2017 athlete Bryce Watts announced his decommitment on Sunday from Rutgers.
pic.twitter.com/vly8Bj3By8— Bryce Watts (@BryceWatts2_6) January 16, 2017
The Toms River, NJ 3-star product committed to the Scarlet Knights in March. Virginia Tech offered Watts in May, and he informed The Key Play his official visit to the Hokies is January 20.
NJ.com published a solid summary of his recruitment to date.
A 6-foot, 170-pound three-star and one of the biggest risers in the latest NJ.com Top 50, Watts is being heavily pursued by Virginia Tech, which has allegedly presented him the opportunity to play on both sides of the ball.
However, since his pledge, Watts has earned offers from Virginia Tech, Pitt and Purdue and has become one of N.J.'s household names leading up to national signing day.
And although he has a number of options down the stretch, the Hokies are perceived to be the team he will flip to.
Comments
Turn down for Watts
So what I'm getting out of this is, he woke up and realized that he was committed to play football at Rutgers and came to the obvious conclusion that that was a bad decision
So, I know I am reacting badly to sarcasm here, but the big push for a lot of NJ talent is to stay in state. The same way we bemoan all the VA talent that leaves state. NJ has a very loyal population in the way of "my state is literally the best" that creates a pitbullish mentality when people make fun of NJ. It entrenches them deeper and a lot of NJ talent that winds up at Rutgers is due to the fact that a lot of NJ natives have exactly 0 plans to leave the state.
Source: From NJ. Knew one of the more prominent NJ talents (Knowshon Moreno) that went out of state.
Their in state talent must royally suck, then
They were really bad this year, but they won more games than we did in 2014, and have been a pretty successful program since 2005, and that's for a historically bad program.
I occasionally have nightmares about disappearing during Christmas at my in-laws to watch that Russell Athletic Bowl. Totally not worth the fall out from that so I say screw Rutgers any and every way possible and I take great pleasure watching them languish at the bottom of the B1G.
I cut my Christmas visit short with my family to go back home to Orlando and go to the game. Still worth it, I think. Hokies won and what was I going to do, sit around Bristol for two more days doing nothing? I had 3rd row, 30 yd line seats.
Don't knock that game too much... A.J. Hughes will be telling his grandchildren about that one.
I think you would rather mention his performances in the Miami games
Sure I would... but he'll relish telling his grandchildren about the game where he punted 10,000 times in 60 minutes.
"If you love you great defense, you'll love this game" - ESPN that game probably.
We almost lost to them in a bowl game in 2012. They're also a state that is like a third the size of Virginia.
And? We weren't a good team that year. They've also managed to get a lot worse since then.
Exception of this year, so did we.
I feel like you're blurring the descriptor of "a lot" with that. Rutgers became LOLUVa levels of awful, we just continued to struggle to win 6 games. There's a big difference.
Part of that wasn't Rutgers getting worse, the competition the played got better. They are in a down few years though. When Greg Schiano was chugging along, that team was scary.
no Rutgers is a lot worse now than they were even three years ago. That team is a dumpster fire and just got put on recruiting probation I wouldn't touch that school with a 10' pole
'...a third the size of Virginia'
You mean in geographic area? NJ pop 8.9M VA pop 8.4M according to the font of all knowledge.
Geographic area yes. I may enjoy bending the truth when I construct arguments. Damn you for being skeptical.
That must be the long way of saying "wrong".
Ambiguous and wrong are two separate things my friend. I was part of both this time.
Maybe in land mass. New Jersey has a higher population than Virginia by about a half million.
I know I keep barking up this tree but I went to high school with Russell Wilson, he would have accepted a scholarship from Virginia Tech on the spot (despite both of his parents being UVA alums)...the rumor was that if we offered Wilson, Tyrod wouldn't have committed to VT. Also, Beamer wasn't keen on WIlson playing both baseball and football.
I realize Wilson was only a two star athlete at the time however...we have to nail these "diamond in the rough" prospects in Virginia every single time if we can't close on the 5 star guys year in and year out. I know we sometimes do it (e.g. Kam Chancellor, Danny Coale, Sam Rogers) but damn, we should be able to identify talent every single year in our backyard.
Well...
I would have liked to have had Russell Wilson but I am more than happy with Tyrod instead. If Wilson really wanted to be a two-sport athlete and Frank really didn't like the sound of it, then his decision to go with Tyrod is good with me. Tyrod was one of our most successful and universally beloved players ever.
