[99topdawg]

First of all, I hate the term "fallback", but since that's what people call them, that's the term I used. I've seen a lot of negative comments about a recent commit being a fallback, etc. so I did some looking at recent "fallback" recruits, because the negative talk, well, pi$$es me off. Here is a list of recruits from the last 10 years that received 2* and below (from Rivals) that committed within the last week of two before signing day. I can't say for sure what defines "success" as far as a recruit goes, but I would say that we hit on around 75% of these (not counting the ones that are too young to classify as a success/failure), with 3 getting drafted so far. For the record, during that time, 4 of our 4-5* recruits have been drafted so far.

Steve Burch
Mike Elgin 7th round
Jovon Johnson
Clinton Solomon
Marcus Paschal
Khaliq Price
Brandon Myers 6th round
Damian Sims
Rashad Dunn
Brett Morse
Lance Tillison
Amari Spievey 3rd round
Allan Reisner
Mike Daniels
Adam Robinson
Greg Castillo
Steve Bigach
William Lowe
Casey McMillan
Dakotah Getz
Micah Hyde
Jonny Mullings
Tanner Miller
Anthony Hitchens
Dean Tsopanides
Marcus Collins
Damon Bullock
Jordan Canzeri
Johnny Lowdermilk

[camickle]

Wow. That is actually an impressive and very productive group. Better than most of our recruiting classes.

On a side note, this year has not appeared to be a "fallback" kind of year. The staff had to pull offers and not take attempted commits from more highly recruited players in order to take each of the guys on board. That infers that they liked them well enough to not wait on those guys.

[HawkinGoferLand]

Pascal and Reisner are in the NFL too. Jovon Johnson was CFL defensive POY and was getting another look by NFL.

[HawkinGoferLand]

I think many fans would consider many of these players "fallbacks": Brandon Meyers, Allen Reisner, Jake Reisen, Greg Castilo, Brett Morse, Mike Daniels, Steve Bigach, Willie Lowe, Micah Hyde, Dakota Getz, Tanner Miller, Anthony Hitchens, Damon Bullock come to mind as they committed around signing day and were not highly recruited (or recruited by BCS schools at all).

Julian Vandervelde was sorta since he was a grey shirt recruit that ended up with a scholarship after signing day IIRC. (he commited to Iowa in the summer as a grey shirt but was offered scholarship around signing day or after)

We've gotten some big names on signing day or thereabouts in the past like Darrian Cooper (4 star), Cedric Everson (4 star but loser), DJK (3 star, best player in OH according to Herbstreit), Jeremiah Hunter (4 star), Damien Simms (3 stars), Nolan MacMIllian (3 stars), Jordan Canzeri (3 star), Jordan Lomax (3 stars)

[DuffMan]

didn't teh diesel just post this?