Nick Hill Signing Day Press Conference Transcript

Saluki Football head coach Nick Hill unveiled the 2017 Signing Class on Wednesday. SIU signed 24 high school seniors and three junior college players. Hill spoke about each player individually before taking questions from the media. Bio information on all the players is available HERE (PDF).

Opening statement

Good afternoon everybody. I appreciate you guys coming. It is another really exciting day in Saluki Football. There are different dates on the calendar that you always really look forward to and this is one of them in the year of a football program. Recruiting, we've talked about it all the time as the life line of your program, and this is kind of like Christmas morning as far as that goes, and as far as getting new players. So much work goes into a signing class. So many people, a lot of hours, a lot of nights away from the office. There are thousands of high school football players out there and a lot that want to be recruited. But it's who you recruit, the vision of your staff and what you're trying to build. The culture that we set in year one, we set out and talked about it. We felt we had a really good signing class last year. We played seven true freshman, and we feel like there's 10 other ones that redshirted that are going to be immediate impact that will play as redshirt freshman. We knew the type of caliber of players that we could get in here and we set out and we talked about how it's not about the stars that are next to their names or how many offers they had. We know what we're going to build this program on. And we have to do our homework on our guys and we have to go get the guys that we want and we did that with this class. Every head coach in America is going to stand up and have a press conference today and talk about how excited they are about their program, and they should, and I'm going to stand up here and talk about ours. On paper people are going to look good, stats, those type of things. But we truly feel that this signing class paired with last year's in what we're doing with recruiting can really be a championship class. There's some guys in here, you never know until they get here and they pan out, but we have high expectations for a lot of them and I stand up here and couldn't be more excited. We went out and got a lot of good players, a lot of players that were number one on our board in the springtime. And here on Feb., 1 we're signing them which says a lot. As a head coach you set the vision of your program but without your stuff you couldn't do anything. I want to thank my staff for the hard work that they put in. Nate Griffin is our recruiting coordinator and has done an outstanding job with the official visits and the organization, who's going where and what we're doing and who are we recruiting in junior days. It's just a full year or more of recruiting these kids and so today is a big day for our staff and I want to thank them. And also our families, we talk about family all the time. You're recruiting basically for two months once the season is over, you're not home much. You leave on Sunday, come back on Friday, there are official visits all weekend, so you're not sitting at home. We involve our families in everything on the weekend but then you're right back at it on Sunday. There's a little dead period around Christmas and then you're right back at it for four weeks in January. This is another big day as well for our families they're just as much a part as it as any of our coaches. Without our families, none of this would happen either. We appreciate them, we appreciate the moms and our kids. So it'll be nice these next few weeks before spring ball to be back at home every single night. With that, I'll talk a little bit about the class, go through each one of them. I know I could talk for days about them, I don't bring up any notes. I always said when I became a head coach I didn't want anybody in the country to out-recruit me as a head coach. Sometimes you get caught up in your day-to-day routine, and some head coaches like recruiting more than others, but I love it. There's not a day that goes by that I don't recruit. During the season, out of the season, doesn't matter what it is, if we can do it we're doing it. And so I love these kids, and I've gotten to know them, and I'm proud to talk about them.

WATCH FULL PRESS CONFERENCE ON YOUTUBE

Jack White bounced around to two different junior colleges. He's from Chicago Mt Carmel. We knew this kid in high school and had some offers outside of high school but wanted to try and get a better offer. Went and started at two different junior colleges and had a lot of offers coming out of junior college. Just coming from Chicago Mt Carmel, Coach Lenti does an outstanding job, maybe one of the best high school football coaches in the state of Illinois. So we know the program he's coming from. He's won a state championship in Illinois and we're happy to get Jack. We're really excited we get him for spring ball. Which is huge for him to come in here, get in shape, meet our strength coach and be set up for success in the fall. But we feel like Jack can push to be on the field this season.

Quadarius Reed the one guy that still has to finish up this semester back down in Co-Lin Junior College. Defensive line is something that we felt like we have a few guys that are leaving that we needed to get a guy with some expierence to play right away and Q is that guy. We'll be excited to get him here in May to get him here for the summertime. This fall we'll be counting on him to play for us. Great kid that came up on his visit and had some other offers. He went on some other even FBS. He took an official visit to North Carolina and was offered by Colorado State and we were able to land him just through the recruiting process. We got him at the right time of year to get him signed.

