Was the recruiting process during the summer and fall of 2007 painful for you to watch as a Cougar fan? It was brutal for me! Our commitment sheet for the class of 2008 was very meeger prior to the arrival of Paul Wulff. In fact, before Coach Doba stepped down in early December 2007, the class consisted of Dan Spitz, Tim Hodgdon and Jared Katstetter! You read that correctly. To read more, click the button below.
A common refrain most often associated with the recruiting throughout that season was something to the tune of “we don’t believe in offering a kid until we have seen his senior year film.” What that translates into is “we are a bunch of lame assistant coaches who have no desire to recruit while our coach is coping with the loss of his wife to cancer.”
I will never blame the state of our program from 2008-2010 entirely on Bill Doba (or Paul Wulff for that matter). What that man gave for nearly twenty years of his life is more than any of us will ever be able to afford WSU. Pin that on his assistants. The only thing I will fault Doba for is not stepping down as our Head Coach when Judy was terminal.
“Where is Lucas headed with this?”, you might be asking yourself…
I have an awful feeling recruiting for the 2012 class could be eerily remnisicent of the 2008 class. Paul Wulff has two years remaining on his contract, and if he doesn’t succeed this year then he will likely be shown the door, and you can bet your bottom dollar every recruit we are targeting, other coaching staff’s will use our staff’s lame duck status against them.
Bill Moos and Elson Floyd are probably the only two men on this planet who know what the criteria for success is, this upcoming season. If you try and tell me you know how many wins Wulff needs to remain the coach, I will show you somebody who doesn’t know what he is talking about. There are way too many varables to consider at this stage.
On numerous occasions last season Moos said his policy is not to comment on the future of this coaching staff until he has completed his end of the year review with them, because that has always been his policy as an Athletic Director. This philosphy definitely left Wulff and Co. twisting in the wind recruiting, and I believe it was a major reason we lost a few commits (Sankey, Nembot, Tuliaupupu).
In 2011, if Moos adhears to the policy that he stated he always follows, then we will likely see a very small class until the future of this staff is known.
I am not saying the coaches will be skunked, and if any staff could prove me wrong, it is this one. Quite frankly, I was shocked when Dalen Jones committed a few weeks ago. SeanHawk and I had been discussing not hours earlier how we thought it would be a tough year recruiting. To me, it just goes to show how hard these coaches are working on the recruiting trail. But, “well that’s a pretty big butt” I am saying this class willl be small by comparative standards. Our coaches have averaged ten verbals by the first game of the year the past three classes! I will take whatever odds any of you give me that we will have less than seven commits by that time this year.
This weekened, all of us here at the blog will be attending the Crimson & Gray game in Spokane. Hopefully we will get a glimpse at what our men will be defining as “exceeding the criteria for success is, this upcoming season!”
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