KCCATFAN wrote: ↑June 4th, 2019, 11:03 am
I see we picked up a new commit, Talor Warner, from Gardner, Ks. We were his only P5 offer at this point. My only concern is it seems like we are taking some commitments from lightly recruited guys early in the recruiting process. What happens when we get close to the end and we could have used that scholarship on a player who is more highly regarded? I hope this player proves me wrong, but that was the problem at the end of Snyder 2.0, we were signing too many players with no other P5 offers.
Would you have preferred that the kid blows up his senior year and K-State is late to the game in forming a relationship with the kid and losses him to an out of state program, like Iowa State? After all, he would have a lot of P5 offers at that point, only for K-State to miss on him in the end.
Either fans freak out because K-State is the first P5 to offer a KS player, or they freak out because K-State is too late to offer a KS kid and isn't locking down the border.
K-State did it's due diligence on Warner. They waited till he camped in person to get a good evaluation on him instead of just looking at his tape. He is also the type of player that his tape isn't going to get offers because his JR year film is of him playing offensive tackle, which he was undersized for and won't play at the collegiate level. Any other program looking at OT wouldn't have noticed him as a DT player, which is why he hasn't had a lot of offers. Some recruiting sites still list him as OT. During his SR year, you will see that switch to DT and he will get a favorable rating and will turn out to be one of the top 1/2 of players in the class.
He has a big frame that he still has room to grow and has great potential to get bigger, while still being athletic, to be a solid DT. He has already grown quite a bit in the last few months. If he had not been offered by K-State, I would expect that he would get more offers after his SR year. And he still may get those offers to try and draw him away, but not as many as he would if here were open.
He also is coached in high school by Mark Simoneau. Which is why K-State could have gotten earlier eyes on him and why he has a better chance of sticking with K-State if other schools come calling.
Warner isn't an example of K-State reaching for a player early. They found a player that played a different position that no one noticed because no one was really scouting his school to see extra players. K-State found out about him because of the K-State connection and being in state and is locking him down before he blows up and goes elsewhere.
There aren't going to be these highly rated players that K-State is trying to sign right at the end. K-State has to get on kids early before other schools get to them. K-State gets a few in each class, but they aren't beating out a ton of P5 schools for players and instead, they lose a lot more players that other P5s have gotten to first.
Not to mention if there is a few of these players, there are many creative ways to open up a scholarship and there are always players leaving that open up spots that weren't expected (Zuber). You don't ignore a potential player because of the slight chance you may need an open scholarship down the road.