Man I'm really excited about Ralph Leonard. Ralph started his career at FAU and played as a true freshman from Starksville, Mississippi. I remember seeing him as a high school kid and knew we couldn't get him. He had a bunch of FBS offers. Went to FAU, got a little homesick, came back to East Mississippi Junior College. That may be one of the best junior colleges in the country. He had a really good season and had offers but as you see, sometimes when you don't snag up those offers, they disappear on you. We were able to get on Ralph. He comes highly recommended from a couple coaches that I really trust in the business and feel like Ralph can come and play for us right away. He's been out there throwing with Sam in the evening time and the weekends. Sam is fired up about him. He's a great kid, he's quiet. He's not going to talk much but he's going to get out there during our workouts and bust his butt. He's exactly the type of kid we want to bring in here so he's got two years to play and I feel like he can be an immediate impact for us.

Chucky Sullivan is from Stevenson High school up by Chicago. Came here and came to a couple games, he actually went to prep school out in North Carolina. He's a little different because we've not signed a prep school kid since I've been here. It's kind f unique. He's really like a high school kid who's getting here early so he will get this spring plus five years to play. It's really big for him, he's going to mature, he's got spring ball. So, Chucky will be ahead of these other freshman that are coming in as far as an entire spring semester to be with our strength coach and the summer time. Chucky can play defensive end. For us to go out to prep school and get him, like all of these kids, we feel they can come here and be an impact player for us.

Brandon George is from Jones High, right out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He grew up in Florida right outside of Jacksonville. If you look at his stats you almost think that's not true. He was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Oklahoma which goes to the top player in Oklahoma. Not the most recruited or anything like that. He's a great kid. We were able to get on him. Coach Van Dam, our offensive coordinator and quarterback coach did an outstanding job recruiting him. With quarterbacks we feel like is a position you can almost recruit nationally just because they get out and go to so many camps. It doesn't have to be in an area we go to. We don't necessarily go to Oklahoma, we just happened to come about him. He had been in a lot lot of FBS camps and a couple coaches were just kind of like "Hey Brandon George is still out there" and he came to camp. We didn't know why he is still available and didn't think we could get him. We got on him and got to know him. He's a state champion. The one thing we put an emphasis on quarterback is I wanted a guy who won a championship. Just knowing what they know what it takes to win and to get one. It didn't mean we were only going to go after one with a state championship, but Brandon did and he was player of the year. I feel like he can make all our throws and run our offense. He does what we do. He can make all the throws, but he's a playmaker that makes plays when you spread the field out and makes good decisions with his quarterback background. His dad is a quarterback coach and is the offensive coordinator, so he's kind of a gym rat. I'm super excited to get my hands on him and coach him because he's a coachable kid. He will come here and compete. Looking at our quarterback room, Brandon will have a chance to push to be at that two or three spot this year. In his mind he will try to come and compete with Sam and that's what you want as a competitive kid that's a winner.

Bryson Strong...I can't say enough about Bryson Strong. He is the leader of this class. There's always one kid that takes the bull by the horns and just spear-heads everything. Now, with social media and texting, all that kind of stuff, has helped us. Bryson committed to us in the summer time. He's from Althoff, a local kid that we wanted. You go to each camp and guys get like this, just over looked. Is Bryson five ten or is he five eleven? If he was six foot tall he'd be going to Iowa. Iowa's coaches even told me that. So, to me, one inch isn't that big of a deal. Bryson strong is leader, he's a winner. Everybody is going to love him in this building. He's exactly the type of player you want to recruit. Marty Rogers did an excellent job recruiting him. We've actually seen him so many times it already feels like he's on the team. We got to know him and his family really well and I can't talk enough about him. He's obviously a heck of a football player but he's also the type of kid that's going to compete to get on the field.

