Feb. 14, 2001

Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.

Those seeking to get a good handle on how Baylor did in football recruiting this year should keep in mind three points. In no particular order, they are:

No. 1, first impressions in recruiting can be highly misleading.

A report in the Dallas Morning News in its Feb. 4 edition provides a compelling example. Looking back at the class signed in 1996 and giving it an updated grade, the news noted the Baylor class on signing day was given a grade of A-minus. The new grade five years later: C-minus. "Most (Baylor) signees never lettered or were busts," it pointed out.

That was the Baylor class long on blue-chip names. On signing day, Baylor coach Chuck Reedy's class was much in the news. It was a class that featured such names as Odell James, Kris Micheaux, Quincy Morgan, Joe Walker, Darrell Bush, McKinley Bowie, Ellis Cotton, Rodney Artmore, Eddrick Brooks, Fred Rogers, et al.

When the sun went down that day, Baylor fans had to pinch themselves to make sure they weren't dreaming. Did we really do that good, they kept asking.

No, they didn't. And, yes, they were dreaming.

For one thing, as the news report noted, "The Bears, who constantly are dominated at the line of scrimmage (in the Big 12), signed no offensive linemen." Now it shows, and has for several seasons.

Understand, Baylor's class was not the only one to be devalued. Texas received an original grade of A, and now, given the benefit of hindsight, only a C. Texas Tech's Class went from a B to a D. Oklahoma State's from an A to a B-minus.

On the other hand, TCU's class drew an original grade of B-plus and a new grade of A-plus. Texas A&M went from a C-minus to a C-plus.

Conclusion: in recruiting, things are seldom what they seem.

THE SECOND POINT that should be kept in mind was made last Wednesday morning by Baylor baseball coach Steve Smith in a brief talk to Baylor Bear Foundation members who had turned out in the Galloway Suite at Floyd Casey Stadium to watch the recruiting returns come in.

Waiting for those returns to accumulate, BBF staff member Roger Goree lined up a number of Baylor coaches to speak to the members -- Clyde Hart, Todd Harbour, Tim Hobby, Sylvia Ferdon, Glenn Moore, Matt Knoll, Dave Luedtke, LeBaron Caruthers, Steve Smith.

Where recruiting is concerned, and for Baylor's situation this year, Smith's comments were particularly appropriate.

"It doesn't matter how good a recruiter you are," Steve cautioned the BBF early-birds. "But you better be a heck of an evaluator. I don't think any of our coaches are getting who they really wanted. They're getting what they can get. So when you go to sign the guys you can get, you better have done a great job of evaluating.

"I've learned that," he went on, "because we've (in Baylor baseball) had to do it basically with guys who were overlooked."

He said Baylor baseball recruiters have not beaten the U. of Texas on hardly any prospects in several years, but on the field of play the Bears have defeated the Longhorns the past three or four years much more often than not. And last spring, of course, the Bears won the Big 12 championship.

"We signed 8 guys last fall," Smith said. "Only one of them even visited another school. The guys we're getting are those who made their decisions for the right reasons."

But the word he kept coming back to was evaluation. Evaluate. Evaluate. And make sure they fit your program. He said he had been involved now with programs at Baylor, A&M and Mississippi State. The Bears may not get the high-profile talent like they get at A&M and Mississippi State, "but we don't have to deal with all those egos."

FINALLY, POINT THREE: Former Baylor coach Grant Teaff, who now is the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said something this past December that continues to cling to this memory. In this era of enormous coaching salaries, internet gossip (much of it negative), coaching upheavals, mounting pressures, "more and more," Teaff said, "the bottom line is the goal line."

When people ask me how Baylor did last Wednesday when the latest football signings were posted, I simply repeat Teaff's sage comment.

Guys (and gals), it's the goal line that counts. The scoreboard is the final judge. Before writing off this latest crop as a failure -- and some Baylor partisans in their comments to me already are doing so -- let's see how things work out on the field of play.

