This morning Recruit757.com reported, "Williams Leave Crabbers, Decommits From Hokies".
In a sharp turn of events, the Peninsula's hottest recruit for the Class of 2014 has completely cleaned the slate. Crabber running back Marshawn Williams has transferred out of Hampton High School and has decommitted from Virginia Tech. He’ll still be in the PD, and he's re-opened his recruitment.
Williams clarified his status with the Daily Press.
Daily Press' @davejohnsondp reports text from Hampton RB Marshawn Williams on if committed to #Hokies:"Yeah, just opening my recruiting."— Norm Wood (@normwood) February 19, 2013
Here's their story, the part that relates to Tech is quoted below.
Williams, 5-foot-11 and 220 pounds, rushed for 650 yards and 14 touchdowns on only 100 carries as a sophomore. He scored the winning touchdown in the Crabbers' 13-10 overtime win against Phoebus.
In June, three months before his junior year began, Williams committed to Virginia Tech. Williams said Tuesday he remains committed to the Hokies but will also explore other options
To me, there's no difference among decommitting, opening one's recruitment, and staying committed, but looking around. No verbal is a guarantee until a prospect signs his letter of intent. However, Williams seems to distinguish varying degrees of his status, and that's the only thing that matters here. He hasn't come out and said Tech is out of the picture, on the contrary, the Hokies seem to be remain in the hunt for his services. The recently departed Curt Newsome was Williams recruiter, and according to 247Sports, that job is now Cornell's. It seems like Tech will have start their recruiting process all over again, rebuild the relationship lost when Newsome was fired, with Brown as the lead.
Comments
Considering this was the only recruiting causality that I know of from when we changed the staff I think we got out relatively unscathed
Fishing?
Maybe he's fishing for a higher rating/ranking based on what we discussed in the 2014 Target Board thread. Also, maybe he just wants some attention.
he's not a thoroughbred is he?
THIS is the important question to me. Are there any websites out there with the rosters of some of these teams? Rivals even lists the AAU teams for the basketball guys these days.
That would really piss me off if there's some scummy coach out there getting guys to de-commit from Tech because he is bitter at us for not violating NCAA rules by recruiting through him, and not offering his mediocre son a scholarship. That is clearly why Blanding and Kamara are not interested in Tech at all.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him being on their team, and the http://757sportsacademy.com/ website is down indefinitely, it seems. I believe Blanding, Nnadi, Brown, Kamara, and Holmes are all associated with that team / academy.
Shit
.....
Two things come to mind here....
1. With Curt Newsome gone, it's not out of bounds for him to want to reassess. At least he's telling us he is reassessing. But he's a VT fan with Deon Newsome, one of his boys, now @ VT, we just need to start recruiting him again.
2. I really like how our staff has evolved into better recruiters, but there is one really big concern: Cornell Brown. He has very few pelts on the wall, and now he's been given one of the premiere areas in the country...at at time when competition down there is fierce AND he's up against the prejudice of the Thouroughbreds. We need to keep a very keen eye on Cornell Brown in this recruiting cycle. Newsome really missed on some key talent the last five years, we need recruiting wins on the peninsula....stat.
I'm gonna guess that he heard you loud and clear as he just posted this minutes ago:
I think he's all over this situation right now.
I think Brown has a great chance to be a very good recruiter.
I don't think it's any coincidence that Brown was put in charge of that part of the state either. A fresh face could be a positive step towards making inroads.
Agreed.
Cornell Brown's biggest recruiting win was how he won this specific assignment. The fact that we know how important the 757 is and that we put him there speaks very highly.
And I agree about the fresh voice part too. Especially with the evolving dynamic down there....
Here's the thing. Cornell just has the Peninsula. In the last 10 years, the majority of the talent (at least the talent that has qualified) has been on the Southside, where Stiney is. Cornell will be just fine, and if it is a can't miss recruit, he'll have help.
Mostly because of pure numbers
There are 10 teams in the Peninsula District: 4 in Hampton, 5 in Newport News, and Gloucester.
Southside has 3 districts:
The (Virginia) Beach District has 11.
The Eastern District has 8 teams: 5 in Norfolk and 3 in Portsmouth.
The Southeastern District has 10 teams: 7 in Chesapeake and 3 in Suffolk.
And even besides that, the two powerhouses in the PD (Hampton and Phoebus) have pretty weak academics and a history of players that don't qualify.
PD
It really is amazing how poor the academics are there, that the majority of Hampton and Phoebus kids end up at Norfolk state or Hampton U at best, even though those two teams usually take turns dominating the east region.
Eastern Region?
Try State D5 playoffs.
During the last 20 years, each of the two has had a 4-year state title streak, it's ridiculous.
I wouldn't mind hearing why he chose to transfer. Thats a couple of big pieces of news rolled into one.
^^This
I feel like transferring HS at this time is slightly a more important, and worrisome question than his recruitment. If there's factors detrimental to us taking him as a recruit causing him to leave his current HS, that should raise some flags.
How is he even allowed to transfer?
Where I'm from it takes an act of congress to move high schools without physically moving to the district? Especially if its for sports.
Maybe Obama's a UVA fan?
...and gave him presidential permission.
