FanHouse Rivals

I'm not calling revolution, but there's a new brand of football in town fresh off the pitch in one California high school. Piedmont High School coaches have developed an offense in the last year which sometimes allows all 11 players on the field to be eligible. Pay attention kids, because this is something that can happen in college football and not in the innovation-hostile NFL.

"Going into the season, we thought that either we're going to get fired or we're going to transform the game because of the innovative aspects and the wealth of ideas," [Piedmont High School coach Kurt] Bryan said. "Luckily, it turned out to be the latter."

Clearly. Like any innovation just one year into development, it needs work. However, the offense is already catching on.

Bryan said coaches from 35 to 40 Division I-A schools, and from every conference, have contacted him and Humphries looking for information on the offense. Apparently, the college coaches are quick studies.

[Piedmont High School Director of Football Operations Steve] Humphries said he saw San Jose State run multiple A-11 plays last season against Stanford. Florida ran an offensive play recalling the A-11 against LSU. And Rutgers and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers ran punt plays containing aspects of Piedmont's offense.

In other words, the evolution/revolution has already been televised. Cool.

Much more on the history of a new offense is available at this Rivals.com article, and the A-11 website. I look forward to a more prominent introduction this fall in college football, maybe even a College GameDay segment on it, hm? Get to work, Herbie.

(Via: my brother, who passed along the Rivals article)

Last year, Tulsa became the only college football program in history to have a 1,000 yard back, a 5,000 yard passer and three 1,000 yard receivers. A while back I mentioned that one of those 1,000 yard receivers was fullback John Clay.

He led his team with eights catches for 92 yards that day and closed the season with 69 receptions for 1024 yards (14.8 average) and seven touchdowns. Clay was also third on the team in rushing with 304 yards (5.3 average).

Not bad for a guy who by many accounts was only modestly recruited by the school he signed with, a class-filler type recruit.

The Tulsa story continues to get better. Heavily overlooked is the fact that one of their receivers set an NCAA reception average record.

[Brennan] Marion last season averaged an astounding 31.9 yards per catch on 39 receptions, breaking the 39-year-old Division I-A mark set by Houston's Elmo Wright, who averaged 27.9 yards on 43 receptions in 1968. That's an amazing accomplishment, especially considering Marion was in his first season at Tulsa.

Not bad. Read the story by Rivals writer Olin Buchanan for details on Marion's vagabond existence, attending six high schools and two junior colleges, at times without a place to live.

Much-hyped Notre Dame was overshadowed for once today, but here's guessing their fans don't mind. As a rule Notre Dame players seem to be a bit overrated by the recruiting services but across the nation there seems to be a vibe that Notre Dame's Signing Day haul was commendable. Rivals currently gives the Irish the #2 signing class, not far behind Alabama despite only 23 commitments to the Tide's 32.

So what gives? Was it luck of the Irish or simply a shrewd recruiting season for beleaguered coach Charlie Weis?

Here's guessing playing time was a major factor. Notre Dame played an army of young players last year. They looked terrible for it, posting the team's worst record in seemingly forever. Somehow that bad record and little hope for next year could be overlooked by many.

Among the best gets for Notre Dame: Ohio tight end Kyle Rudolph (nation's #20 player), California Quarterback Dayne Crist the nation's #25 player, tallish Minnesota receiver Michael Floyd (#27), Oregon defensive end Ethan Johnson (#32), Nebraska offensive lineman Trevor Robinson (#37), Michigan tailback Jonas Gray (#72) and Chicago linebacker Darius Fleming (#89).

Notre Dame also managed to steal defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore at the last minute from Texas A&M. Wednesday's big story was the retention of 6'-4" Virginia receiver Deion Walker who appeared ready to freak out and head to Penn State before sticking with the Irish.

Recruiting wasn't always like this. Until recently, the broad-based networks like Rivals.com and Scout weren't even an idea in someone's mind.

Not long ago it was old school, with names like Allen Wallace, Tom Lemming and Rick Kimbrel. They (and others) published once-a-year magazines, perhaps a newsletter or a 900 number for the hopelessly committed recruiting fan to know something so simple as the name, high school, height, weight and brief athletic summary of a recruit. It also helped to know where he was headed, of course.

Reflecting on how things have changed, listen to this anecdote from Rick Kimbrel who is now the West Coast Editor for Rivals.com:

It was still a small world back then. Things were done in hard copy, weeks in advance. Every kid he called got excited to hear his voice.

But Kimbrel always had a sense it could be bigger. The 900 number they'd started was doing brisk business. People loved the real-time information they could get. And it wasn't just fans. Lawyers, doctors, even Nike chairman Phil Knight, signed up.

The athletes he scouted saw the power in it too. One mention in Blue Chip Illustrated and they were set. One of his first big finds was a wide receiver out of South Central L.A. named Keyshawn Johnson.

"Keyshawn would always come by and hang out in my office. He was at Valley College at the time, but he had no place to go," Kimbrel said. "So he'd come in and read through all the magazines we'd publish and just talk to us."

That would pretty much never happen now.

Indeed. In fact, a solid handful of kids with offers from around the nation annually avoid the recruiting writers altogether, leaving coaches, friends, teammates and sometimes family in the dark until they've made up their minds.

And in that time, the 900 numbers are mostly a relic, giving way to Rivals, Scout and a handful of other comprehensive recruiting services. According to the article Rivals now has 180,000 subscribers to go along with over 70 million page views on signing day. Yahoo! recently bought Rivals for $100 million.

Sure looks like it.

Several months ago, the Ohio State website BuckNuts left the Scout.com network. Not long ago, another top school's affiliate website left Scout when the Florida website Gator Country departed. And news comes in tonight that WeAreSC, the USC affiliate, has informed Scout they are leaving the network.

What gives? I don't know, but it's interesting. It's one thing for a random site operator to choose independence over network affiliation as has happened at both Scout.com and competitor Rivals.com. But this is an entirely different animal when three affiliates of high-profile schools leave like that.

I first remember hearing about BuckNuts' departure and thinking: ok, that's interesting. Maybe they had an independent streak in them. But not long after that I began hearing rumors that two other top 10 programs would soon depart. Well, today is the day that rumor came to realization. Something is officially rotten in Denmark.