On signing day, a look back at each local school's top three recruits from four years ago
The Kansas City Star
Just like Opening Day, the day after the Super Bowl and the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, today is another fake sports holiday that a certain portion of our sports-obsessed country can’t get enough of. We touched on a little recruiting stuff in this week’s Twitter Tuesday but if you really honestly don’t have a lot of time at work to blow today^ I’ll cut out the pertinent part:
“…recruiting rankings are certainly not without merit. The guys at Rivals, in particular, put in tons of work and conversation and research into putting these things together. Theirs are the industry standard for a reason, and if you’re looking for predictive powers, this article here does a good job explaining why Rivals recruiting rankings are as good or better as the AP preseason poll.
Of course, that’s also a pretty low standard so the lesson, as always: none of us know as much as we’d like, so lets try to enjoy the games, huh?”
^ Are all the Twitter Tuesdays that long? I did a word count on that one, sort of randomly, just curious, and jeez. I’d be on Al Gore’s most wanted list if we ran that thing in the paper.
Anyway, I thought it’d be interesting to look back at each local school’s top recruits from four years ago (2009 class) and wonder if it was worth the attention. The first thing I think about is that these are classes put together by coaches who are no longer at two of the schools, and at the third, with the help of a recruiting coordinator who’s no longer there. Leggo:
Kansas
Toben Opurum, four-star No. 3 running back from Plano. He switched to linebacker, and made 43 tackles as a senior last fall, with various injuries. Academic All-Big 12 second-team.
Bradley McDougald, four-star No. 11 defensive back from Dublin, Ohio. A personal favorite for reasons that only sort of deal with football, he wants to play in the NFL with a fall-back plan of being a middle school principal.
Prinz Kande, four-star No. 16 defensive back from Euless, Texas. Switched to linebacker, and suffered a torn ACL in September.
Kansas State
Tramaine Thompson, three-star No. 27 running back from Jenks, Okla. Thompson switched to receiver, and was third on the team this past fall with 37 catches and 526 yards. He was also the primary punt returner.
Timothy Flanders, three-star No. 31 athlete from Midwest City, Okla. Redshirted as a freshman, then transferred to Sam Houston State in August of what would’ve been his freshman season at K-State. At Sam Houston State, they spell their mascot “Bearkats.”
Joseph Bonugli, three-star No. 49 defensive back from San Antonio. Hasn’t made an impact. Honestly, with a Google search it’s tough to tell if he’s still on the team.
Not included: Collin Klein, three-star quarterback from Loveland, Colo. from 2008. Ranked 21st at his position, he was the highest rated recruit in Ron Prince’s class — though Daniel Thomas, for reasons I assume others remember, was a four-star recruit but did not have a position ranking.
Missouri
Sheldon Richardson, five-star No. 1 defensive tackle from St. Louis. Made 75 tackles with four sacks last fall, he made first-team All-SEC and is a lock for the first round of the NFL draft. Lived up to considerable hype.
Blaine Dalton, three-star No. 12 dual threat quarterback from Blue Springs South. Well, that didn’t turn out like he hoped.
Kendial Lawrence, three-star No. 16 running back from Rockwall, Texas. Led MU with 1,025 yards and 12 touchdowns rushing last fall. Got his degree.
B. Clay Moore
JoCo
3 months, 1 week agoFlanders is Sam Houston State’s all-time leading rusher, and is the two-time conference player of the year, with a year left to play.
Would have been interesting to see what he could have done at K-State.