A few potential reasons:
1.) His family physically relocated;
2.) He moved in with a family member (aunt/uncle/sibling) who lives in another school district;
3.) Change in legal guardian who lives in another school district (e.g. a coach). Don't laugh, this happens more often than you think;
4.) He is transferring to a parochial/prep school;
I'm not from VA, but where I grew up we had a voucher program where you could apply and potentially be granted a voucher to attend a school in another district without paying tuition (pay through your local taxes, as though you were attending your local school). That's another potential reason.
Remember, Holland Fisher changed programs prior to his Senior year. It happens every now and then. If it is option 3 above, we might have more reason to worry.
He's going to Pheobus
He's transferring to Pheobus, Hampton's biggest rival. Didn't Holland Fisher go to a private school? I understand all of the above reasons being a possibility but all the reports make me feel like its athletics related. Could be wrong.
Holland
I thought holland transferred from Clover Hill to Manchester. Both are public schools.
Although they might both have specialty programs. I know you can apply to go to Clover Hill for the Math-Sci program, but I'm not sure if manchester has a specialty program.
Every high school in Chesterfield County has a specialty program attached to it and Manchester's is Communications, but I dont think you can change after freshman year. I know you can drop but I dont think you can transfer into a specific program.
Clover Hill moved as well
was also moved to a new location about 5 miles from the old one, throwing off some of the older alignments that were recently re-shifted when Cosby was completed/opened. In fact, the new location for Clover Hill is closer to Manchester than before so he may have simply been in that grey area where he had a choice of which school to attend. Some students stayed with CHHS and others went to Cosby, Manchester, or other schools in the area. I was a substitute teacher in Chesterfield County when the move was starting in 2008/09 and a topic then was what to do with kids "on the border" once CHHS was moved.
I don't see the HS transfer as a bad thing at all
Mike Smith @ Hampton is good friends with Curt Newsome.
Prior to Newsome coming aboard Smith basically gave VT the freeze-out treatment and lobbied for UVA. Something about Groh irritated him though, and combined with Newsome's presence on VT's staff it opened the doors for us @ Hampton High. That's basically how we secured Tyrod Taylor.
Hopefully Hampton doesn't freeze us out again now that Newsome is gone, but either way, having Williams at Phobeus is fine - AFAIK our staff has a great relationship with the staff there.
I know we did with Bill Dee
But he retired in 2009. And then Stan Sexton got fired this past fall, so who knows where we stand with their current staff.
I think Smith's son was a kicker and UVa and Groh didn't renew his scholarhip in bis 5th year. We actually signed a player from Hampton the year before Newsome and Taylor came to VT Todd Nolen i believe but he didn't qualify and went the JUCO route. Never heard anything from him since.
Yeah, Nolen never panned out
Between his academics and the "incident" that happened in boys bathroom one day at lunch (maiming charges were dropped) I'm not sure he would have been all that successful even if he had made it here
Dis Strange...
You here all the time of guys who commit really early and then get cold feet because they feel as though they rushed the decision. As others mentioned, the simultaneous changing of schools is what makes it really weird. Does anyone know how our relationships are with Phoebus coaches, aministrators etc? I know we currently don't have anyone on the rostor from there.
Xavier Adibi went there, and he was the tits. Thats all i got.
so did Chris Ellis from the same VT team. And (we didnt get him) but so did Tajh Boyd.
Ellis went to Bethel. Same as Gayle
Yeah Tajh did, DJ Parker also went to Pheobus
That is when Dee was their head coach. We used to have a mini pipeline there. It seemed that every BCS caliber player from there came to VT except Philip Brown who we backed off of.
DP Has your Answer
Andy Bitter put up an article saying that his family moved into the Pheobus area. It isn't too terribly far from Hampton High so not really a big change. The article didn't touch on why his family moved, just that it did. http://www.dailypress.com/sports/highschool/inside-the-pd-blog/dp-spt-in...
Grr... sorry the DP has your answer
Phoebus fired or suspended their coach this past season. Can't remember if they reinstated him or got someone new, or even if they have yet.
Mike Smith has been anti VT since the 60's, lol. He was my Dad's line coach at Hampton, and even then my Dad said Smith steered guys towards UVA or even Carolina, as the Hampton program always has. Ronald Curry, etc.
Any player leaving Hampton to head south to Phoebus isn't a bad thing for Tech, regardless of meaningless verbals.
Few items to consider.
Hampton and Phoebus district lines border each other. He could've literally moved across the street and transferred schools. Could be it, could be more.
Even though the commenter above says there is a bias. There's not, and if there is, it is toward another in-state school. Some folks mellow out as they get older, relationships change.
If you're looking for Williams to end up a Hokie, here's the wildcard to me in the scenario. Stan Sexton who was the Phoebus coach from 2009-2012 (and i do not believe sent anyone to VT during his tenure-Adibi(s), Parker, Lewis, Friday were all during Bill Dee's tenure-now at CNU) was fired last year after all hell broke loose with an altercation at practice/locker room, etc. New coach has no track record, and he is a younger guy and we don't know what connections/intentions this guy has. Not saying that there might be any ill intentions but it could be a wrinkle to the story.
Somewhere, Corwin Cutler's fathers ego grows because he thinks he had something to do with this.
And somewhere...
...he becomes an even bigger douche.
Ugh
Was that what Cutler meant when he said, "The damage has already been done"?
I don't see how someone could waste their energy on such a hopeless cause as UVA
All of these boys have had an opportunity to watch both teams that last few years and if any man could change their minds, we have a serious problem beyond football folks. I don't see this affecting maby recruits honestly.