The Scouting Guru has been all over the San Gabriel Valley and beyond, and like always, he’s offered to share his thoughts, free of charge. Don’t hate, enjoy it for what it’s worth, which is one man’s opinion on the talent and teams in the San Gabriel Valley and surrounding areas.
The Guru Says: We are four weeks away from National Signing Day for high school prospects across the country. So let’s tale a look at what our big board looks like for high school prospects in the area. Some information we can’t release due to confidentiality between the prospect, the high school and college that is recruiting the student-athlete.
1. Adam Muema (Charter Oak, 5-9 , 180, 4.62HT) — This newspaper’s Player of the Year saw his recruiting end on Sunday night as it was officially announced that he has committed to San Diego State. This is a great pick-up for the Aztecs.
2. Jordan Canada (South Hills/Duarte, 5-9e, 180e, 4.7e) — Even though this prospect didn’t play this year, his recruiting has been very interesting. He still has an offer from New Mexico State and will be taking an official trip to Fresno State this weekend. All I will say is that if he plays this season, he would have had at least 10 offers this year. But the neat thing about the prospect is that his attitude has been nothing more than sensational.
3. Darian Johnson (Bishop Amat, 5-8 , 4.8e) — The single hottest recruit in the area this fall. When the season started, he didn’t have an offer. At the end of the season, he has offers from New Mexico and Northern Arizona and will be tripping to New Mexico State near the end of the month. It might be tough to walk away from the New Mexico State offer if they offer him that weekend. Very happy to see his recruiting takeoff.
4. Keith Smith (Charter Oak, 6-1, 216, 4.9e) — I have not seen a recruit that has seen his situation change more than this prospect. At one time, this kid had offers from various schools – which included Utah. We told various people that were involved with his recruiting that he should have taken an unofficial trip to Utah during the summer and committed during the trip. Instead, he decided to wait to see what would happen in the fall during the season (hoping to get an offer from either Washington State and Stanford). Well, the problem with waiting is that when you wait, schools get verbal commitments from other prospects they have offered and if they are filled at that player’s position, they will drop the interest in the prospect. So now the three schools that are in play now for Smith are San Jose St, UNLV and Villanova.
5. Brandon Golden (Charter Oak, 5-9 e, 170e, 4.85e) — First-team All-CIF selection this year, even though Golden took a trip to Colorado in December, he remains as a solid commit to Washington State. He is proof that once you get an offer from a BCS school, you should be all over that offer.
6. Geoffrey Vaughns (South Hills, 5-10l, 166, 4.58HT) – The San Antonio League’s Most Valuable Player, Vaughns has been another player that has seen a lot of recruiting interest during the month of December.
7. Ify Umodu (South Hills, 6-2, 198, 4.98) — Unlike some prospects that have interesting recruiting situations, this prospect has seen his recruitment go off the charts. He just had his first official trip this past weekend to San Jose St, will be tripping to Northern Arizona this weekend, has another trip to Portland State next weekend and has one more weekend available and it looks like Villanova could be the final school that he visits. Great family pedigree as his two older brothers Tobi (UCLA) and Kebin (Air Force) are playing D-1 football.
8. A.J. Powell (Charter Oak, 5-7, 175, 4.79HT) — Another one of the Charter Oak foursome that tripped to Colorado only to come home with no offer. He just picked up his second offer from Portland State. This comes on top of his first offer from New Hampshire back in the spring. If he is 5-11, he would probably have had a MWC or WAC school offer him.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ON PETE CARROLL DEPARTING USC…
As some of you many know, I have been a big USC fan since I was a little kid back in the day. I can still remember watching Marcus Allen (#33 back in the days at USC) running like the wind at USC. One of the true pleasures of being first hired at South Hills back in 2004 was that I could meet D-1 asst. coaches and head coaches on a regular basis. I was overwhelmed. One of biggest moments for me was meeting Steve Sarkisian for a spring visit at South Hills, when he was an assistant at USC and was recruiting the San Gabriel Valley and the Inland Empire. To say that I was speechless was an understatement. Just seeing a USC coach in person and talking with him was bigger than anything in the world at the time. He was the point man in getting in one of Steve Bogan’s players to being a walk-on at USC in Justin Hart…and it was during that time that I got to meet Pete Carroll.
The day that I went with Justin to USC and met Pete, he told me that he wanted me to come to his coaches clinic. All he said was, “coach, this is going to be the best clinic you’ll ever attend.” He got me fired up. And so, out of my own money, I went to the clinic and I can safely tell you, it changed me as a coach. The energy, devotion to the high school coaches at the clinic was something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. After the first night of the clinic, I wanted to go back to the school and do some video cut-ups. I was that much fired up. And the rest of the weekend was great. Which included me handling the “Cowboy” remote for one of the legendary assistant coaches of all time… Monte Kiffin.
As I got to see coach Carroll more and more, the more I would take his themes and weave them in whenever I was in the huddle with the South Hills players before they would take the field on Friday nights. And they worked. One of the funniest things that he ever told me was in 2007. Several weeks after the South Hills vs. West Covina game, I had to stop by the USC office to drop off some film when coach Carroll saw me and said, “Hey, it’s the flying mexician! Man, you looked great on Fox.” Needless to say, I wanted to crawl underneath a rock. But it was all in good fun and coach Carroll paid a great compliment to the South Hills program when he said, “you guys are doing a great job and it shows up on the field.” I felt I was 10 feet above the ground and couldn’t wait to get back to the school and tell coach Bogan.
The last thing that I hadn’t done was work a Rising Stars Camp. My good friend Albert Rodriguez (who is the offensive line coach at South Hills currently) had worked it in 2007 and I always wanted to work it. Well, in the summer of 2009, I got a call from Pete’s son Brennan, who told me, “Would you like to work the big one?” How could I say no? It was like I was being recruited to play for USC. It took me two seconds and I said, “Oh yeah.” If you go on my twitter account, (www.twitter.com/sgvierecruiting) you’ll see me taking a picture with the Heisman Trophy (and I case you are wondering, it was Matt Leinhart’s. It was taken right before the camp.
I wrote on this blog back in June that it was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I will always cherish it until the day that I die. Just being part of the coaching staff for two days, coaching up kids, having a blast doing it, taking in recruiting meetings, watching film, it was just way to cool for me. At the end of the camp, I went over to coach Carroll and said, “Thanks for making a dream come true. This was two of the greatest days in my life.” He told me to take the energy and bring back to the area and make sure that other guys could catch it.
And I will always do that.
You can argue that he shouldn’t have left. I’ll leave it to guys like Colin Cowherd and the rest of talk radio world. But for people in my age group that are (or were) in the coaching profession, coach Carroll made an impact that will last longer than any football championship. He taught us to coach with a high energy, great passion and to have fun out there on the football field. He proved that you can open up a college practice and have people watch it and enjoy themselves out there. He proved that it was OK to stop by the football office and talk ball with the coaches at anytime. He proved that it was cool to be around USC football.
What he did for the high school coaches in Southern California will never be forgotten. And that will be one of his greatest legacies. He made a huge impact in my life and for that I will always be grateful. I am a Baltimore Ravens fan, but I guess I can be a Seattle Seahawks fan too!