Yes, the Bears finished well back in the battle for the highly-publicized prospects in the state. Oklahoma and Texas dominated that race, with A&M closing rapidly to finish third. Yes, Baylor coaches were unable to sign the highly-touted prospects even in their own backyard (Waco High, Mart, Gatesville, Temple). Yes, they purposely went heavily for junior college transfers, something that can be a high-risk approach (and not one that Kevin Steele favors under ordinary circumstances).

Such an approach has paid off handsomely for the likes of Kansas State and Oregon State, and on several occasions for Grant Teaff at Baylor. But it did little for Dave Roberts at Baylor.

I guess it all depends on Steve Smith's favorite word: evaluation.

IN THAT REGARD, Steele made it plain last Wednesday, when asked, that these latest Baylor recruits have been evaluated to a fare thee well. He said he didn't just take someone else's word about them.

"I happen to be a coach who enjoys watching tape," he said. (Some coaches don't.) "I would say that every guy on that list (23 signees) has been watched 10 to 18 times apiece. I can tell you about these guys. I don't have to read about them off a piece of paper."

In talking about one signee, running back Eron Haynes (6-1, 185, excellent speed) from Borger, he said he didn't just look at Haynes himself, he talked to other respected evaluators about him -- not the guys who make up the various Top 100 lists for the newspapers, he said, but rather a guy who looks at tape, a guy who knows how to evaluate, a pro. The guy gave Haynes high marks.

Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate.

IN OTHER WORDS, these signees carry Steele's personal stamp of approval. He's vouching for them, for better or worse. Maybe his signees do lack the big reputations of some, "but in no case did we have to leave our 'A' group (of prospects they graded highly) and dip down to the 'B' list."

But at the same time, he also stressed anew that "there is no exact science" to recruiting. Only time tells all. "How do you rate this class?" he asked. "The best way is to come back four years from now and see."

Meanwhile, even the skeptics would be well advised to remember Baylor's football history where recruiting is concerned. Over the years, some of the Bears' most glittering victories in the recruiting races (going back to the days of Doyle Traylor in the early 1950s, or back even to the time of Boody Johnson, Waco's non pareil in the early 1920s) have, for one reason or another, turned out to be prime examples of bitter fruit. Usually injuries were to blame, but not always.

And some of Baylor's finest wearers of the green and gold -- Don Trull, Neal Jeffrey, Walter Abercrombie, Mike Singletary, Thomas Everett, Gerald McNeil, Derek Turner, I could go on and on -- were not that prominent on any of the blue-chip lists. Indeed, most of them were not on any blue-chip lists, period.

Why Baylor often should have better luck with comparative unknowns is a mystery to me. But that's the way it is. As one guy was saying at the gathering of BBF members last Wednesday, "We've tried it the other way (rounding up quite a few blue-chippers in 1996) and it didn't work. Let's see how this other way works out."

EARLY ON, THAT BBF gathering was a subdued one, smaller than usual, interested but hardly enthusiastic. One Baylor fan who has been a regular at the recruiting watch gatherings for the past five or six years thought this one was the smallest he could remember. Only 31 had signed in shortly before noon.

When Kevin Steele was informed of the rather somber mood later that day, he said he knew exactly the reason. "It's because we lost Quan Cosby (the Mart superstar) at the last minute," he said. "Last year we got John Garrett at the last minute and everybody was enthused, upbeat. Losing Cosby left them feeling deflated."

Later on he talked to BBF members about it. It's like the kid on Christmas morn he gets the dozen presents he really wanted, but failed to get another one he badly wanted, said Steele. So the kid sits over in a corner and sulks all day.

"Let's don't be like that," he said. "Everybody's disappointed (at not signing Cosby) but let's play with the dozen presents we got. Let's don't sit and pout about the one present we didn't get."

IN HIS COMMENTS, Steele didn't try to gloss over anything. He didn't try to paint a misleading picture. He told it like it is, and you had to admire him for that.

"Look, the bottom line is that Baylor needs a good dose of winning for a couple of years," he said. "That would solve a lot of problems."

