Malachi Coleman cancels visit

Submitted by jerseyblue on December 13th, 2022 at 7:58 PM

4*ATH and Nebraska decommit cancelled his visit to UM this weekend per his twitter. He's visiting Colorado instead. He didn't say anything about rescheduling. 

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TrueBlue2003

December 14th, 2022 at 2:05 AM ^

Can someone explain how Deion is moving the NIL needle so much, if that's what's happening?  Like, he's not paying players out of his own pocket so why are donors more willing to pony up for him than other coaches?

I don't get it.  If donors wanted to win, other coaches could do that too, with good players.  Suddenly Colorado donors are shelling out because they have Deion?  Makes no sense.  They didn't need his permission.

Or is playing for him just a really cool thing to do for some guys?

Joined: 01/05/2010

MGoPoints: 38075

jmblue

December 14th, 2022 at 6:20 AM ^

It could be that CU donors are extra-fired up at the moment to support him, after putting up with years of bad football. 

But I suspect this isn't the key variable here.  He was able to bring in talent to Jackson State.  We can assume he's a really strong recruiter in general - and he hasn't lost a game at CU yet.

Joined: 11/07/2008

MGoPoints: 102838

Fletcher Hall Lives

December 14th, 2022 at 6:44 AM ^

I see NIL as kind of a lazy blanket excuse for recruiting decisions that people can't  understand. It must be NIL because how could they turn down my school's tradition of winning. They did not come to my school based on all of the values that I (read: generic fan) hold important. I'm a Michigan fan and alum. I value my degree and my experience in Ann Arbor moreso now than when I was a high school senior.

Speaking as a person of color, there may be intrinsic values that some coveted athletes of color may hold. First, a coach that they can relate to and that can relate to their own personal situation. Deion Sanders is a name that they or their parents can relate to. Besides his stellar athletic skills, he was a media personality long after he retired.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/07/13/nfl-mlb-football-baseball-two-sports-stars-deion-sanders-bo-jackson-matt-szczur-jordyn-adams

https://www.nfl.com/network/on-air-talent/deion-sanders-talent

https://www.blackenterprise.com/michael-strahan-gets-custom-suits-made-for-deion-sanders-hbcu-football-team/

https://www.si.com/college/2022/08/30/deion-sanders-jackson-state-football-mississippi-water-crisis

Some people see "swag" and "hype" but Deion was building a culture at Jackson St. His personal brand was the building of young men to be responsible, present themselves well, dressing well. In many cases Deion paid out expenses of his own pocket. But more importantly, there was alot of media attention about it. And oh by the way, Deion created a winning culture and a winning team. This brand may resonate with some athletes.

So some young 17 or 18 year athletes of color, trying to make a major personal decision, are trying to decide who they trust and who has their best interest at heart. They go on a handful of recruiting visits and you get tons of text messages from a multitude of people..all claiming that they care. The messages and the schools start blending together.

You hear the recruiting pitch from Marcus Freeman or Mel Tucker or any first year head coach of color and you my feel a certain comfort level. They also don't have the baggage of a track record. Marcus Freeman and Mel Tucker were the next hot coach and their early recruiting reflected that. Now their highly touted athletes that were onboard are decommitting for a number of reasons. Fantasy faces reality.

You hear the same pitch from Kirby Smart or Jim Harbaugh and you hope you are not just a body this year and get buried on the depth chart next year. Do you think it is an accident that our chief communicators of our recruiting message are Bellamy, Hart, and Newsome. I'm not saying that it is soley based on race. You need a variety of messengers.

Deion has the microphone right now. I wouldn't be surprise to see Purdue get a recruiting bump. Then fantasy and expectations meet reality. We will only know once they write their track record. 

Joined: 12/07/2021

MGoPoints: 215

RadOWon

December 14th, 2022 at 11:29 AM ^

EXACTLY! As a VP of sales our reps constantly use "lower price" as the catchall excuse as to why we lost a deal. My response is always, "why is it price, maybe they have a better relationship with the client, maybe they offered more value, maybe they connected with the client better, maybe they like the color of their product better, maybe they have friends or relatives that know someone who knows someone....and on and on.

Its not always price and its not always NIL in this situation but it's the easy/lazy way out so everyone jumps on it.

The true test of Dion's skill set will be in "managing" the egos, prides and personalities of these young men. His fishbowl just went from a little goldfish bowl to an ocean sized aquarium and it wont be easy. Just ask Dumbo Fisher how easy it is.

Joined: 03/28/2013

MGoPoints: 1556

trueblueintexas

December 14th, 2022 at 11:10 AM ^

In addition to everything FletcherHallLives said from the recruits perspective, also important are the donor's perspective. 

