recruiting board update

The baseball game starts soon. In fact, the way things usually go, it'll probably be started by the time you're reading this. Heck, it'll probably be over by the time you're reading this. I hope we won. Anyway, win or lose, any opinions on the regional have to wait til tomorrow. This past weekend, baseball wasn't the only game in town. Mike London hosted a big, big recruiting day - the kind where you get a whole bunch of your top recruits in town, show them around, show their parents you actually have classrooms and stuff, and then sit them all down and get as many commitments as you can before they leave town and have a chance to have too many second thoughts.

The end result is that some updates need to be made to the recruiting board, in a good way. With school getting out for the year, the camp circuit is getting fired up and events like this are getting more common and the result is that recruits are going to have a lot more reason to start committing places. So I'll see if I can't get the editor to update that board a little more regularly.

The other development that accompanies this time of year is that the recruiting services start to come out with their ratings. That means, pretty soon, I'll start profiling the commitments so far, of which there are 10, plus one holdover from 2010. It's useful to have three services instead of two, because disagreements in the ratings can be more easily ironed out. I always do them in order that they committed, so basically as soon as the services get around to giving Adrian Gamble some stars, that's when I'll start. You'll notice a lot more stars and such on the board this time, as these ratings have largely begun trickling out to the masses.

So, here are the latest updates:

- Moved DT Vincent Croce and DE Marco Jones to orange. You know that means: it means yay. Both are solid, solid pickups for Mike London. Croce especially; whatever his ratings turn out to be (pretty good so far; Scout has him at four stars) his offer list is highly impressive.

- Moved ATH Brandon Phelps up to blue. Phelps has offers from everywhere and I mean everywhere: LSU, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Alabama, Notre Dame, the works. You probably know the story - that Phelps is a UVA legacy - but it would still be a major recruiting coup for London if he could snag Phelps over offers like that. And he's working on it hard. UVA fans should pay close attention to this one, if you aren't already.

- Added TE Eric Frohnapfel to blue and his brother, QB Blake, to yellow. I get the sense both would be Cavaliers already if Blake had an offer. Eric has his, though. We'll have to wait and see on Blake.

- Added TE Ryan Malleck to yellow.

- Added a couple more names to "most-desired" status: QB Kevin Hogan and CB Blake Countess. Countess looks like a keeper - got the big ratings and the offer list to match - and Hogan is the top-available quarterback. You always want quarterbacks. Their names are now highlighted in orange.

This thing is getting bulky, I'll tell you what. But it makes for a very interesting recruiting season. An improvement over last year.