Helicopter Recruiting

Did not like the way this chopper took off. Ed Foley must have been flying.

Helicopter Parenting is a term that has been around for a while and it means a parent or parents who take an excessive interest in the lives of their children, almost to an unhealthy level.

helicopterparent

Geoff Collins thanks God he landed safe and sound.

A much more recent phrase is Helicopter Recruiting, and that has an entirely different connotation. What might be unhealthy parenting usually translates into healthy recruiting and recruits almost universally love to be recruited that way.

Plus, it enables a coach to get to a lot of places on the same day.

Count new Temple football head coach Geoff Collins as a devotee of Helicopter Recruiting, something old coach Matt Rhule did not particularly like.

The first coach from the area who did this was Greg Schiano at Rutgers eight years ago and it produced some outstanding recruiting classes for the Scarlet Knights.

Right now, Temple fans will settle for Collins holding serve with most of Rhule’s 16 committed recruits and that apparently is the plan. If Collins can poach a couple of Power 5 recruits, something that Rhule and Al Golden seemed to do toward Signing Day, that can only be considered a bonus.

Really, Collins cannot be fairly judged by this recruiting class. We hear he’s a great recruiter, but that will be determined by his next class, not his first. One recruit we can talk about is Florida quarterback Todd Centeio because he already is enrolled at Temple and in the luxurious Morgan Hall. He’s a three-star and undoubtedly will give the other quarterbacks a run for their money.

Todd Centeio already is enrolled at Temple.

We usually do not like to talk about specific recruits in this space because of two reasons. One, these guys have not signed their names on the dotted lines yet and, two, the NCAA has specific rules against contacting recruits and we adhere to them.

If such news breaks our way, we’ll report it but, for now, we will leave the Helicopter recruiting to a good pilot named Geoff Collins.

Tuesday: The Patenaude Effect

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11 thoughts on “Helicopter Recruiting

  1. Really like seeing this, and agree on judging his next (read first) recruitment class.

    Pete Carroll did similar when he landed in Seattle. Took prospective players out for a flight. Seems campy, but really I think it helps. This was definitely something Rhule was lacking; pizazz.

    We need some 4*’s that can turn into 5*’s instead of relying on 3*->4*’s.

  2. Temple actually owns a helicopter and uses it for recruiting athletes? Maybe Russo, Centeio and the entire QB corps will continue to take Temple to the air and even more productively than Walker did. Just want to see the program continue to take flight…..hard to believe tho that Collins won’t be doing any recruiting. What’s up with that?

  3. Using the chopper means the coach and the program are serious. Coach can tell a prospective player “I need that to get right back to campus. Preparing for the opener in South Bend.” Think that doesn’t leave an impression?

  4. 2016 Recruiting class ranked in the 58 with 16, Three Stars and 1 Four Star. This years class (24/7 FB Recruiting) ranks 94 with 3 Three Stars. This looks like one of the lightest recruiting classes in some time. Did Rhule and his staff just stop recruiting?

    • Funny thing is at least 5 of the present 2* players were ranked low 3*, but when the rankings got updated they moved down to 2*.

      – On another note, 2* TE Tyler Sear who flipped to Pitt saw his rankings increase to a mid-3* … that’s how rankings work in the world of the P5.

      – Nevertheless, this isn’t looking like a good recruiting class is we lose Blackshear & Taylor.

    • That is a great point I haven’t given much thought about until now. Looks to me that at certain point, Rhule thought he was going to bail and mailed the recruiting part of his job in. Call it bail and mail. Got to 16 recruits after the Memphis game and it got stuck on 16. After that point in the season last year, the Owls had 22 commits only only had to fine tune until the end.

  5. Bad news for the Owls. Wide receiver coach is leaving for the Titans.

  6. There isn’t going to be any happy February surprise this year and the lack of linemen is disconcerting to say the least.

    • Temple has had at least one P5 decommit under every coach in every year since Al Golden (Adrian Robinson de-committed from Pitt), Daz (Nate L. Smith from West Virginia), Matt Rhule (too many to mention but we’ll start with Anthony Russo). If Collins, with his personality, can’t do the same with a championship belt he can wave (AAC) in their faces, that’s a bad sign.

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