High end donor's are still what drives college athletics. The source of funds for the athletic department, bagman in previous days, and now NIL are all the same. Schools didn't have one set of donors who pay for all of the facilities and a separate set of secret donors who paid the players. Even with all of the TV contract money, athletic departments can never have enough money. 

Those donors can choose to let the money flow or not depending on if they like the coach or not. A coach with the notoriety of Sanders is going to get the money flowing. Part of an Athletic Directors job is to make sure this will happen. 

I've shared this before, but when I lived in Texas, I was tied into UT's athletic department and donor network. When Mack Brown was there the money flowed like you couldn't believe, both to the department and the players. Mack retires, they hire Charlie Strong, suddenly the flow of money starts to slow down. The AD hadn't done his work to sell the new hire to the donors. Sadly, race was an issue. It's not like everyone stopped, but their biggest donor was not on board and he convinced a few other like minded donors to pull back some of the free spending as well. Not surprisingly, both the head coach and AD were out the door in a few years. 

 

Joined: 11/10/2008

MGoPoints: 36653

iMBlue2

December 13th, 2022 at 8:13 PM ^

Saw this on twitter, weird thing is Jay visited him the same day as the Buffs TE coach.  Was hoping for some Darius Clemons type magic late in the cycle on this one but thinking he got primed.  2023 recruiting man. 

Joined: 11/24/2017

MGoPoints: 15879

4roses

December 14th, 2022 at 6:50 AM ^

While ultimately making the right decision in selecting where to attend college (U of M), one of the schools that I also applied to and considered was Michigan Tech. This was based primarily on a picture of a dorm room with a cool loft that I saw in their college catalog (yes, I'm old). That was far from the silliest thought that entered my 17 year old brain.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 5854

Skidmark

December 14th, 2022 at 11:00 AM ^

A couple of my high school buddies and I chose WMU (in 1968; I’m really old) based on some rumor that Playboy magazine had designated Western as a top party school. As high school seniors we drove down to Kalamazoo in my mother’s Oldsmobile Delta 88, walked around campus for an hour, went to the bookstore to buy a Broncos t shirt and then headed home. We were idiots. 

Joined: 12/19/2017

MGoPoints: 1091

njvictor

December 13th, 2022 at 8:25 PM ^

I'm not even 30 yet, but I'm gonna sound like an old person regardless: I'm tired of these young kids chasing the new shiny object despite it not remotely being the logical choice.

But if he would rather join a coach who has never coached a FCS game and is taking over a 1-11 program then so be it

Joined: 07/20/2017

MGoPoints: 65176

Leaders And Best

December 13th, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^

Are we rewriting history here? Jim Harbaugh barely got any top 250 high school prospects during his first two years at Stanford. Andrew Luck was the only one, and that was in Year 2. His first two classes were ranked in the #50s--near the bottom of the Power 5 at the time. It took some time to show prospects the product on the field, and even then, a majority of his team was built on scouting and development and not blue-chip prospects.

Joined: 09/09/2009

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bronxblue

December 13th, 2022 at 10:06 PM ^

While this is generally true we should also recognize that Stanford has by far the toughest admission standards in the P5 and there aren't a ton of top-250 kids who could even get in.  So we're already pulling from a smaller sample size than most teams.  And then you're throwing in the poor record.

With CU they can basically let in anyone who makes the NCAA cutoff so my guess is Harbaugh would have been able to pull in more guys in that situation as well.

Joined: 11/22/2008

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Leaders And Best

December 13th, 2022 at 10:48 PM ^

yeah, I take some issue with this. Harbaugh ability to recruit during his first couple years had more to do with the state of the program than admissions. Harbaugh never truly got to see the fruits of his labor. His last two classes were top 25 classes, and he had another top 25 class lined up for David Shaw. Each one of those classes had around 4-5 top 250 prospects. And it only got better for David Shaw after Harbaugh took Stanford to the Orange Bowl. There are more than enough top 250 prospects who can get admitted to Stanford to play football. The harder part was selling them that it is worth going to Stanford to play football.

Joined: 09/09/2009

MGoPoints: 22521

bronxblue

December 13th, 2022 at 9:12 PM ^

He's a Nebraska kid who previously committed to 3-9 Nebraska in year 3 of Scott Frost, so going to a losing team doesn't seem foreign to him.

There are lots of reasons why a kid would commit to a program and sometimes it doesn't have to be logical to make sense to him.  I'm not going to pick on somebody for making a decision like this given the fact that Nebraska is on their 3rd coach in a year, and the only reason people here are mad is because he didn't jump at Michigan.  

Joined: 11/22/2008

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