Mendenhall explains recruiting

Uona Kaveinga may very well be bound for Southern Cal. We’ll know in a few hours when he gets on TV and makes an announcement.

Either way, Bronco Mendenhall won’t lose any sleep over it if Kaveinga decides to be a Trojan. Mendenhall told the media after a Cougar Club event on Wednesday, he doesn’t consider himself a great recruiter or salesman and would rather be in a situation in a home visit where the recruit is actually rushing him and BYU.

Most all of the time of late, that is exactly what has happening in BYU recruiting: Recruits are begging to get onboard. Mendenhall said one of the few recruits he felt he was “recruiting” during a visit was with Kaveinga.

Of the 40 recruits, Mendenhall said he missed on four. Hamani Stevens, the No. 1 center out of California was one of those. But Mendenhall said he could tell Stevens’ interests were elsewhere.

Another anecdote I heard at the media day, not from Mendenhall but from someone at another meeting Mendenhall had attended… Mendenhall told the group he was in a home of a recruit, giving his presentation when he looked over and the recruit was fast asleep. He got up and told the parents in the room, the kid was not for him, that he needed somebody who would be awake on the 80th play, in the fourth quarter of a game.

Mendenhall said his staff singled out just 40 recruits they would go after this year. They had 20 of them committed before the start of te football season. This meant each staff member had responsibility for three recruits. “That allowed them to focus their efforts on a few instead of 20, and I think that is a good thing for our staff. BYU does not have that big of pool of recruits they can go after. It is a very narrow field,” he said.

He believes four of the recruits signed on Wednesday could be considered academic risks — they still need to complete JC work or qualify with a test score or such. The only one he would identify was receiver Atem Bol, a native of Sudan who prepped in Texas.

Mendenhall said Bol did not speak English when he came to the country. The only member of the church in his family, he is an excellent student, but has had challenges with the standardized tests given for college entrance.

Of the four academic risks, Mendenhall said he wouldn’t be surprised if two of the four made it OK and two did not. But he said he would not rule out if all four qualified in coming months.

Instate recruiting, BYU signed eight. Mendenhall said he lost two instate recruits to Utah. They were the Kruger kid at Timpanogos and the non-LDS running back at Alta. He did say they appeared to have interests elsewhere when being recruited and were not totally sold on BYU and what it is all about. “That’s fine with me. They decided to go to Utah and they’ll do fine there. They are outstanding young men who decided BYU was not for them.”

Mendenhall said the only recruit he felt comfortable about saying would make an immediate impact is Justin Sorensen, the kicker from Bingham. “It would not be fair for the others to mention them by name but Justin’s situation is obvious. We struggled last year due to injuries and consistency in the kicking game. At one point we were ranked last in the country in field goal attempts.”

But with Sorensen, who regularly kicks the ball out of the end zone and can nearly neutralize the need for kickoff coverage, his length and range for field goal kicking will be an immediate plus for BYU special teams play.

“That’s what happens when you have a guy who can kick it out of the stadium.”

— Mendenhall blasted folks on the internet that live and die over the recruiting rankings and “star” system of deciding who is good and who is not.

“The number of stars a recruit has is meaningless,” he said. “I’m more interested in the stars they receive after they’ve played in the program.”

Mendenhall said the 11-2 squad of 2007 had 14 of 22 starters who did not have any “recruiting” stars next to their names when they came to BYU. Of he remaining players (8), the average “star” rating was 2.5 or half of what is considered a stud prospect of five stars.

“That means 14 members of our team that went 11-2 shouldn’t have been recruited.”

Mendenhall said in addition to athletic ability, he puts character right up there and has learned that recruiting character pays off in the long run.

“I like coaching players whom I like and I like players I can trust.”

He did mention that of the 120 teams in Division I, only four stayed ranked in the Top 15 the past two years and the Cougars were one of those four teams.

Mendenhall said he did not recruit a quarterback in this class, knowing Jason Munns had just left for a mission. “We have Max Hall and his backup back for two years. What we will do is move Stephen Covey (back off a mission) from safety back to quarterback.