VOL. 127 | NO. 23 | Friday, February 03, 2012
Don Wade
The Press Box
Looking For A Few Hits On Tigers’ Signing Day
DON WADE | Special to The Daily News
Every coach wins National Signing Day. Every year.
It’s how the game before the games is played.
So congratulations are in order for first-year University of Memphis football coach Justin Fuente.
On Feb. 1, 2012, he talked about his first class of recruits and if the Tigers can score a touchdown for every time Fuente said he was “excited,” then the scoreboard at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium should explode by mid- September.
This, by the way, is not a jab at Fuente. Coaches do what they have to do, and that includes moving optimism down the field on signing day. Whether you’re a top-tier program such as Texas, which Scout.com says has the best recruiting class, or moribund Memphis, which Scout.com says has the 84th-ranked recruiting class, this is where it all begins.
Fuente and his staff had just seven weeks to recruit, which is sort of starting on your own 7-yard line.
“I think we did a great job (under the circumstances),” Fuente said. “But the proof will be in the years to come.”
Ah, proof. A word not often spoken on signing day. Between the Tigers’ 20 signings on Feb. 1 and their seven mid-year signees, 27 new players are coming into the program. The highest-rated of the Feb. 1 signings is Melrose quarterback Will Gross, ranked the 36th-best QB prospect by Scout.com. The guy who was No. 37 signed with Alabama; that’s a victory in itself.
Naturally, Fuente is “excited” about Gross, saying he’s more than just an athlete: “He can throw the football.” Always a good quality in a quarterback, but who knows what Gross becomes? Fuente doesn’t and that’s why he’s also “excited” about other quarterbacks – Texas Tech transfer Jacob Karam and Paxton Lynch, a 6-5, 225-pound freshman from Deltona, Fla.
The two players most physically ready to play right away, Fuente says, are safety Anthony Watson, a junior college transfer, and tailback Jai Steib, also a juco transfer. Steib was the first player Fuente watched on film. “I’m really fired up about him,” the coach said.
And “fired up” is at least three degrees above “excited.”
So there is hope – there’s always hope on signing day – and there is reality: Every program in the country will miss on some guys. But for Fuente and the rebuilding Tigers, the recruiting equation works the other way.
They just need a few hits.
Don Wade is a native of Kansas City and a former feature writer for The Kansas City Star and sports reporter for The Commercial Appeal. His column appears weekly in The Daily News and The Memphis News.