Calvin Francis is an offensive lineman that was committed for a long time to Florida International and then their was a coaching change. He became available, and we have three players from his high school in Orlando on the team right now. So, when Calvin became available our guys were able to get him up here. The four of them are buddies, so, we'll have four kids from Jones High School…Calvin is a big kid when you see him you'll know who he is. He's think and can play inside, he will play inside for us, just a great offensive lineman. At the beginning of the year we didn't think we had a chance at him but we signed him. Calvin is a great kid, he's like Withney, born in the islands and he just became a citizen last year. He's and outstanding kid that has overcome a lot to get where he's at and we are excited about getting him up here.

Devin Jones comes from the garden spot of the world, Du Quoin. I've known Devin since he was little, so, this means a lot to me to sign him. My brother coached him, and this just isn't a signing to just get a kid from Du Quoin. Kind of like Brandon Williams who came here and played as true freshman, I'm not putting that on Devin to come here and play as a true freshman, but I spoke to him the other day and he weighed 273 pounds. He's a state champion in discus and he has his sights on another as well as breaking the state record. The kid has some athletic ability, he's big. Graduating high school at 275 you know he's going to be a big kid. He can play multiple positions, including tight-end, he can really move. Devin will find a place on our team, play, and be a really good player for us.

Dijon Anderson is coming from Warren Anderson High School, which is a powerhouse in Indianapolis. Indiana in general, the one, two, three players we've taken out of there the past two years have been really good for us and we feel Dijon will do the same. Jeremy Chinn was one of his teammates in a summer league, seven on seven, and Jeremy was in the signing class last year and he might have been the best freshman in the league. Dijon is a playmaker. He can play safety and he can play corner. He can even return punts, the kid is just used to doing things right. He comes from a program that's run like a college program, that just keep putting out guys every single year. We're excited about him. Like some of these other guys, Dijon has some personality to him, which I like. What's cool about social media and texting is that a lot of these guys have become friends and they already know who they want to room with. So many of these guys have been committed to us for a long time that they've already created relationships, and Dijon spearheaded it like Bryson and another kid you'll meet here soon. Dijon has the ability to come here and be a really good player.

DJ Hampton is another kid with a lot of personality. He comes from Seminole High School in Orlando as a running back, the only running back we are signing in this class. It doesn't take long after watching his huddle video that he's playing 8A football in the Florida, the highest class. His team went to the final four last season and played at a high level. He was first team All-State in 8A, and the thing that's most impressive about DJ at 5'9" is that he reminds me of Arkee Whitlock. Now, will he come here and be like Arkee? I hope so. But, that's how he's built. He's strong and break tackles, that's his thing. He's a fast kid, but the most impressive thing about him is how he breaks tackles and gets yards after contact. We've had success with comes coming here early and having success at running back and DJ will have the chance to do that. He's a great kid with a great family. I think we he came up here on his visit he brought ten family members with him. He has a supportive family that was fun to get to know.

If you walk through the door, Jaylin Wilson might be the best looking kid from this entire class. He looks like he's built to play right now. He's 6'4, 240 pounds and he can easily put on 20 more pounds. We wanted to sign defensive lineman in this class since we've gone from a 3-4 to a 4-3. We did that last year, but you've still got to build depth with high school kids that you can develop. Jaylin has a chance, a lot of these kids do to come in here and play. He comes from Viera High School. I've got to know his high school coach over the years recruiting down there. He does a great job with them. We're super excited about Jaylin. He's got a chance to come here and be a really, really good player. He's an impact player. He played a little bit of defensive tackle which tells me he's tough. He had 16 sacks his senior year from the defensive tackle position which tells me that he's going through double teams. He will play end for us. He has a chance to be a really good one in this league.

Keenan Agnew - No one forgets the Agnew name around Saluki land. Both of his brothers played here at a really high level. Ray Agnew played in the NFL on a couple of different teams. Malcolm was on the team when I first got here. You're not ever going to recruit a kid from a better family than the Agnews. They come here. They're leaders and they do everything you ask them to do. Keenan is no different. He was raised right be Ray Agnew Sr. who played for the Rams and is still a head scout for the Rams out in Los Angeles. He always comes back. Keenan is an awesome kid. We know exactly what we're going to get with Keenan. I told him this morning when I called him that we've had both of his brothers up on a wall in our office and he's on the chase to join them. We feel like Keenan has the chance to be the best Agnew brother. He's still a baby. He's still going to get a lot bigger. He's still going to get a lot stronger. He's probably more like his dad than the other two who played running back and fullback. Ray Sr. played defensive line and Keenan is a lot like his dad.

