Many Ron Prince critics want to make a big deal about the state of his football team this year. But what about the future?
The Wildcats have 10 commitments for their 2009 class. None of those recruits have scholarship offers from another BCS school. Only two of K-State’s committed players, Andre McDonald and Michael Bowie, have scholarship offers from a non-BCS school, both from Tulsa.
According to Scout.com, the Wildcats’ 2009 recruiting class is ranked 86th in the country. That is worse than every BCS university except Syracuse, which is 1-6 this year.
K-State is getting out-recruited by traditional bottom feeders like Temple and Louisiana-Monroe. The Wildcats are even doing worse than Washington, a school that fired coach Tyrone Willingham after the team’s 0-7 start.
Now, K-State still has about 15 available scholarship spots and could finish much higher in the recruiting rankings. We could also give Prince the benefit of the doubt and say maybe he’s just good at finding talent that other coaches might have overlooked.
Still, there is no reason for Prince to sign this many players whom no other BCS coach wants. He has months to fill out the recruiting class.
Two of the K-State commits, Richard Evans and Kadero Terrel, have not had significant affects on their respective junior college teams this season. There is no reason to offer scholarships to players like that. There is a good chance Prince could get a player like that to walk-on.
Would it make sense for a college graduate to settle on the first entry-level job that any recent grad could get? Of course not.
You should always try to find the best possible job. There are plenty of entry-level jobs out there. You should not settle for something that will be available later.
Also, I doubt Prince has proven himself to be a guru when it comes to recognizing talent that other coaches might overlook. If you look at most of the Wildcats’ good players, they are players who had offers from other schools.
Prince needs to be more patient with his recruiting. He needs to evaluate these players during their senior seasons of high school.
There’s no reason for the Wildcats to offer right away, especially when they’re the only team interested. Chances are, that same player, or a similar one, will be around a few months from now.
Whatever the case, if Prince can’t turn around his recruiting, there’s very little hope for him turning around the Wildcats.
Jon Garten is a senior in print journalism. Please send comments to sports@spub.ksu.edu.