home against Long Beach State Feb, 15-17. I saw a preseason poll (think it was in Collegiate Baseball Newspaper) that had us at No.3 in the country. We’re going to be special. I see Omaha as a distinct possibility. Of course the SEC had six teams in the top 10, so it’ll be a war this year in conference. The poll had Arkansas no.1. But I like our chances. With our outfield of Connor Harrell, Yaz and maybe Jack Lupo, we can cover the outfield as well as anybody in the country. Infield will be good with Conrad Gregor at first and Vince Conde at third. Vince struggled some last year, but he was a freshman. He’s going to be good. Conrad is an excellent hitter. Tony Kemp will be back to play second and lead off. Tony is an outstanding player. He’s a tremendous outfielder, but he made the switch to second base last year when we had some injuries and he performed remarkably when he got used to playing the position. Tony is a fine hitter and just makes it happen on the base paths. Awesome speed and base stealing ability. Shortstop will be interesting. I’m looking at Joel McKeithan as our early leader at short, but we’ll see what Corbs does. Our outstanding catcher Spencer Navin is back. Spence is unreal on defense and can really hit the ball. The weekend rotation will be fantastic with T.J. Pecoraro, Tyler Beede and Kevin Ziomek, if those are the three guys. They sure bring a ton of talent to the mound. Bullpen will be anchored by Brian Miller. I see Brian as our closer. Corbs is calling the shots, but Brian looked like he could be our closer last year. Steven Rice and Jared Miller will be excellent middle relievers. We’ve got arms. We’ll have a new pitching coach as Derek Johnson took a job in the Cubs’ organization. Corbs hired Scott Brown, and I was very impressed with Scott’s credentials when I read them. We’ve also got some pretty good power. If Connor can get that bat going early, he’s a 10-12 maybe more homer guy. I really like the looks of Chris Harvey, our backup catcher and dh. Chris is 6’5″, 215, and has a great power background in high school. See Conrad and Spence going yard some too. Yaz is another who can hit it out. Can we have the power we had two years ago with Aaron Westlake and Curt Casali, who are both doing well in the Tigers organization and led us to the World Series two years ago? I think by committee we can. I’m looking for a stellar season with an excellent freshman class. National championship is definitely in the cards.

Finally, Brandt and Luke are playing well in the Humana Challenge in Indian Wells, Caly this weekend. Luke is having a big day at -5 today through 13 and -7 for the tourney through 17. Roberto Castro is leading at -16. Luke is tied for 47th. The tourney is played at three courses in the Palm Springs, Caly area, the La Quinta Course, the Palmer Course and the Nicklaus course. There are a ton of players in this tourney. Incredibly competitive. Brandt is -1 today and -6 for the tourney through 10. He’s tied for 64th. They make the cut after the third day, so Lukeand Brandt needs to play well from here on out. So awesome that both are playing on tour this season. We’re double teaming the other competitors. Should be an awesome year.

Will have more over the weekend.