Lucas Davis is another offensive lineman. He's from Edwardsville. One thing I said when I got this job was no one will out recruit us in our back yard and the metro area. All of the Southern Illinois schools know we're always there and we're going to recruit all of these local kids, but we feel like Edwardsville, O'Fallon, East St. Louis, the Belleville schools, that's our back yard too. A lot of schools in our league come in there to recruit. We had to battle for Lucas, but we're signing two kids from Edwardsville that we're fired up about. We feel like we have really good skill players, but we feel like we can get better at the offensive line by building depth. That's how you win championships. We feel like each year you can have a good offensive line, but you're never worried because you've got young linemen that are always developing. You're going to win championships up front. This class shows we're committed on both sides of the ball to getting good linemen. Some of these kids my not show up. Some of them might come here and redshirt. But that's when you know you've got a good team when you can develop them. We're committed to doing that. Recruiting kids that we can believe in that we can develop and have time doing that. We're super excited about Lucas. He's a great kid with great grades. He does a good job coming from an excellent high school program.

Luke Giegling is another one we had to battle for, but once he came here on his official visit he knew he wanted to be a Saluki. His dad, Matt, played baseball here. We had 17 kids on the first official visit weekend because they all wanted to come here together. Luke was a part of that. He committed in the hotel the next morning and told us he wasn't going on anymore official visits. He has a couple in our league set up and cancelled them. This kid was number one on our board from the spring. Coach Paulson was fired up to get him, not only because he has red hair. He was the 5A defensive player of the year in Missouri. They won a state championship. He's a winner. He's a captain. He's highly recruited and will come here with the attitude to be great. He's a confident kid that wants to be really, really good. He doesn't want to settle and that's what we want here. Size wise, he's a lot like Chase Allen. Chase Allen is 6'4, 250 pounds, but when he came here he was about 220 pounds. With Lucas, the last time we were at his house he probably weighs more than 230 pounds. He's a big kid. He can run. He has a bright future here.

Makel Calhoun is just a kid who's an athlete. He was playing safety and wide receiver as a junior. His senior year he was playing outside linebacker. He just keeps getting bigger and bigger throughout the season. He weighed 190 pounds. I was there on Tuesday and he weighed 213 pounds. He could play defensive end. He just keeps getting bigger and I don't think he done growing. He's an athlete that will come up and be a great defensive football player. He's going to start out playing outside linebacker. He's got the range he can run. He's playing wide receiver, he's playing safety. His best years a way ahead of him. He's playing basketball now. John Van Dam recruits Florida for us. You'll see we have eight kids from Florida. John did a great job getting to know Makel. We're really excited about Makel.

Max Edwards was our first offer in the 2017 class. He was the first kid to commit. He's from right down the road. He has a bright future. He's going to come in here and just keep getting better. He's another kid from southern Illinois. I know what it's like. You don't see a bunch of coaches come through in the springtime and the fall. But he had multiple Division I offers out of Johnston City. He has an awesome family. He had no hesitation when other schools wanted to offer him. He knows he wants to be here. We're excited. They just don't grow tackle bodies all over the place that you can get, and when you can get one 20 minutes from here, you feel pretty fortunate and excited. You'll probably hear his truck every time he pulls in and out. He has a big jacked-up truck, probably what you'd imagine from just outside Johnston City.

Michael Elbert, we take a lot of stock in getting you to camp and evaluating you. It's easy to throw up a Hudl video and say, "Hey, that was a great play." Well, they're all highlights so they better be great plays. I hadn't even seen Mike's highlight video, but I saw him running in camp. Coach Flyger did a great job getting him over here. One of the quickest kids we had in camp. Competed, played hard, and went up against some of the best players we had here at the one-day camp in June. We thought about offering him and called him back and said, "If you come to camp in July, I'm not wasting your time, but I want to watch you one more time." He didn't hesitate. He came back and competed, did everything. It reassured us about what we saw the first time. Without even looking at his highlight, we knew what we were seeing in front of us. He's a safety. He'll hit you; he'll compete; and he can run. Multi-sport athlete. Does everything for Carl Junction High School. He's been committed to us since the summertime and basically shut down his recruiting because he knew he wanted to be a part of this.

