From the desk of Jim Snyder
Yahoo! and Rivals.com merge
Late last week I attended the annual publisher’s conference that Rivals.com holds each year. The Yahoo! deal had just come down and there were a couple of speakers from Yahoo! including Jimmy Pitaro who is the General Manager of Sports for Yahoo!.
The deal was so new that few had any details on what we might expect going forward. Yahoo! has been very strong covering professional sports and weak covering college and high school sports and that is where Rivals.com fits in.
Rivals.com will continue to operate as a separate business entity within the Yahoo! network. Both the management of Rivals.com and Yahoo! share a common desire to beef up coverage of high school athletics and I think you will see that happen over time. They obviously would also like to see coverage continue to expand at the college level. My hope is you will see increase high school coverage in Pennsylvania and around the country which will enable us to stay focused on Pitt. Hopefully they could have an announcement within the next 60 days that will help us but some of it could take much longer. One thing they will certainly do is expand their All the Way to Friday high school series this fall but this is only a small part of a much larger effort.
I think most of the publishers left the conference very excited about the future of the network.
Navigational hints
We give you options of how you chose to view message boards. I prefer the Thread view but some prefer a Topic overview. You can pick your choice by going to User Options in the gold border of the upper left of any message board. Select your choice and click on save. You will be set going forward.
If you go to the database to Pittsburgh commits on the bottom right there is a link called Capsules. Click on it and you will see a photo gallery on the players that have already committed to Pitt. You can then drill down if you would like to see more on one of the players.
Some hoops talk
I did not like reading that Darnell Dodson (6’ 7”) had to return to Washington, D.C. to make up class work. We always knew it would be touch and go with him. Hopefully the problem is correctable. The coaching staff looks like they will over recruit in the Class of 2008 so it makes you wonder.
I had a fairly long talk to American Heritage coach Danny Herz while his team was in Cleveland. He could not have been more complementary of Coach Dixon and Pitt. My guess is the Pitt coaching staff made sure that his team was treated with kid gloves during their stay. They thought they were staying in a five-star hotel. If the decision is up to the high school coach, Eloy Vargas will be a Panther. He likes how Pitt staff has handled themselves. He likes the entire staff including the trainers and the Pitt facilities.
However, Vargas lives with his AAU coach who is his guardian may have a little more influence. His AAU coach loves Orlando Antigua but he is an AAU coach so who knows just what might also influence him.
Pitt has done everything short of calling The Ohio State University for the name of their car dealer (joke).
Coach Herz has his team from American Heritage School on a mini-van tour that goes to Pittsburgh, Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, Louisville and Indiana. I told him this tour reminds me of the Ted Ginn bus tour. I think this tour works in Pitt’s favor.
This should come down to Pitt and Louisville and at the end of the day I think Pitt, based on my conversation with his high school coach, should add Eloy Vargas (6’ 10”) to the three that have already committed. Pitt already has verbal commitments from Ashton Gibbs (6’ 2”), Nasir Robinson (6’ 5’ 210) and Travon Woodall (5’ 11” 185). This has the potential to be a very good class.
July is an Evaluation Period for college basketball. The Pitt basketball coaches will hit the road to watch players that have already committed. They will also be looking at rising juniors and perhaps a few rising seniors in case anything goes wrong with the four listed above.
Jerry Meyer and Justin Young will be out on the AAU trail reporting for you. Basketball Evaluation Periods run from July 6th to the 15 and July 22nd to July 31st.
I spoke to a reporter that covers New Jersey basketball at the conference and he says Ashton Gibbs can play and will help Pitt a lot. I liked what I saw on a highlight video.
Football summer camps winding down
The Pitt football summer camps are over and so are the camps of most other schools although there are a few schools that counterpunch in attempt to get recruits on campus.
Historically the Pitt football coaching staff uses the next 30 days for vacation. They rotate so there are a few to cover the fort. The football players are basically turned over to Buddy Morris during this period. Once the staff returns there are no days off until after Letter of Intent Day in February.
It is not unusual to get a burst of commits around the summer camps and Pitt landed Chris Hayden-Martin, Lucas Nix, Manny Williams, Nic DiLillo and Ryan Turnley over the past two weeks so the pattern of Coach Wannstedt’s staff held up again this year.