And Wilson bailed on NCSt because his baseball commitments messed with Tom O'Brien's team operations.
Tyrod did beat Russell head - to - head at NCSU.
If we had gotten both Wilson and Tyrod in 2007, one of them would have redshirted...call me optimistic but if we had r-Sr. Tyrod/Wilson at quarterback instead of r-Soph. Logan Thomas in 2011, we beat Clemson (twice) and play in the national championship...Jameis Winston played both baseball and football at FSU, I don't see the reason why Wilson could have done both at Virginia Tech, especially given his legendary work ethic.
Although this is technically true, the Wilson/O'Brien dynamic was much more complicated than that. During 2011 spring ball, Mike Glennon threw a temper tantrum and told O'Brien that he was going to transfer from NC State if he didn't make him the starting quarterback in 2011. O'Brien decided he'd rather have two seasons of Mike Glennon (who was there during spring practices) than one year of Russell Wilson so he told Wilson he could come back but only as a backup to Glennon (even though had spent the past 3 years as the starter).
O'Brien treated Glennon as his "favorite child". O'Brien recruited Glennon out of high school and thought he could be a Matt Ryan-type at NC State (O'Brien was the HC at BC when Matt Ryan was the quarterback...Glennon was a 4/5 star prospect coming out of high school). Russell Wilson was recruited by the previous coaching staff and just finished his redshirt year when O'Brien took over. The only reason why Glennon chose NC State over UVa is because a highly rated QB prospect committed to the Wahoos a year earlier (Peter Lalich) and Glennon though he wouldn't be able to play right away. He thought so little of Wilson, he committed to NC State thinking he could start as a true or redshirt freshman. O'Brien biggest pitch to Glennon was 1) Our QBs are terrible right now, you can play right away and 2) I coached Matt Ryan, I think you can become the next Matt Ryan.
Of course #1 turned out to be false when in 2008, O'Brien redshirted Glennon and Wilson ended up winning ACC player of the year as a r-Fr, thereby cementing his status as the starting quarterback (and #2 turned out to be false because he is a Glennon). Wilson gave O'Brien a reason to not make him the starter in 2011 and O'Brien ran with it. Wilson was forced to transfer to Wisconsin and ended up setting the NCAA record for passing efficiency, winning a superbowl, signing a 100 million dollar contract and marrying a pop star. O'Brien got fired from NcSt, coached at LOLUVA for two years and is now out of coaching.
The reason we couldn't land both is because one would have been a 1 year starter at best. Seems highly logical to me why we would pursue the one that might not bail on football for baseball.
Wilson was a two-star prospect at the time with two scholarship offers (one from Duke when Duke was the worst program in Power 5 football)...he would have taken a scholarship to VT on the spot from what I've heard from friends, teachers etc.
I feel like there's quite a bit of "bending the truth" as it was called above in this post.
First off recall that the coaching staff wanted to redshirt Tyrod his freshman year. If that plan had been successful, the entire hypothetical falls apart. Secondly there's clearly no guarantee that Wilson would have been willing to wait 4 years only for a chance to start as a r-Sr (nor that he would have become the player he did without the game experience or being a backup for 4 seasons).
You make a lot of negative remarks regarding Tom O'Brien and Glennon. It seems beyond ridiculous to say "Glennon thought so little of Wilson" considering the situation and likelihood that Glennon would have no inside information about Wilson's redshirt year or potential. Furthermore, to insinuate TOB called Russell Wilson "terrible" while recruiting Glennon seems like a massive stretch- not to mention I have no doubt that all coaches sell potential early playing time to talented recruits. Anyway, saying Glennon was going to fail because "he is a Glennon" was in extremely poor taste and it's way past time to let go of that animosity.
After Glennon enrolled Wilson was the ACC rookie of the year and 1st team all ACC QB in 2008 (Thad Lewis was 2nd and frankly the state of ACC football was reflected by the QB quality) but Wilson was never selected as player of the year. Despite Wilson's success at Wisconsin, Glennon was actually drafted higher (73 v 75) so obviously TOB wasn't alone in his assessment.
Finally Wilson has done well as a pro but I have no idea what marrying a pop star has to do with anything.
http://www.roanoke.com/webmin/sports/n-c-state-qb-mike-glennon-is-no-str...