Raquan Lindsey we saw at the Northwestern Showcase. There's 1,400 kids running around there and it's tough to evaluate kids. But Raquan caught our eye. Coach Flyger got me and said, "You have to watch this kid." I watched him, and he's from Portage, Ind., right outside Chicago. There wasn't one person who blocked him at Northwestern. We got him down to camp a couple weeks later, and no one blocked him. We offered him, and he committed a day later. He hasn't wavered one bit. He's another kid that got in the boat. He saw the special things that we have going and wanted to be a part of it. He comes from a great family, a great mom and dad. I know his mom will be a little sad, since he is an only child, but he's not far away. He has that burst. He reminds you or Deondre Barnett. He even looks like Deondre a little bit. He's bigger than Deondre was coming out of high school, but he has that pop to him to get to the passes. We talk all the time about this when I'm in their homes; that's why in the NFL you have to find a quarterback if you want to win a championship. They get paid a lot of money. Left tackles get paid because you have to protect the quarterback. And defensive ends who get sacks get paid a lot of money. Raquan can get to the passer. We need that to get better. Raquan will have a chance to do that. We played two defensive linemen this year as true freshmen, and there's a couple guys in this class that you'll see playing out there as true freshmen.

Sam Skinner is the other kid that can get to the passer. He's 6-3, 240. These kids are physically the best looking group in terms of strength. Meade, our strength coach, meets with them every time they get on campus. We evaluate everything about them. A lot of these kids are physically ready to go. Sam Skinner does a lot of things. He played offense and defense. In fact, we've had arguments in the staff room about what position he will play. But he will start at defensive end, and we're excited about Sam. If you put on his film, he played in a big All-Star game in Tampa at Raymond James Stadium with the top players in Tampa, and he got Defensive MVP. The same thing I just talked about Raquan—if you can get to the passer, you can help your team out. He's a tough kid that loves football. I think that's probably the No. 1 thing I talk to our staff all the time about, and then I asked them personally, Do you love football? We have to find kids that love to play. When you get to college, at some point in your career, it's going to become a grind. You get injured, mornings, school, a little bit homesick, girlfriend broke up with you, but what is that drive? You have to love the game. We see kids who kinda like it or like being recruited. The mail is cook, and, "Man, I have 10 offers and coaches Twittering me." Well, you can only go to one school. We have to find kids who love the game and want to be here at SIU. We feel like we have that. Sam committed on his visit and didn't go on any other visits, so we're fired up about Sam.

Sam Thompson, another kid from St. Pete. Boca Ciega High School. His best days are ahead of him. He had an impressive high school career. A guy I played with in Arena just swears by him. We got to know the kid. If you know Withney Simon on our team, it's just a personality that takes you over. Once you get to know him, you love him. He's a great kid. He will just get up here and work his butt off. The impressive thing about this signing class is that we were done with 22 NLIs by 8 a.m. this morning. We had all the Florida kids by 6:20 a.m. You can send them in at 7 a.m. local time, so at 6 a.m. we could get the Florida kids. There was no question. They were signing with us as soon as they could send it in. I think Sam was in at 6:02 a.m. He wants to be here, and he's long. He will give us that presence on the outside.

Tate Rujawitz is from Edwardsville. He only played offense as a junior, then he played only defensive line his senior year. He's an All-Stater in Illinois and is that kid that gives you that attitude on the offensive line that you need. Edwardsville plays in an outstanding conference, but then out of conference the always schedule themselves against powerhouse programs in non-conference. Tate has that big of nastiness that we are looking for. He plays hard, he plays the way the game is supposed to be played. He can play either side of the ball and could be a great offensive lineman, but he wants to start on the defense, so, that's where we are going to let him start. That's kind of his attitude, just a defensive mentality. And he'll kind of make you laugh. He's the kind of guy you're going to have to slow down when we don't have our pads on because he plays with such a motor. We're excited about Tate and how we've recruited in Edwardsville. We now have three on our team, these two and Craig James. Edwardsville will always be a school we recruit hard and we are happy to have these guys on our team.

