Welcome to Cal, Isadore.
You've made a great decision !

Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

GranadaHillsBear;842126366 said:

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Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

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Would you prefer "scout team fodder"?

Who knows anything about high school juniors?

:gobears:

Hope you have a nice career here, Isadore. If the staff sees something that they like in the guy, I'm not going to question them at this point.

chazzed;842126378 said:

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Hope you have a nice career here, Isadore. If the staff sees something that they like in the guy, I'm not going to question them at this point.

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+1

Agree. Welcome Isadore! With the limited amount of scholies avail. this year, Dykes and team need to be selective in who they will be offering. There is something in this new recruit they like....can't wait to see Isadore bring it!


:gobears:

ive noticed the same thing since joining this site.


Our 2 star guys are "steals" or "hidden gems" for some reason..

AZGoldenBear;842126385 said:

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ive noticed the same thing since joining this site.


Our 2 star guys are "steals" or "hidden gems" for some reason..

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Like @chazzed says, I'll just trust the coaching staff because they seem like smart ol' chaps. To be fair, I do have to say for those that defend everything that Cal athletics ever does: I remember when Kevin Hart "selected" Cal over Oregon, some on this board were raving that we got someone good, as if they knew. What a gem he was. People had no idea. So those that defend and those that criticize, usually don't know too much about any of these hidden ones. For now,

ykes

Had a monster sophomore season and looks like he was battling injuries his junior year. Hopefully he comes back with a strong senior season and really gives us something to be excited about.

Welcome to cal Isadore!

RighteousGoldenBear;842126382 said:

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Agree. Welcome Isadore! With the limited amount of scholies avail. this year, Dykes and team need to be selective in who they will be offering. There is something in this new recruit they like....can't wait to see Isadore bring it!


:gobears:

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+1
ykes

GranadaHillsBear;842126366 said:

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Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

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Because until they've stepped onto our field and either proven themselves [or fail to do so], there's no reason to criticize them?

GranadaHillsBear;842126366 said:

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Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

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Ha. Exactly.

Because the scouting services seem to evaluate once and then focus on selling us stories covering the horse race to sign the top recruits.

I say this because its my observation that they don't seem to follow senior year progress very well. A kid starts having a monster senior year, BCS teams start offering (best sign of quality), and yet they don't seem to be on the radar of the scouting services. They focus on the recruits they've hyped.

If we are going by quality of offers, this kid only has offers from Colorado St.

Ill trust the staff on this one. Hopefully this guy really is a hidden gem just as supposedly all of our other 2-star/3-star guys are.

GranadaHillsBear;842126366 said:

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Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

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because they probably won't be able to compete in recruiting with the top 4 in the Pac until they prove they can win.

If Mixon and those El Cerrito LB's leave to LA or Oregon than this is definitely the short term reality.

Our coaches are experts at evaluating talent- especially raw or hidden talent. why? because that was their task year after year at smaller schools. seems to me he did very well. So relax...

Dykes promised Sandy that next year would be a great recruiting year.

Cal Panda Bear;842126432 said:

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If we are going by quality of offers, this kid only has offers from Colorado St.

Ill trust the staff on this one. Hopefully this guy really is a hidden gem just as supposedly all of our other 2-star/3-star guys are.

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Chris Harper didn't have many quality offers.

GranadaHillsBear;842126366 said:

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Why is it that all of our "lower ranked" guys are considered hidden gems?

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After a sh!tty season, I'm not expecting a great class.

Having said that, Dykes and Co have not shown much on the recruiting front with the way they closed out last season and how things have been going this recruiting season so far.

Harvey is a stud, but other guys may true hidden gems....

As long as they put together a conference contender team, I guess it doesn't matter. But recruiting like Boise St., when you play a Pac12 schedule....I'm not sure how successful we are going to be.

Welcome to Cal Isadore! If you're reading this thread along with any family members, you picked a great university to attend and we expect great things from you in the future.

Personally, I'm excited to see what new schemes and concepts our coaching staff will implement and they certainly think highly of you to be a piece of this machine. Your best days ever and a bright future await once you set foot on campus. Welcome to Bear Territory. Looking forward to you making an impact soon.

GO BEARS!

I welcome all the players who choose CAL and will wish them the very best in their career, academic and athletic. Whether or not they contribute, they're still Bears and one of the family. I just find it rather humorous when posters (no offense to the OP) automatically assume the recruit is a "hidden gem" or underrated. That may truly be the case and I hope it certainly is. We have plenty of examples where the star value was very accurate in the low star value. Sure there are exceptions, like Mack and Alualu, but plenty of examples where a recruit did not exceed their initial evaluation. Posters should give some specific examples as to why they think a player is underrated. I am NOT bashing our recruits whatsoever, FYI.

Sorry to hijack the thread. Welcome to CAL, Isadore Outing!

Our coaches wouldn't have offered him this early if they didn't like what they saw on a play by play basis. We only see highlights.

On another thread it points out all the top recruits we have already on our roster and people are bashing it saying that stars don't matter and you can never tell how someone is going to turn out, but we bash/assume they are hidden gems if they aren't at least 3 stars.

You need to have faith in who our coaches are going after. They saw a talented kid who they wanted, offered, and got him.

Sounds like a win to me!

