Signing day's tomorrow, and there's an awful lot going on besides the Cater stuff mentioned here yesterday. More to come shortly...
Over the weekend Rutgers added OL Robert Forst (Art's younger brother), who previously had been committed to Delaware. Can't imagine Dan Foose is too happy about that. Does this mean that Vicioso won't qualify?
Florida DL Djwany Mera chose Rutgers over Illinois. He visited over the weekend along with several other prospects. DB Gareef Glashen flipped from Syracuse to Rutgers. I linked to an article a while back about Glashen planning to visit, but tried not to make a big deal out of it because I've just about had it to here with Syracuse as is, 99% of RU fans don't care.
Finally, there was a surprise yesterday with the addition of pass rusher Fred Overstreet. I'm familiar with the name, but hadn't heard him linked to Rutgers at all until now.
He just returned from an official visit to Rutgers this past weekend.
It's a happy ending to what turned into a frustrating month for Overstreet. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Overstreet also owned Division I offers from Purdue, Minnesota and Syracuse. The Orange's offer fell through when Syracuse assistant Stan Drayton, who has been recruiting Overstreet, left for Florida in early January. Fenton said the other two schools were pressuring Overstreet to commit early and subsequently pulled their offers when he didn't.
Those updates are on the heels of the week's developments. RB Casey Turner decommitted from Rutgers for UNC. His dad was trying to push Turner to Arkansas in December, but that was a surprise considering UNC added blue chipper Gio Bernard earlier in the day. It's just our luck that Rutgers now has a thin depth chart following Brooks's transfer, but in its recruiting manages to run into two schools even worse off at RB. Turner said that UNC is his final decision, although you have to wonder what all that talk about visiting UCF is about. By the way, this may be related to the fact that Brandon Gainer ended up going to UCF as a package deal after all.
That was a blow because it came out the same day that the Cater situation really started to get weird, and right after Mustafa Greene committed to N.C. State. That was a close call that came down the wire. Greene's was interested in playing in front of his family in Brooklyn, but he could very well start as a true freshman with the Wolfpack. Turner was very underrated, and I loved Greene's physical running style too, even though it does make him somewhat injury prone.
So without those two, the fallback option at RB was Jawan Jamison, who quickly chose Rutgers over Wake Forest when the staff was ready to accept his verbal. He was high on Wake's board, and South Carolina liked him as a fallback if they didn't sign Marcus Lattimore. Decent prospect with as good a chance as anyone else, and provides some needed depth at the position as Rutgers primes to go after bigger local names in 2011.
"The coaches tell me that I remind them of Ray Rice," Jamison said. "We’re built almost exactly the same. They actually think I’m further along than he was then, because of my ability to catch the ball out of the backfield. Seeing what he did at Rutgers definitely increased my interest in the school."
At Rivals, Mike Farrell's track record has been so poo of late that his predictions are basically a kiss of death. As far as Brandon Coleman goes, weeks back Farrell produced glowing quotes from Brandon about Syracuse, and he eliminated them days later. Now Farrell's at it again calling Coleman to Maryland.
Coleman is down to Maryland and Rutgers with the Terps now pulling ahead. Rutgers losing its wide receivers coach and now its recruiting coordinator has swung this in Maryland's direction.
That would be awfully strange, considering how Ralph Friedgen will probably be out of a job in a year, and would have already been fired if his buyout wasn't too high. The funny thing is that Brandon seems to be saying as such, definitively leaning towards one school.
"Well, sometimes [I] don't tell the whole thing [to reporters]," Coleman said. "You don't always want everything out there just yet. So I tell it to my family, tell to my high school coach what can go out and what needs to stay inside the family."
Let's move back to Florida, where the Jamison and Mera verbals show that RU is trying to make up ground as Wednesday approaches. There's the matter of Rashad Knight, who's on the record as having Rutgers and Michigan as his two finalists.
"Rutgers is just a real nice place. It’s up to date. I love the dorms and facilities. The education is good. I mean it’s just a great place. While I was there they took me to New York City. That was cool. I think I fit in well with their defense. They are losing two corners so that leaves some spots to compete for playing time."
And we're actually getting closer than I ever anticipated with Jeremy Deering, having made his final two with FSU. UF could actually still be in the mix though, now that Demar Dorsey decommitted for FSU.
FL DT Ken Kirksey was another weekend visitor, and he actually named Rutgers as a leader before his visit to New Jersey. His favorites list is a red flag though.
This was a very strange thing to read last week.
Susan said he has recruits who committed to Rutgers contact him about attending Bucknell instead.
Does he mean recruited walk-ons or something? Non-qualifiers? Susan goes on to say that he was just riding in the Schianocopter with Coach and they're buds and all, so he couldn't really have meant anything that malicious. Now, speaking of our glorious winged chariot:
Absegami has two big recruits in running back Ben Martin and offensive lineman Steve Schwartz. Schiano went to Spirit for linebacker Anthony Sarao.
"Coach Schiano did a thorough job and asked a number of questions," Holy Spirit coach Charlie Roman said. "It's certainly a huge gesture. You wouldn't get a head coach coming down unless they thought very highly of the prospect."
It was fun to read all the various tweets during the week when random people spotted the helicopter. That's how I first heard about the offer to PA LB Kevin Snyder. The guy who posted the Junior Day video also has one up with the copter. Anothern new '11 offer is PA lineman Brandon Clemons. Also, Florida OL/DL Giorgio Newberry is coming to New Jersey for a linemen camp this week. NJ.com has comments and video up about the entire state senior class, although some of their info on offers is shaky. Bound Brook's Andrew Campolattano is the best wrestler in the state. Schiano loves his wrestlers; the best wrestlers on the football team could probably be a ranked wrestling program on their own if that was at all feasible.
Ewww, I don't want Savon Huggins and Ishaq Williams anywhere near Tom Lemmings.
Along with the Greene commit, Turner, and Gainer, Ace Sanders committed to South Carolina as had been heavily rumored.
Watchlist: Michael Burton, Jamie Byrd/Hakeeme Ishmar, Joe Falato, Cole Marcoux, Kevin Monangai, and Dillon Romain.