SB Nation Seattle: All Posts by Kyle Rancourt

WSU Football Recruiting: Greg Hoyd, LB from California, becomes 3rd commit of 2014

2013-05-13T21:20:38Z

According to Greg Biggins of Scout, Mike Leach and the Washington State Cougars have a new outside linebacker.

#WashingtonState just picked up a commitment from Vista Murrieta (Calif.) LB Greg Hoyd
— Greg Biggins (@GregBiggins) May 13, 2013

Scout lists Hoyd as 6'2 and 200 pounds, and he currently holds offers from Duke, Fresno State, New Mexico State, NC State, Toledo, and Utah.

As you can see in the video, he played inside a lot. Scout lists him as an outside backer, and he certainly has the coverage ability to play there. I think that's what impressed me the most, to be honest. Most LBs in high school aren't great at diagnosing plays; they see something, they hit something. Hoyd understands where he's supposed to be in regards to his defensive scheme, and he makes plays accordingly. That's great to see from a junior. He has above average coverage ability for his age, and that's something that excites me.

I'd love to watch his senior tape when it becomes available, and I think he'll add some more weight before hitting campus. I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed inside, but he's fast enough to play SAM in Mike Breske's version of a 3-4.

So far, all three commits for the Class of 2014 look to be very nice players coveted by other BCS programs. I certainly hope this trend continues.

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WSU Football Recruiting: Marcus Griffin, DT from Bellevue, commits to Cougs

2013-04-27T18:49:51Z

According to his Twitter feed, Bellevue defensive tackle Marcus Griffin has gone crimson by committing to WSU's 2014 class. Griffin is a consensus three-star prospect via 274sports, and he is the top-rated defensive lineman in the state according to Scout.com (No. 4 overall). It's still early, so that could very well change, but that's certainly nice to hear.

At 6-foot-3 and 280 pounds, Griffin is a big kid already. He still has his senior season to grow, so it wouldn't completely shock me if he were closer to 300 pounds by the time he suits up for the Cougs.

He's extremely strong and gets good push. Even if he doesn't get the sack, he disrupts the QBs timing and occupies more than one blocker. Both of these are great things that often go unnoticed. I'd say he's a prime candidate to redshirt and then hit the DT rotation in 2015. However, I feel like I might have to re-evaluate him after seeing his senior tape. Not many players are rated this early, and he is. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that he winds up being a 4-star guy who contributes as a true freshman.

He currently holds offers from Colorado State, Idaho, and Wyoming, but I expect those will go up come the fall. We'll label him currently as a high upside guy we're optimistic about, but still in wait-and-see mode. Welcome Marcus, and Go Cougs.

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Want your own Sonics Rising shirt?

2013-04-24T09:32:20Z

Want your own Sonics Rising shirt?

SB Nation is a great community for many different reasons, but the SBN store is one of my favorite. Teaming with Gameday Depot, most SBN sites have t-shirts. Some are as simple as the site's logo on a white shirt, others (like CougCenter) have staff designed shirts to peruse.

SR has a pretty sweet green t-shirt to go along with a white one. I just bought the green one. You should buy one too.

WSU Spring Football: Connor Halliday, Austin Apodaca begin battle for starting QB spot

2013-04-16T23:25:01Z

Mike Leach loves QBs. Mike Leach loves scoring points. Mike Leach ~~loves~~ at one point had an interest in pirates, but the internet screwed that up. Last year, the head coach of the Washington State Cougars went with the Senior Jeff Tuel to begin the year. Very uncharacteristically, he began flip-flopping QBs, as RS Sophomore Connor Halliday then took over as starter. Looking back at Leach's history at Texas Tech, he's not a huge fan of giving the reigns to a young guy. In fact, he went three straight years starting RS Seniors (BJ Symons in 2003, Sonny Cumbie in 2004, Cody Hodges in 2005) before handing the offense over to RS Sophomore Graham Harrell in '06.

History tells us that Halliday will be under center against Auburn, but it's not a given at this point. RS Freshman Austin Apodaca will be making the decision quite difficult for Leach and the rest of his staff. Let's see how the two measure up:

Halliday: 6'4 / 183, RS Jr., ✯✯✯ QB (Spokane, WA)

Apodaca: 6'3 / 191, RS Fr., ✯✯✯ QB (Longmont, CO)

Arm Strength: Halliday

This is no knock on Apodaca. The former Silver Creek Raptor has a cannon for an arm, but when comparing arm strength with Halliday, he comes up a little short. I'd venture to guess Halliday has one of the strongest arms in the entire nation.