Travis Pickert is just an outstanding athlete. He went on a lot of visits in our league and then he came to us. Coach Fleiger did a great job recruiting him, he stayed on him. Travis has visits scheduled after us, including an FBS one, and he cancelled them. Travis is the kind of kid that can make an impact for us right away. We feel like we are getting very good in the tight-end and fullbacks room. Last year, adding Jalen Carter and the guys that played for us this year, we felt like we were good. Now, we're adding depth and can start doing the things that we weren't able to do last year. Travis is a track kid that can sum 6'8", and he'll probably win the state title here in Illinois. He's 230 pounds and can run the 400. A lot of his offers came from defensive end but we are going to play him at tight end and we feel he can really be an impact type guy.

E'mare Hogan was our last commit in this class. He just came on his visit just this last weekend. If the signing day picture looks familiar its because Daquan Isom also wore number five at Dr. Phillips High School. He took over the number after Isom left for the next two years. He's a lot like Isom, they were high school teammates, but different in the sense that E'mare is more of a wide receiver. He's illusive and will be fun to watch when we get him the ball. We've already been talking about ways to get him the ball because of how he fits into our offense so perfectly. He' been committed since July to South Florida but then their was a coaching change and he got lost in the shuffle. So, we jumped in there quickly. This will be the third kid we've gotten from Dr. Phillips. He's an electric football player and if you get the chance throw on his highlight tape. He's a kid that will come here and play right away.

Lane Pegram is another local kid who has come up here a bunch of times and kid we need to help build this program. He wants to be here and will do anything he can to be a great Saluki. That's just as important as anything goes, it doesn't matter how many stars you got next to your name. He'll do a great job because he'll come in here and compete. He'll do whatever it takes to play. I've had too many teammates that come here true Salukis that just outworked people. I said that when I got the job and it wasn't just something I was saying to sound good in the media. We are going to recruit local kids and they will be here and they will play. This class show that yet again, and Lane is one of those kids. I don't make it a secret that I have soft place in my heart for those guys because I was one of those guys and I'm excited that Lane is joining the program.

Dalton Carde is the biggest kid we've probably ever signed here. He's 6-9, 315 pounds. I know it says 285, but I was just in the high school last week. Huge kid. You just don't get tackle bodies that look like that. He will need a year to redshirt, but he can bend; he can run. He's playing Lacrosse right now, so it's not like he can't move. He's a defensive player in Lacrosse. He's still young to football. He started playing when he was a sophomore. He was 6-2 as a freshman, then he was 6-4. (SIU strength coach) Meade (Smith) will do a great job with Dalton. Like I said, we'll redshirt him and develop him. In a couple years, that will be a great player to have developed into an offensive tackle. You'll know who Dalton is whenever you see him.

Cole Steward is from Salem. He has a history with the program. His dad was a GA here in 1985-86. He went on to Salem and was the head high school coach. He's the AD there now. (Cole) is a big kid. He's 240 pounds, 6-4 or 6-5. He'll come and be in the tight end room. We want to play with tight ends; we always have here. Cole has a chance to compete. He'll get here in the summer, and just like all these guys, will get stronger and get bigger. He has a future here. We're excited to get a kid from Salem.

Bryce Baringer coming all the way from Michigan, is a kicker and a punter. There's no secret; we have to get better at the specialists. There's a couple kids we will add on here late in a walk-on role. But we have to get better at our specialists. There's no secret; no matter what position, no position is safe. Sam (Straub) knows he has to compete to be the starting quarterback. So does every position. Our specialists know that too. The best guys will perform. It's our job as coaches to develop those guys, give them confidence. But it's also our job to put the best group of guys together and let them compete it out. That's when you get a really good team. We want as many guys in here to compete. Bryce is a guy with a ton of ability. He can come in here and compete and help us out. We're excited to get him. Coming from Michigan, he had other options. He will do a good job for us.

What is the most important part of recruiting? Home visits? Visits to campus? Looking at film?