And then he repeated himself, emphasizing his words: "We need to win some football games."

And then he went on: "I know it's tough. I know it's frustrating. But guys, relax. We're going to get this thing turned. We're going to win.

"If I don't get it turned, they're going to fire me.

"So just relax, just keep on doing (supporting Baylor athletics) what you've been doing. Meanwhile, let's just be family."

I thought a lot of those at the meeting wanted to stand up and applaud, and go up to the speaker's stand and shake his hand after those comments. The comments had hit home.

HERE ARE SOME Steele comments in response to some of the questions asked him by BBF members:

• Spring football drills will start on Feb. 19 and the final spring game will be played on March 24.
  
• Baylor's football walk-on program "has really flourished. We have 60 to 70 out now, and we've put 6 or 7 on scholarship. And more than that are deserving."
  
• Derek Lagway, whose entire 2000 season was kayoed by the knee injury he suffered in a motorcycle accident last spring, has made more progress in his rehap program than expected. "We actually feel we'll get him back now, and be able to utilize him." But Lagway's practice time will have to be carefully measured, especially during two-a-days, and Steele will plan to use him only at tailback rather than as a tailback/fullback combination.
  
• The paper work ("petition") to secure an additional year of eligibility for quarterback Greg Cicero has gone forward (that would be for the 2002 season), and according to Baylor compliance office and prime NCAA contact, "it (the chances of him getting that extra year) doesn't look bad at all." Cicero, already redshirted once because of a knee injury suffered in his freshman season at Texas (before he transferred to a junior college in California), lost virtually all of his junior season at Baylor because of a broken collar bone suffered early in the Minnesota game. He thus becomes a prime candidate for a "sixth" year of eligibility, and that is what Baylor is seeking.
  
• Of the 15 high school prospects signed last Wednesday, Steele expects "eight to nine or ten will probably redshirt." I would guess the best bets not to redshirt would be the running backs, maybe the fullback, maybe the cornerbacks, maybe a wideout, maybe a linebacker.

A VETERAN WATCHER from San Antonio, Jim Riggs, was on hand Wednesday for his fifth round of checking out the recruiting returns: He summed up his thoughts with these words:

"I'm going to go with the (Baylor) coaches. If they think these guys are good enough, I do too. I really think we've helped ourselves in the offensive and defensive lines, and at running back. You know, we haven't had a top running back for a long time. Maybe the Borger boy (Eron Haynes) or the Pflugerville boy (Anthony Krieg, 6-1, 210, very tough, very smart, and fast enough) can be the answer.

"But I'm real disappointed about Cosby. I think that's the most disappointed I've been since Richard Inman signed with us and then left and jumped to Oklahoma."

And that, Jim, is going way, way back, all the way back to 1960, to the second year of the John Bridgers era when guys named Richard Inman of Belton and Scott Appleton of Brady and David Parks of Abilene and Duke Carlisle of Athens were muchly coveted at recruiting time. And then there was a youngster named Tommy Joe Crutcher of McKinney. He was 6-2 and 205, prized by some, not that highly regarded by others.

Appleton, a tackle, signed with Texas and won the Outland Award and became the defensive anchor of the Longhorns' 1963 national champions. Parks, an end, signed with Texas Tech and later became the number one name in the first round of the NFL draft. Carlisle was the quarterback (and, for one unforgettable afternoon in Austin, against Baylor, a pass thief) on Texas' '63 national champs. Inman, an end, left Baylor, went off to Oklahoma and did okay, but not as well as expected.

And Tommy Joe Crutcher? On a fateful Nov. 18 in 1961, when Texas was No. 1 in the country and favored to whip four-times loser TCU by 27 points, the Frogs used the old flea-flicker play, Sonny Gibbs to Buddy Iles, to score a first-half touchdown, and then in the second half they played a simple game of ball control, Tommy Joe Crutcher plowing ahead, time after time after time, picking up first downs, controlling the clock. They won the game, 6-0, and knocked Texas out of a national title.

In recruiting, you just never can tell. Not then, not now.

Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.