Mobility: Apodaca

This one is fairly easy, as Halliday is pretty much a statue in the backfield. While mobility isn't something that's paramount in this offense, it doesn't hurt (especially with our offensive line). If you're going to run around, Leach wants you to do it to buy more time, not to rely on your feet. We saw this a bit with Tuel last year.

Accuracy: push

This one is tough to judge because only one of them has actually played in a collegiate game. As we all know, high school stats are super duper important, but I chose not to factor in Apodaca's fantastic senior season. Why then am I not giving it to Halliday by default? I just don't think Halliday has it in him to be that type of QB. I think some QBs work better in systems were they see an opening and throw, rather than anticipating the receiver being in a spot. I originally gave the advantage to Apodaca, but felt that wasn't really fair and made me a hypocrite. So I'll call it a push for now, because who the hell really knows.

Experience: Halliday

Halliday detractors argue that Halliday has the same amount of experience in the Air Raid as Apodaca does, so it shouldn't be an advantage. While I see the logic in that, you can't discount his overall college experience in this. This will be Halliday's fourth year at a Division 1 program, while it will be Apodaca's first year not running the Scout Team.

Overall Edge: Halliday

I think this will be a very good QB battle, to be honest. When I first watched tape of Apodaca, I wasn't super impressed. Then I watched updated film of his senior year and was blown away. If I were comparing HS Sr. Connor Halliday to HS Sr. Austin Apodaca, I'd pick Apodaca every day of the week and twice on Sundays. But I'm not picking between those two options.

Halliday's main issue is ditching the gun slinger mentality without ditching the gun slinger mentality. You want Halliday's supreme confidence without his disregard for what he sees while relying on what he thinks is a superior arm strength. It's a fine line Leach and Co. have to walk. If you change Halliday too much, he's not the player who threw for nearly 500 yards and 5 TDs as a freshman. If you don't change it at all, you get the bad Halliday of last year who gave out interceptions like Oprah gives out swag.

Apodaca's main drawback is simply his lack of experience. The fact that we're legitimately having this conversation speaks volumes to Apodaca's god-given ability, as well as his grasp of the offense. While not identical, he played in a similar spread-type offense in high school. Obviously Leach's system is more complex, but he understands getting the ball out quickly and throwing to a spot.

In the end, I believe Halliday wins the job while Apodaca is the very capable #2. If both of these guys are RS Juniors, though, I don't think I make the same decision. Lastly, if you're wondering about Tyler Bruggman's place in all of this? I'll eat Nuss' shoe if he ~~is even a factor at all~~ wins the starting QB spot. (I don't want to eat Nuss' shoe.)

So, what do you think? Who do you think should start? Not who you think will start, but who you think should.

Poll

Who do you think should start at QB?

Connor Halliday

211 votes

Austin Apodaca

117 votes

328 votes | Poll has closed

WSU Football Recruiting: Peyton Bender competing in Elite 11 QB Camp

2013-04-12T23:18:00Z

While it's unclear whether new Coug commit Peyton Bender (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) will be one of the final 11, his presence alone is important: This weekend, Elite 11 will hold its QB camp in Atlanta, and Bender is participating.

While WSU has had an Elite 11 QB before (hi there, Arkelon Hall!), it's been a while, and this a pretty big deal. Roughly 33 percent of Elite 11 QBs have been drafted since the camp's inception in 1999. So while it's not a guarantee of future success, that's a pretty good success rate considering most people roll their eyes at the current star ranking system. Former Elite 11 prospects include:

'99: Matt Cassel
'00: Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson
'01: Vince Young, Drew Stanton, Troy Smith
'02: Trent Edwards, Chris Leak, Andre Woodson, Jamarcus Russel, Dennis Dixon
'03: Rhett Bomar
'04: Mark Sanchez, Chase Daniel
'05: Josh Freeman, Jake Locker, Matthew Stafford, Tim Tebow, Jevan Snead
'06: Ryan Mallet, Tyrod Taylor
'07: Blaine Gabbert, Mike Glennon, Landry Jones, Andrew Luck, EJ Manuel
'08: Geno Smith

That's a pretty impressive list. I count three Heisman winners, 10 first rounders, and three number one overall picks. Obviously this doesn't mean ZOMG BENDER IS GOING 2 BE BANANAS, but it's certainly better than him not being invited to the camp at all. While he's currently not ranked, I expect him to be a high 3-star player, and perhaps a 4-star by one of the four major ranking sites.

