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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 27 January 2009 15:17 |
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I went to my first high school football game in 14 years last night. Skyline is our neighborhood high school so I went with a buddy and our kids to a Skyline vs. Eastlake JV game. The interesting part is that I wound up shooting the shit with Gino Simone's aunt most of the game. Simone is the top receiver in the state this year and is obviously right in the Huskies back yard so locking him down is a huge get for Wulff and staff.
She had some really interesting insight into the staff and the process.
A couple of things were clear to me coming out of that conversation:
1) It's always going to be brutal to try and pull kids from Bellevue-Skyline-O'Dea in a head-to-head battle with UW. Before she knew I was a Coug she was almost justifying/apologizing for his decision when talking about it to me. The natural push in the community is just a heavy lean on these kids and their families. The un-communicated perception is that the kid wasn't good enough to go to UW so the parent is always explaining. It sucked to experience actually.
2) Simone is legit. He is still getting pressed by UW hard. No one can ever make the absolutely moronic comments like Burtnett made last year. This is truly a case of a heads-up battle in-state against UW that we flat won.
3) All things considered he would have gone BOISE STATE as first option AND this is a pretty common view for in-state kids these days. The hold-up for almost every kid is that they badly want to play Pac-10. I hate to say it but the Boise State program is a much better brand than ours right now.
4) Oregon State and UW continue to smoke his nuts but most everyone else has backed off.
5) The record won't matter this year for almost every single recruit out there. The parents almost robotically mimic the talking points that Wulff has in their head. They aren't his kids, Doba and staff left them a talent disaster, and the program/facilities are on the way up.
6) This staff is money on the recruiting trail. She said that no one did a better job of recruiting Simone. He literally got something every single day from them day that was personalized. The one that stuck out in his mind was a letter he got handwritten from Wulff that just read, "Gino, you are PERFECT for this offense and school." They simply work way harder than Doba's staff did.
My takeaway is that this class will be make or break for Wulff and staff. They are busting their ass and doing all the right things in recruiting. Big advantage to have UW down because people are listening to our pitch and parents know that a new staff will be in at UW next year. Simone is pumped about WSU and the staff and once CPW gets all of his kids into the program you are going to see a very different kind of football player. Definitely more blue-collar, focused, and no nonsense.
Anyways, thought you all would be interested to hear about this dork out session.
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