Every aspect is important. As the head coach I've been in all of their homes and some multiple times. That's why I said it's a long two months. I think you've got to get in their home. You've got to see them. You want to see them in the summer time at some point to evaluate them live, not just on film. That's just a step. Now social media is so big, whether it's on Twitter or Facebook or making phone calls to create relationships with these guys. Some kids really enjoy being recruited. We don't want to recruit those kids. We're into real, genuine, relationships. You can't do that in a ten-minute conversation and a Huddl video. You've got to really dive into these kids. You've got to do homework on the other high schools they're playing. You've got to ask other guys who are unbiased about what this kid is like. Every step is equally as important. The fun part is getting in their homes. Sitting down and having dinner with them. Being with their parents, their brothers their sisters and all of that stuff. You also need to let them know who the person that is going to coach them is. Obviously, you've got to get them on campus. You're not going to go to a school where you haven't seen the campus, seen the facilities, seen where you're going to live or seen the town. I think it's all important, and it all goes into signing day.

You said you signed 22 players by 8 a.m. and most were signed by the summer. Did you feel like you knew this class better than classes you recruited in the past?

I think so. They've all got to know each other too. There's not a kid on there that I don't know or we don't know about his character. College will come. Kids will be kids. We feel like we've really got to know these kids as people and players and put together one of the best classes we've ever had here. Now they've got to come and do it and pan out. I feel really confident putting my name on all of those guys. But yeah, a lot have been committed for a long time. We started to get more and more early commitments. The scary thing about that is when they commit in December, there's a long time until February 1. There's coaches in that school every day throughout the week. You've got to do a good job of recruiting a kid all the way through. You can't just get a commitment and stop recruiting the kid. That's just the start of the relationship for the next five years. I feel like that's where we do a good job. It's not like a used car salesman. We don't recruit you and get you here and then all of a sudden we're a different person. They're going to get the same me whether I'm in the home eating with them or wherever. Our coaching staff is the same way. It's getting to know them. We feel like we've really got to know them and it's just the start of the next five years.

Were there instances where FBS coaches tried to recruit players away at the last moment?

Yeah. Definitely. You've always got to be confident. All over the country people are flipping and de-committing. You've got to form those relationships. It's harder to de-commit from a school when you have a strong bond with the coaches.

Does that show something positive about their character?

Definitely. We take a lot of stock in our word as well as theirs. We know their 18-year-old kids. When we offer a kid we want to stick by our offer and what we said. We appreciate when it's the other way around too.

There seems to be an emphasis on lineman on both sides of the ball. Was there a theme you were trying to build with this class?

We just knew that want to build it the right way with high school kids. I've touched on kids that you can develop over time and you can see their development. We signed a few junior college kids, and we always will. Your class has to be made up of high school kids that you can develop. Lineman are the toughest kids that you have to develop. A kid like E'mare Hogan might be more ready to play than your center going up against grown men in our conference with how physical our conference is. You see a guy like Daquan Isom or D.J. Davis that you can give a jet sweep to and it's the same thing. You don't have to be as physically ready to play. We also feel like we have that. We have some skill players on offense and defense that are ready to play. It's tougher to play as a true freshman down in the trenches. We had four true freshman play on defense at a really high level. Two of them played on the defensive line. That was really impressive. We had two of them that we felt like were ready to play at the end of the season last year, but we weren't going to burn a redshirt on them. If you continue to do that and stack good classes on top of each other, then you feel like you're deep and you've got all-conference players and you've got young kids who are ready to step into their place when they graduate. That's what we're always going to try to do. Build depth at each position. Develop them. We can truly believe that we can form a championship roster here.

What position will Devin Jones play?

We've been back and forth, but were going to start him at defensive line now. We got Travis Pickert at tight end. He's better suited there. When we first recruited him he said he didn't care where he played. We feel like when he comes here in the summer time it will work itself out, but he will start out at defensive line.

How many kids are capable of playing as true freshman and are there kids that need to play as true freshman?

I think that we will need a couple of defensive lineman to play that on the edge can get after the passer. You never know until you get them here, but there are definitely some kids who can come in here and play. Obviously the mid-year guys can. You don't recruit a mid-year guy that you don't feel like can't help your roster right now. If you recruit too many of those that don't help your roster you're in trouble. We played seven of them. Six position players and our kicker was a true freshman out of our class. If five or six of them play, we feel like they have that talent.