One of the best tools in recruiting comes from already committed players talking to their peers. While I'm not sure Bender will be recruiting any QBs to come to WSU alongside him, players often bring their own WRs to throw to. Simply getting the word out about WSU is a great thing for kids who may not know the Cougs exist.

WSU Football Recruiting: Peyton Bender, QB from Florida, becomes 2014's first commit

2013-04-01T20:50:38Z

Death, taxes, and guys committing when I'm out of town or busy. According to Britton Ransford of Rivals, QB Peyton Bender (Fort Lauderdale, FL) has committed to the Washington State Cougars. Bender is listed at 6'1, 175, but he's still just a junior in high school.

As Craig mentioned, he's not ranked by any of the services thus far, but it's extremely early. I'm not particularly worried about that at the end of March/beginning of April. Once we get into August and September, he should be rated accordingly. My early estimate is a high 3 star guy, for whatever that's worth.

Craig also posted some video, but I'll post it again with another. It's important to note a few things before we get into an evaluation: 1) this is his junior year video 2) the video itself is poor quality 3) it's a highlight video. With those standard caveats out of the way, here you go.

The first video is just a workout tape, but you can see how quick his release is. He also has really good feet, and that's important as a QB. He throws mainly quick outs and related routes, which is good. Leach loves to throw quick hitters like that, so it's something we can look at and attempt to apply to his future on the Palouse.

He also throws a nice deep ball, but I'll wait to see some better video of him as a senior before making any final conclusion. He needs to gain some weight, but he's not even 18-years-old yet, so I'll go ahead and let those things work themselves out.

As Hollywood Shellin pointed out, while Bender is technically the first commit of the Class of 2014, Montana LB Dylan Hanser committed last fall on the condition of greyshirting and delaying enrollment until 2014. So, really, Bender is commit number two while also being commit number one.

Finally, a reminder on some things, as I've been getting asked "why another QB when we just got Bruggman?"

For those questioning why Leach would take another QB, remember, he likes to recruit an entire new "team" with each class.
— Kyle Rancourt (@KyleRancourt) March 30, 2013

Plus, there isn't any depth behind Bruggman. If one of the 3 scholarship guys left, you'd be really thin. More guys, more competition.
— Kyle Rancourt (@KyleRancourt) March 30, 2013

Remember this post? In it, I talked about Mike Leach's tendencies in recruiting. He likes to bring in a full "team" each year, and in eight years at Texas Tech (2002-2009), he took eight QBs. Some years he took none, but then doubled up the following year. I think we can expect him to take a QB per class from here on out.

Overall I like the pick up, as it stretches our recruiting base all the way to Florida. While it may not be a pipeline, having a presence in places like Florida is a very good thing.

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WSU Football Recruiting: What to expect from Mike Leach going forward

2013-02-12T01:49:31Z

Originally, I wanted to simply check things out for myself, to get a better understanding of how Mike Leach operates his recruiting classes. After I replied to WazzuCrew11 and TiltingRight in Mark's projected depth chart post, I thought I might dig a little deeper, and turn that comment into it's own post.

First, this is by no means concrete. Originally, I only used Scout's database to compile information, but that only goes back to 2002. Mike Leach was hired at Texas Tech in 2000, and he only had a handful of weeks to put together a class. Counting Texas Tech's Class of 2000 seems a bit unfair, as does their Class of 2010 considering he was fired in December of 2009. The Class of 2001 seems to be completely redacted from the internet, so we'll just look at 2002 - 2009. For continuity's sake, I just stuck with Scout. The raw numbers:

2002:

Conference Rank: 4
Overall Rank: 14
Average Star Ranking: 3.29
Total Players: 24
Number of JC Players: 3 (RB, CB, DT)
Highest Rated Player: Johnnie Mack, ✯✯✯✯✯ RB (JC)

2003:

Conference Rank: 7
Overall Rank: 37
Average Star Ranking: 2.92
Total Players: 24
Number of JC Players: 8 (OL, CB x4, DE x2, RB)
Highest Rated Player: Daniel Christian, ✯✯✯✯✯ OL

2004:

