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Goble: Gill needs time to recruit more players

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By Clark Goble

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Wednesday's National Signing Day officially — and finally — ends the countless pitches from schools, commitments and decommitments from college football prospects. Hard work by coaches, sometimes recruiting players as sophomores, came to fruition Wednesday.

The problem for head coach Turner Gill and his staff is that they had a little less than two months to complete all that work.

Mark Mangino resigned Dec. 3, and athletic director Lew Perkins hired Gill a week and a half later. Recruits were rightfully unsure of the program’s stability, considering Kansas had never been a consistent winning program until Mangino.

Defensive end Geneo Grissom, rated by the recruiting service Rivals.com as a four-star recruit, reopened his recruitment in December, citing “confusion” about the program’s direction. He has now committed to Oklahoma.

Dave Clark, a cornerback who was also a four-star recruit, said in November he was “100 percent” with Kansas. He signed Wednesday with Tennessee, which recently lost its coach, Lane Kiffin, to Southern California. Others were quick to listen to other programs’ pitches, and no one can estimate how many recruits who had not verbally committed before completely eliminated Kansas from contention in the wake of Mangino’s investigation and resignation.

The fickleness of the recruits isn’t surprising. These are high school kids who may not know for sure what they want.

The result of all the changes in the program isn’t surprising either. The incoming recruiting class is weak.

It’s weak because there’s no depth. Only Kansas State brought in fewer recruits than Kansas in the Big 12, and Bill Snyder signed five junior college players who are more ready to contribute than all the high school seniors Turner Gill signed.

The class also lacks star power. Only wide receiver Keeston Terry and running back Brandon Bourbon are four-star recruits, according to Rivals. No Kansas commitment, including Terry and Bourbon, got better than a three-star ranking according to ESPN’s recruiting reports.

This class probably won’t have a considerable effect on next year’s team. Recruiting services can be inaccurate on players — see Dezmon Briscoe’s and Todd Reesing’s three-star ratings — but they don’t miss often. Five-star high school players generally have the talent to succeed as college players.

We must consider the situation Gill came into. He had two months to essentially re-recruit some 30 players, and that’s considering the holidays and this last week, when very little was still up in the air.

The recruits who spoke to Gill vouched for his personality. Recruits said Gill showed a genuine interest in making them better people as well as players.

Though it didn’t reap huge rewards, it did work. Terry said it meant it a lot that Gill visited him a few days after he was hired.

With the help of recruiting coordinator Reggie Mitchell, who came from the University of Illinois, Gill stole Bourbon directly from Stanford and indirectly from Notre Dame.

Quarterback Quinn Mecham, who signed in the middle of December, will push sophomore Kale Pick and sophomore Jordan Webb in spring practice.

Mecham and Bourbon said the opportunity to play was a factor to commit to Kansas. Gill’s recruited for a long time and knows how it works. With more than six weeks to recruit Kansas’ class of 2011, Gill will make his mark. The talent in next year’s class will improve.

He just needs a little bit more time to get it done.

— Edited by Jesse Rangel

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