Welcome to cal Isadore

XXXBEAR;842126436 said:

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Our coaches are experts at evaluating talent- especially raw or hidden talent. why? because that was their task year after year at smaller schools. seems to me he did very well. So relax...

Dykes promised Sandy that next year would be a great recruiting year.

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Yes and No.

Yes: Sonny is an innovative and intelligent guy. He is an up and comer. We should give him the benefit of the doubt and see how he develops talent.

No: His best year at Louisiana Tech resulted in him coming in 3rd place in a soft 7 team league. Clearly, this is not what Cal is shooting for. We want a Rose Bowl, not a 3rd-6th place finish in a 12 team BCS power conference. He will need to secure far better talent than the sorts of players he landed at Louisiana Tech.

We have the best facilities in the conference (arguably the country). We have the best public university in the country to recruit to, and it just so happens to be located in one of the most beautiful and vibrant places on earth. So I disagree with those who say we need to turn things around next year before we can have any chance at landing big-time recruits.

Some of you assholes may want to welcome the kid and his family to Cal for making the biggest and best decision of his young life before thread jacking this into a "Sonny Dykes can't recruit 4 and 5 star talent" and "we'd better go to a Rose Bowl or else" thread.

Just saying...

liverflukes;842126473 said:

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Some of you assholes may want to welcome the kid and his family to Cal for making the biggest and best decision of his young life before thread jacking this into a "Sonny Dykes can't recruit 4 and 5 star talent" and "we'd better go to a Rose Bowl or else" thread.

Just saying...

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Chill out. No one is saying Dykes cant recruit or that we need to go to the Rose Bowl. People are simply wondering what impact a two star player will have and why/how he is only two stars.

Heck this kid might be a star for us. No one is closing the door on that. We are just curious as to what he brings to the table and what our coaching staff sees in him that other schools dont.

ayetee11;842126443 said:

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Chris Harper didn't have many quality offers.

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You got me there. Harper really was a gem.

Cal Panda Bear;842126475 said:

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Chill out. No one is saying Dykes cant recruit or that we need to go to the Rose Bowl. People are simply wondering what impact a two star player will have and why/how he is only two stars.

Heck this kid might be a star for us. No one is closing the door on that. We are just curious as to what he brings to the table and what our coaching staff sees in him that other schools dont.

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I'm Chill. I just think we should all welcome him to Cal if he gave a verbal. Maybe it sticks. Maybe it doesn't. I'd quote your own welcome to Isadore but I couldn't find it. I figure he and his family might be excited and start looking at football websites about Cal after the news...that's all...btw he wasn't only offered by CSU.

liverflukes;842126473 said:

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Some of you assholes may want to welcome the kid and his family to Cal for making the biggest and best decision of his young life before thread jacking this into a "Sonny Dykes can't recruit 4 and 5 star talent" and "we'd better go to a Rose Bowl or else" thread.

Just saying...

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Gee, did you learn reading comprehension at CAL? No one said anything of the sort in your rant.

Welcome to Cal Isadore. One of the best decisions a young man can make for his future and the future of his family. Looking forward to following your progress this season and in the future.

liverflukes;842126482 said:

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I'm Chill. I just think we should all welcome him to Cal if he gave a verbal. Maybe it sticks. Maybe it doesn't. I'd quote your own welcome to Isadore but I couldn't find it. I figure he and his family might be excited and start looking at football websites about Cal after the news...that's all...btw he wasn't only offered by CSU.

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Like I said, guess we'll have to trust Dykes on this one. Just curious, thats all

liverflukes;842126473 said:

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Some of you assholes may want to welcome the kid and his family to Cal for making the biggest and best decision of his young life before thread jacking this into a "Sonny Dykes can't recruit 4 and 5 star talent" and "we'd better go to a Rose Bowl or else" thread.

Just saying...

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The Duke and Panda didn't welcome him and instead chose to focus on everything that MIGHT go wrong with the scenario? The hell you say?!

GranadaHillsBear;842126483 said:

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Gee, did you learn reading comprehension at CAL? No one said anything of the sort in your rant.

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Yeah...well, I'm the king of hyperbole. Thank you for posting your second post though. I've no quarrel with the highlanders.

24/7 likes him...

Colorado and Iowa st are both bcs schools and its still early in recruiting. Way to early to be worried about other offers. If a&m offers him it wouldn't matter who else did, we would just be talking about how big it would be if we held onto him.

In other words, lets let things play out before we go all crazy.

Cal Panda Bear;842126486 said:

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Like I said, guess we'll have to trust Dykes on this one. Just curious, thats all

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Fair enough and I apologize if I characterized you otherwise.

liverflukes;842126491 said:

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Fair enough and I apologize if I characterized you otherwise.

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No worries. It's the offseason. Go Bears!

XXXBEAR;842126436 said:

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Dykes promised Sandy that next year would be a great recruiting year.

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Good. Because thus far I've been underwhelmed by this staff's recruiting efforts.

LocoOso;842126494 said:

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Good. Because thus far I've been underwhelmed by this staff's recruiting efforts.

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you don't even know what they're doing recruiting-wise, do you? they aren't just sitting on their a$$es all day in berkeley.

seems like u were expecting a ton of 4*, 5* commits from JUNIORS right now.

I think it's one thing to have high expectations, but there should be a little reason when it comes to those expectations.