Conference Rank: 4
Overall Rank: 17
Average Star Ranking: 2.65
Total Players: 26
Number of JC Players: 8 (QB, DE x3, LB, S, WR, DT)
Highest Rated Player: Graham Harrell, ✯✯✯✯ QB

2005:

Conference Rank: 5
Overall Rank: 36
Average Star Ranking: 2.67
Total Players: 21
Number of JC Players: 0
Highest Rated Player: McKinner Dixon, ✯✯✯✯ DT

2006:

Conference Rank: 4
Overall Rank: 17
Average Star Ranking: 2.85
Total Players: 34
Number of JC Players: 1 (OL)
Highest Rated Player: Ofa Mohetau, ✯✯✯✯✯ OL (JC)

2007:

Conference Rank: 8
Overall Rank: 44
Average Star Ranking: 2.56
Total Players: 27
Number of JC Players: 3 (CB, DE x2)
Highest Rated Player: Lonnie Edwards, ✯✯✯✯ OL

2008:

Conference Rank: 12
Overall Rank: 59
Average Star Ranking: 2.93
Total Players: 15
Number of JC Players: 4 (DT, DE x2, CB)
Highest Rated Player: McKinner Dixon, ✯✯✯✯ DE (JC)

2009:

Conference Rank: 4
Overall Rank: 30
Average Star Ranking: 2.84
Total Players: 25
Number of JC Players: 1 (DT)
Highest Rated Player: Brandon Mahoney, ✯✯✯✯ LB

Leach's average per star rating for these eight years was 2.84. To put this into some perspective, Leach's Class of 2013 this year at WSU averaged 2.82, good for best in school history.
Leach's 2002 class was pretty remarkable, especially considering it was only his 2nd full class. Take that class out of the rankings, and their average drops to 2.77. Prior to 2013, WSU's best class was at 2.76 (2010). So, his average class minus his best class was still better than WSU's best class.
Looking at it from a positional standpoint, Leach likes to bring in very balanced classes. He almost brings in a new "team" each year. This helps quite a bit with competition.
Leach went heavy on the JC kids in 2003 & 2004, but 11 of the 16 were members of the DL or secondary. When going the JC route, he seems to prefer defensive linemen or cornerbacks.
As I mentioned in the comment that sparked this post, Leach's OL by class were as follows: 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 3. In 2010, Tech took 3 OL. It stands to reason that he should only take two or three OL in 2014. I'd bet one of them is a JC guy, too.
In the same eight year span, WSU's average per star rating was 2.49.
His 2006 class is pretty crazy. He brought in a whopping 34 players and still managed to average a 2.85.
In Paul Wulff's three full seasons of recruiting (2009-2011), he averaged a 2.61.

This is not to say that Mike Leach is a perfect recruiter who will start to bring in Top 20 classes for Washington State. I do believe we're looking at a different caliber of player, though. I tried to formulate my thoughts via twitter last week, and Joshua Davis of All Coug'd Up took the ball and ran with it. I couldn't quite figure out how to say what I was thinking, but he does a fantastic job with the following:

While Wulff and Co. recruited plenty of potential, they couldn’t get the players that already have the talent to compete in this conference. The players this years weren’t the top of the bottom, they were the bottom of the top.

That pretty much says exactly what I was thinking.

And while we may strike out on most of the big name guys, we're legitimately in the conversation now. That's an incredible situation to be in considering how bad this team has been the past five years.

WSU Football Recruiting: Kyle's Fave Five

2013-02-06T04:00:06Z

We did this last year, and since I will use any excuse to work in references to pro wrestling, we're bringing it back. This is not a list of the best five prospects WSU is bringing in, nor is it a list of the five players I think will have the best careers. Simply, this is a list of my favorite five players.

KYLE'S FAVE FIVE:

1.) Vince Mayle, WR (6'3, 220, Rocklin, CA) [✯✯✯]

2.) River Cracraft, WR (6'2, 205, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) [✯✯✯]

3.) Peyton Pelluer, LB (6'2, 225, Sammamish, WA) [✯✯✯]

4.) Daquawn Brown, CB (6'0, 170, Los Angeles, CA) [✯✯✯]

5.) Riley Sorenson, OT (6'5, 320, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) [✯✯✯]

You'll notice 4-star QB Tyler Bruggman is absent. This isn't because I don't like him, because I do. I just really like what Austin Apodaca brings to the table. Last year I had Alex Jackson atop this list, and he wound up redshirting and switching positions. So who knows, really.

Who are your Fave Five?