You can never be really sure when a recruit will pull the trigger but the next group often comes on late July or early August before players start their high school season. Some will want to avoid the possibility of injury costing them a scholarship while others will wait and take their visits this fall.
Early in the process we heard Gateway’s linebacker Shayne Hale would head out of state and probably end up at Ohio State. Pitt made a run at him but could not move up. Not sure if the strategy to separate Hale and his cousin Cameron Saddler was a good one but it might not have matter in the end. Saddler has 27 offers but because of his size I am not sure he can do much beyond return kicks. Hale already has trouble covering backs coming out of the backfield and will probably grow into a defensive end. His final four are Ohio State, West Virginia, Virginia and Michigan.
Based on the Pitt passing camp there is a good chance Gateway and Central Catholic will play for the WPIAL AAAA championship.
In case you missed Chris Peak’s camp report Pitt has already given verbal offers to Gateway’s Corey Brown and Dorian Bell. They are both rising seniors and in the recruiting Class of 2009.
I think Pitt is in pretty good shape with Averin Collier from the Rochester, New York area. It should come down to Pitt and Syracuse. Pitt is the leader. The question is does he wait until this fall to see how things go for Kevin or does he pull the trigger later this summer.
Aliquippa’s Jonathan Baldwin should end up at Pitt, Michigan or Notre Dame. Pitt has gained a lot of ground this spring. He was very comfortable watching Pitt’s summer camp often acting as an unofficial coach monitoring other prospects and right now I like Pitt’s chances. Football players from Aliquippa, however, usually do not commit early in the process and often wait until after the football season. If history is an indicator he may not announce early.
Harrisburg defensive tackle Chris Henderson (6’ 1” 280) has transferred to Milford Academy. He reportedly has offers from Michigan and Syracuse but told Mike Farrell his favorite is Pitt. If he gets his act together and his grades in order Pitt should offer and he could be a Panther.
Four-star running back Ryan Williams came to Pitt’s summer camp with low expectations but he really enjoyed himself. His visit will probably keep Pitt in the hunt. One of the things I like about Pitt recruiting the Washington, DC corridor is you have shot a getting unofficial visits during the summer. It is really tough getting kids from Florida to come up early. Williams is Rivals Top 100.
Four-star defensive tackle Reggie Ellis from Dunbar HS in Washington is also scheduled to visit Pittsburgh. He is a Rivals Top 250 pick.
It will be interesting to watch which direction Pitt goes for a quarterback. The conventional wisdom is Terrelle Pryor will leave the state and land at Ohio State but Pitt will keep recruiting him hoping he eventually decides to stay closer to home. Best hope here is Pitt gets off to a big start and pulls at late season upset or two and Pryor does not make any quick decisions.
Floridian Star Jackson is a possibility as is Kiski’s Josh Vick. In Ohio you have Zack Stoudt and Zac Dysert. Reportedly the position coach for Star Jackson also coached West Virginia backup quarterback Jarrett Brown. There are mixed opinions on whether that helps or hurts West Virginia’s chances.
We also reported yesterday on Roosevelt Maggitt from the West Palm Area. He looks like a good athlete with some academic issues. He has an offer from Pitt but I suspect they will monitor him in his senior year and then decide if they should bring him north for a visit after the season is over. There is no sense of urgency with this prospect right now.
Nationally 95% of the players that commit end up at that school but the small percentage that change their minds get a lot of attention and publicity. Pitt was able to flip tight end Nick DiLillo. Pitt was always near the top of his list and he decided to stay closer to home. This is a common scenario. A few on the Southside were surprised when A.J. Alexander committed to Florida State. We think Pitt will continue to recruit him. No idea if they have a shot a realistically flipping this one.
We were talking to a reporter from a Jacksonville newspaper at the publisher’s conference. He has been covering recruiting in Florida. He had high praise for Pitt assistant coach Chris Ball. He said he was both a good recruiter and a very good coach. Hopefully he will help drag someone out of Ohio. This reporter had just been hired to be the beat reporter for BamaOnLine.com which covers Alabama for the Rivals network. The hiring of Nick Saban has the Tide faithful pumped up. They had a monster increase in circulation and became the number one site in the network passing Florida State, Nebraska and Texas. He will now be a beat reporter covering Alabama.
