On Thursday the USC coaches tour landed in Orange County at the Balboa Bay Club. A large room which appeared to be about 1/4 full turned into a nearly 90% turnout minutes later (Traffic?).
Coach emeritus John Robinson introduced a group of about 7 students from the area that are entering USC. Out of 50K plus applicants only 3K were admitted into the freshman classes. JR interviewed players from Football (Zach Banner) and Basketball (Chimeze Metu). Zach was his casual , talkative self but says he lost 20 pounds and expects to lose another 20 pounds. He came back for his senior year because of coach Helton's hiring and mentioned his football family approach. He is taking Communication classes and hopes to be another Michael Strahan after football is done. Chimeze gained 15 pounds and the kid is taking pre-law classes. If that isn't impressive enough, he has a 3.2 GPA so far.
Coach Enfield reviewed the year and seemed a little surprised that Jovanovich left. He mentioned his 4 recruits and said his starters would be PG-McLaughlin, SG-Elijah Stewart. Frontcourt would be Chimezie, Bennie Boatwright and transfer Shaqquan Aaron (from Louisville). The backups would be freshmen. The OOC schedule this year would include Texas A&M and SMU (top 25 teams). He didn't envision getting a late transfer in to play this (2016-2017) season. But he thought that USC could be better than last year.
Coach Helton came in and thanked the players for last year and with Zach present talked about all his coaches including the OLine coach, Callaway, and how he said the kids would go through hell the first 3 weeks but then love the coach. In the second week he heard from Zach who said jokingly the OL was taking coach out for dinner, and Helton may never see him again. He mentioned each new coach and about his brother (QB coach and passing game coordinator) "He's from Western Kentucky who had a second great offensive year (44ppg, 526ypg) and that they used the TE position a lot. John Baxter is the new TE coach. That DC Clancy Pendergast loves to blitz and he looks forward to seeing him against new QBs at opponents. He wanted to win the PAC-12 title but was out muscled and outworked by Stanford after grabbing a lead in the Q3, and worked toward fixing that in Spring ball.
USC will continue to staff up the QB position appropriately as its importance dictates , and that his first recruit area is always the west due to locale and not having to play that player on conference opponents. The outside Cal recruiting concentrates in areas that they have had success. He thought that among early entrant players Db Jameel Cook, DT Connor Murphy and DB/WR Jack Jones could contribute well this year.
Coach emeritus John Robinson introduced a group of about 7 students from the area that are entering USC. Out of 50K plus applicants only 3K were admitted into the freshman classes. JR interviewed players from Football (Zach Banner) and Basketball (Chimeze Metu). Zach was his casual , talkative self but says he lost 20 pounds and expects to lose another 20 pounds. He came back for his senior year because of coach Helton's hiring and mentioned his football family approach. He is taking Communication classes and hopes to be another Michael Strahan after football is done. Chimeze gained 15 pounds and the kid is taking pre-law classes. If that isn't impressive enough, he has a 3.2 GPA so far.
Coach Enfield reviewed the year and seemed a little surprised that Jovanovich left. He mentioned his 4 recruits and said his starters would be PG-McLaughlin, SG-Elijah Stewart. Frontcourt would be Chimezie, Bennie Boatwright and transfer Shaqquan Aaron (from Louisville). The backups would be freshmen. The OOC schedule this year would include Texas A&M and SMU (top 25 teams). He didn't envision getting a late transfer in to play this (2016-2017) season. But he thought that USC could be better than last year.
Coach Helton came in and thanked the players for last year and with Zach present talked about all his coaches including the OLine coach, Callaway, and how he said the kids would go through hell the first 3 weeks but then love the coach. In the second week he heard from Zach who said jokingly the OL was taking coach out for dinner, and Helton may never see him again. He mentioned each new coach and about his brother (QB coach and passing game coordinator) "He's from Western Kentucky who had a second great offensive year (44ppg, 526ypg) and that they used the TE position a lot. John Baxter is the new TE coach. That DC Clancy Pendergast loves to blitz and he looks forward to seeing him against new QBs at opponents. He wanted to win the PAC-12 title but was out muscled and outworked by Stanford after grabbing a lead in the Q3, and worked toward fixing that in Spring ball.
USC will continue to staff up the QB position appropriately as its importance dictates , and that his first recruit area is always the west due to locale and not having to play that player on conference opponents. The outside Cal recruiting concentrates in areas that they have had success. He thought that among early entrant players Db Jameel Cook, DT Connor Murphy and DB/WR Jack Jones could contribute well this year.
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