Q: You've spoken strongly about changing the culture. What do you think these guys have that Southern hasn't had?

A: I think just their attitude and who we are recruiting as players and people. We see if they fit the mold of our culture. Are they a winner? Are they playing deep into the playoffs? Like we've said, there are steps that you have to take. We know what we are looking for. We have then have to go out there and get those type of guys. It's easy to get a signing class there's probably not a football program out there that isn't putting together a deep signing class today. We really feel confident that these guys fit what were are trying to build and that just takes a year of recruiting them and getting to know them. We've had to tell some kids no, we've also had a bunch of kids that we were ready to sign that committed to other programs. You don't have an unlimited amount of scholarships and that's a good thing. The last two weeks of recruiting we only had one kid on campus to recruit to because we were already full. We look at that as a good thing. We have a lot of kids that want to be here at Southern Illinois and be apart of what we're doing. I think another big thing is trusting your older guys once these guys get on campus and just getting them around your team. Trusting those older guys and asking them if these new guys fit in. They know what we're trying to build and it has happened before. Some older guys have told us that some recruits were exactly what we were looking for because they are going to act a little different around the coaches then they are the players. It's the year of getting to know them and I think our last class proved that. You have 16 guys and seven of them were already real players for us. We're fired up about that."

Q: Your two classes haven't been filled with very many skill people. Is that a reflection of what you had in house or did it just fit the needs of the team right now?

A: We took one high school running back and one high school quarterback. I think that's pretty normal. We are already pretty deep at running back now and our top three running backs are coming back from this past year. Then two high school wide receivers, plus a junior college player, and then we lose three seniors, but we still feel like we had a lot of young talented receivers. We had two guys with over 500 yards receiving last season. Jimmy Jones would have gotten to that mark to if he didn't get hurt and miss the last five games. So, we have three that play at a high level now and we want to just keep building on that. Everything about a recruiting class is when you look down at our rosters and look at our classes and see that there might be more a certain position because we might be losing two. Every year is always a little different, but you want to always be adding depth to all your positions. The class this year was what we felt like we had to go get.

Q: It sounds like a lot of the defense line guys that you guys signed were slimmer and quick. Was that the kind of defense that you want to move to or are you planning on bulking these guys up?

A: They all are going to get bigger when they get here. All the best defensive linemen that I've known have all gained 25 pounds from the time when you're 18 years old to the time you 23 years old. All the guys are going to mature and get bigger no matter what. So the guys your see around 235 pounds now will get to be around 250 or 260. I was watching the senior bowl and Rivers, the defensive lineman from Youngstown State, has been one of the best defensive guys we've seen the past few years. Also, the kid from Northern Iowa played and both of those guys are in the 260 pound range and playing defensive end. You have to have both speed and some weight to be able to take on double teams. But, you're always going to have like DeAndre Barnett that can get to the passer, who has speed on the edge. Honestly I don't care how much you weigh as long as you can get that quarterback on the ground."

Q: How much closer do you think you've gotten going from the 3-4 to the 4-3 roster?

A: It's still getting there. We knew it wouldn't happen just like that. But, I feel like we are getting there. We are going to have a young defensive line and that's alright because we weren't just going to go and sign every transfer out there. We signed five good ones last year and I think seven in this class. As the years go and you keep putting 5, 6, 7 in each class, you'll be able to look back two years from now and see what we were envisioning when we first got here.

Q: Does Devin Jones have aspirations of throwing (for the track team) possibly?

A: They've talked about that. I mean, I (was a two-sport athlete) for a year when I was here. I tell all the guys that want to do that that they have to come here and prove themselves academically to do that because our throw program is one of the best in country. So, trust me they've already talked to me about that and I won't stand in the way of anything that Devin wants to do.

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Players Mentioned

Chase Allen

Deondre Barnett

Jeremy Chinn

D.J. Davis

Daquan Isom

Craig James

Withney Simon

Jack White

Scoreboard

Southern Illinoise University Athletics