First, let's get the painful stuff out of the way...
- In case anyone missed it, at around 5 PM yesterday it was made public that Soma Vainuku will not be heading to Corvallis. He was supposed to make a late visit but decided to pick USC instead.
- And here's the view from Omaha regarding Owa's decision. Looks like it wasn't just us he fooled with the orange shirt. I mean really, man - orange?! You HAD to wear orange?!
"OK, looking good so far. The kid's wearing orange, great! What a nice way for him to let everyone know he's staying in-state and is going to be a Beaver. Man, I hope he plays opposite Paea - what a wrecking crew. I wonder if he'll start as a frrrr..."
"...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOwamagbe Odighizuwa!"
via www.omaha.com
Best of luck to both Owa and Soma and hope they both light up the rest of the PAC 10, just not the good guys in orange.
On to the good news!
- A great piece ran about Fred Thompson and Ryan Murphy from Oakland Tech. Thompson sounds like the total package - a mature young man with a good work ethic, great talent and someone who is happy to be heading to Oregon State.
- Kerry Eggers had a nice behind the scenes look at Oregon State recruiting. He hung out with Riley and Co. as the faxes came in and announcements were made. Pretty cool if you haven't checked it out already.
- Cliff Kirkpatrick has a class summary with lots of quotes from Riley. Good stuff as usual.
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Buster Sports runs down some of the national rankings for this class and guess what--they're low (OMG!). On a serious note, I think it's recruiters like Riley who actually show just how goofy the star system can turn out being. I trust a football coach to evaluate talent and potentially with a little more accuracy than some guy with a stopwatch, a laptop and a website. Mike Riley, John Canzano AND
ChunkChip Kelly agree with me, so as far as the state of Oregon goes, I'm right and if you disagree with me, well, you work for Scout.com.
And since I'm tired of digging up links, here's some video from some of our signees...
SHAYDON AKUNA (OLB)
*This kid is the real deal. The video is proof.
ROMAN SAPOLU (C)
*Smart, aggressive and strong... I'm thinking he'll get along with Cav.
DONELL "DJ" WELCH (OLB)
*I'm thinking we're going to have some great OLBs. Welch moves so well and I think will make an immediate impact on special teams.
THOMAS MOLESI (DL)
*Notice the first play of the video, where Molesi snags a pick-six... from the DT position.
TYLER PERRY (TE)
*Big kid, moves well and has GREAT hands.
MALCOLM MARABLE (RB)
*If you don't enjoy watching this kid run you probably don't know football OR your team slept on him. Solid pick up.
CONNOR HAMLETT (TE)
*He's 6'7" and athletic. What's there not to like?
That's all for now. Post anything else in the comments and GO BEAVERS!