Paul “PJ” Johnson made an interesting comment the other day. A commitment that PJ had went on a visit to FSU and Paul took his offer off the table.. said something about commitment this and commitment that blah blah blah we hold that word in high regard blah blah blah. At first I thought, you know, that's pretty damn cool. I always have liked PJ and thought it was honorable for someone that has that much convection on commitment.
But then today Barron Dixon, who has been a long time Miss State commit, switched to Vandy… what the hell does this have to do with PJ?? Well the guy said today that he had been in conversations with Georgia Tech recently…. huh, wait a minute here. So Mr. Johnson has an issue with a kid that takes a visit to another school once he has committed to Tech because of the word COMMITMENT. but yet he doesn't have a problem letting a kid that is committed to another school come and visit him…. hmmmm.
Here is what I think. I think I was wrong about PJ’s convections and I have come to the conclusion that he is just a pompous asshole who has just a little to much pride to be recruiting to a school like Tech. The Nerds should welcome anybody that would even consider them and be happy for who ever they get.
Do as I say,not as I do comes to mind.Let's not forget these coaches were committed to a school, before they either promoted or got demoted to there current job.We've all found ourselves looking for a better deal.
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ReplyDeleteOn players who commit and de-commit. Johnson didn’t name the player, but everyone assumes he was talking about Tre Jackson, a Tech commitment who decided last week that he wanted to visit other schools. Afterward, Johnson said he wasn’t speaking about Jackson. Every case is different. Don’t believe everything you read. The situation that they are talking about didn’t happen the way it has been reported about forever. We didn’t talk to the young man that you’ve been reading about, for four days he wouldn’t take a phone call. He wouldn’t return a phone call. It was pretty clear to me that he if he won’t take a phone call or return a phone call he’s not coming to school. You can spin it any way you want.
My basic policy is don’t do that to us on the last weekend of signing when we don’t have a chance to replace that thing.
We’ve had guys who have decommitted early, or decided they wanted to look around. My policy on that is if you are going to look around we are going to look around. If somebody takes your scholarship before you come back and say you’re committed, then you lose it. I don’t know any other way to do it, unless you take 30 for 20 and have a free-for-all. That stuff gets all blown out of proportion. The thing about recruiting, because of the rules, you get one side of the story because we can’t commit because of the rules.
It’s a crazy thing. There are times you lose guys and you don’t expect it. They are 17 years old. they change their minds. But at the same time you have to have a philosophy on how you are going to do it. Like I said, there’s only two ways you can do it. You can match the number with the scholarships or you say OK, if I’ve got 20 I’ll sign 30 and at the end I’ll decide who gets to come. I don’t feel good about doing that. I don’t think it’s the right way to treat people.
On committing and then taking visits:
Every case is different. Certainly if a guy is trying to take visits behind your back. I would like someone to explain to me how you are committed but still take visits. What you are doing is holding a reservation. ‘I don’t want to lose this scholarship. You don’t go get anybody else, but I want to look around’. If you’re going to look around then don’t commit, because you aren’t ready to commit. Certainly, we should have the opportunity to replace that spot. It’s clear to me you aren’t satisfied with what you’ve got because you’re still looking. If it ends up being that we don’t find anybody that we like, and you don’t find anybody that you like, then we’ll do something at the end if there’s time. But it’s not going to happen in the last week. You’ve got to protect the school and your interests.
If kids are visiting, they aren’t committed. If you aren’t ready to make that decision, then don’t make it. We’ll keep recruiting you. We had guys early in the process that wanted to commit. Even before the season started they changed their mind. We’ll still try to recruit them but the success rate isn’t too good.
They are looking around for a reason, they feel like they’ve made a bad decision and they want to move on.
On improving the process:
ReplyDeleteWhat I’d like to see happen, but I’m probably by myself: if you have 85 scholarships, and you can sign 25 a year or however many you have. When they commit, they sign the papers and you stop. It would stop all the verbal commitments and all the hats. The guys who weren’t ready wouldn’t commit. You’d call their bluff. They couldn’t make their reservation. We’ll talk to kids all the time, juniors right now, who are committing. We’ll say ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’
“Oh coach, I’m open.”
In my mind that’s not committed. That’s saying I’m going to hold this in my back pocket and I’m going to shop it around.
On the nature of recruiting kids who are committed to other schools and other schools recruiting kids who are committed to Tech:
Recruiting’s a contact sport. Bottom line is the kid wants to come to your place or he doesn’t. We’re looking for guys who want to be at Georgia Tech and want to be in the program. Not everybody wants to come to Georgia Tech, just like everybody doesn’t want to go to Florida or Alabama.
Reese let me start by saying I don't think any of disagree with what PJ did that is the way the game works, it is what he said. Don't tell us how important commitment is to you and your players should live up to it when you are recruiting players that are committed. Auburn recruits plenty of players that are committed and we let our committed players go on visits, but Chizik knows it is a verbal commitment and can be changed at any time, and chose not to get on his high horse a spout about how important a BS commitment was. Nick Saban just did the same thing. When Brent Calloway switched back to Bammer he said how important it was that Brent committed to a school and he should honor that. 3 hours later Cyrus Kouandjo did not fax his letter of intent to AU, after making a verbal committment on ESPN, his first phone call was from Saban. Boy that is encouraging your coach having the shitty qualities of Saban without all the winning to make you forget about it. My point is don't say it to make yourself look like a good guy if its not true.
ReplyDeleteHey dumbass, the word is CONVICTION. Took me 5 minutes to figure out what word you even intended to use. Next time you need help spelling that word, consult Webster's... or call Knoxville.
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