A lot of what I've said came from conjecture and hearsay from second and third hand accounts. Obviously I was very pro-Wilson as I'd like to see one of my childhood acquaintances become a Blacksburg legend however that wasn't in the cards for him...most of my accounts are from people in the pro-Wilson camp as well so I guess it fair to look at with a grain of salt.
But we're getting off track here so this will be last post about the subject.
As someone who grew up in WV, all I can say is it's incredible how many NJ plates there are in Morgantown. That's one of WVU's pipelines, it seems. It applied to athletes too, last time I had the energy to look.
So what does this tell us about either NJ or WVU? That people in Jersey think that WVU is a wonderful place, comparatively? That WVU thinks that NJ people are smart because they want to come there and they accept them academically? There are Jersey and cousins jokes in there somewhere.
I grew up and live in NJ. WVU is an extremely popular safety school along with Delaware. I knew a few people that went there that were slackers in HS who ended up being put on academic probation/expelled. It's party school reputation is a draw.
Fact is that NJ is one of the top exporters of college students - so everywhere you go in the northeast & mid-Atlantic is going to have a ton of NJ kids.
heck, I was always surprised at the number of NJ kids I ran into at Tech.
NJ is the number one out of state sender ahead of MD, PA, and NC. https://www.vt.edu/about/factbook/student-overview.html
Hell every spring and fall in Richmond its nothing but NJ plates trying to get their kids out and in the U of R. Oh, they suck as drivers too.
Can confirm. I taught a year at a college in DC and easily half my students each semester were from Jersey. Probably even more than just half, but I don't have that data anymore.
This was true back in the early 80's. My next door neighbor my freshman year was from Cape May. He used to wander the hall playing his guitar. Great guy, and not a bad guitar player. If you're out there somewhere, Kent Skellinger, say hello.
Considering the comparatively huge number of NJ kids in Blacksburg for a campus 8-10 hours away, I don't know that we want to go down this road.
As someone who grew up at the Shore (Garden State Parkway Exit 63), I agree.
Married a girl I met at VT who was from Salem, VA. For years her uncles would always refer to me as the "damn Yankee".
And hey, as they'll all tell you, they have the famous Pine Barrens.
Another Stro ?!
Yes please. Only 2 weeks to go gents...
Anyone else read RU and think Radford?
me lol but that's probably because I see it so much living 15 min
away from the RU campus
My first thought:
"This poor kid, he thinks Radford has a football team...boy did those guys pull one over on him." /s
In all seriousness, when I read RU I did instantly think Radford and then realized it meant Rutgers.
Radford...When I was there, I would almost guarantee that we could take people out of the Moffett Quad and beat the Scarlet Nights.
Versatile player. Seems to have a good football "sense". Hope he commits
to the good guys.
He de-committed from Rutgers. Screams good sense to me.
The next Cory Bird?
Those electric moves would prove to be a needed boost of power, if we can plug him into a few different positions.
That's 15 yards for excessive punning and I am amped up about it.
I know this is a spark of enthusiasm but may I suggest you keep yourself grounded?
Opponents will pose little resistance as he runs, amped, through them.
ohm my God, will you guys just stop it.
I think Watts has so much potential from where he is now, ground zero if you will, to where he will finish.
While that may be a direct opinion, there are alternating views as well.
I swear, I'm gonna pull the plug on you schmucks. Unfortunately, I don't really have the power to do that...
That'll just get us more charged up! You may want to decrease the capacitance so there is less potential for this to continue. That or find a way to discharge the puns from the thread.
Why do you want to switch off the good times?
So, how do you suggest the situation be rectified?
This sub thread induced me to distribute a lot of legs. I love you all.
It's a joule of a thread for sure.
Had to figure that TKPers newtons of puns related to science and engineering.
I wonder wye.
I don't know but I definitely don't have the capacity for many more of these.
I have no power to resist any longer. I may have to give up TKP Faraday.
I'm not that smart so this whole thread is over my head.
Don't let it blow a fuse.
Don't resist. Let the current take you.
Don't worry, when you go to a school like VT where there are a lot of sources/sauces you can always step up your knowledge.
That's ok, just sit over there and meditate... Ohm... Ohm... Ohm...
Last one. Speaking of power - given time, Watt will become a joule on this offense.
If you think that's the last one, you must mean the joule of denial.
Maybe I short circuited.
He would excel at all three phases of the game
Ohm getting out of here before this gets ridiculous
Hey everyone, I found the resistor
Dang, he is fast. He real fast
This Fast?
Really great with the crowds too.