The Tennessee site landed a beat reporter from the Nashville Tennessean. I think it will be a growing trend going forward for the network to hire newspaper reporters. Incidentally Nebraska also has a monster site. Their publisher was named sportswriter of the year in the state by the National Sports Writers and Sports Broadcasters Association of America.
And finally we have seen a nice steady growth of annual subscriptions lately. Yahoo! has a market capitalization of approximately $36.6 billion so you should have a pretty good feel that we are going to be around for the long run. Now might be a good chance to jump on board.
Preview of coming attractions. We will have articles on QB Josh Vick, LB BJ. Machen and TE Hubie Graham today.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
Yahoo! and Rivals.com merge
Late last week I attended the annual publisher’s conference that Rivals.com holds each year. The Yahoo! deal had just come down and there were a couple of speakers from Yahoo! including Jimmy Pitaro who is the General Manager of Sports for Yahoo!.
The deal was so new that few had any details on what we might expect going forward. Yahoo! has been very strong covering professional sports and weak covering college and high school sports and that is where Rivals.com fits in.
Rivals.com will continue to operate as a separate business entity within the Yahoo! network. Both the management of Rivals.com and Yahoo! share a common desire to beef up coverage of high school athletics and I think you will see that happen over time. They obviously would also like to see coverage continue to expand at the college level. My hope is you will see increase high school coverage in Pennsylvania and around the country which will enable us to stay focused on Pitt. Hopefully they could have an announcement within the next 60 days that will help us but some of it could take much longer. One thing they will certainly do is expand their All the Way to Friday high school series this fall but this is only a small part of a much larger effort.
I think most of the publishers left the conference very excited about the future of the network.
Navigational hints
We give you options of how you chose to view message boards. I prefer the Thread view but some prefer a Topic overview. You can pick your choice by going to User Options in the gold border of the upper left of any message board. Select your choice and click on save. You will be set going forward.
If you go to the database to Pittsburgh commits on the bottom right there is a link called Capsules. Click on it and you will see a photo gallery on the players that have already committed to Pitt. You can then drill down if you would like to see more on one of the players.
Some hoops talk
I did not like reading that Darnell Dodson (6’ 7”) had to return to Washington, D.C. to make up class work. We always knew it would be touch and go with him. Hopefully the problem is correctable. The coaching staff looks like they will over recruit in the Class of 2008 so it makes you wonder.
I had a fairly long talk to American Heritage coach Danny Herz while his team was in Cleveland. He could not have been more complementary of Coach Dixon and Pitt. My guess is the Pitt coaching staff made sure that his team was treated with kid gloves during their stay. They thought they were staying in a five-star hotel. If the decision is up to the high school coach, Eloy Vargas will be a Panther. He likes how Pitt staff has handled themselves. He likes the entire staff including the trainers and the Pitt facilities.
However, Vargas lives with his AAU coach who is his guardian may have a little more influence. His AAU coach loves Orlando Antigua but he is an AAU coach so who knows just what might also influence him.
Pitt has done everything short of calling The Ohio State University for the name of their car dealer (joke).
Coach Herz has his team from American Heritage School on a mini-van tour that goes to Pittsburgh, Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, Louisville and Indiana. I told him this tour reminds me of the Ted Ginn bus tour. I think this tour works in Pitt’s favor.
This should come down to Pitt and Louisville and at the end of the day I think Pitt, based on my conversation with his high school coach, should add Eloy Vargas (6’ 10”) to the three that have already committed. Pitt already has verbal commitments from Ashton Gibbs (6’ 2”), Nasir Robinson (6’ 5’ 210) and Travon Woodall (5’ 11” 185). This has the potential to be a very good class.
July is an Evaluation Period for college basketball. The Pitt basketball coaches will hit the road to watch players that have already committed. They will also be looking at rising juniors and perhaps a few rising seniors in case anything goes wrong with the four listed above.
Jerry Meyer and Justin Young will be out on the AAU trail reporting for you. Basketball Evaluation Periods run from July 6th to the 15 and July 22nd to July 31st.
I spoke to a reporter that covers New Jersey basketball at the conference and he says Ashton Gibbs can play and will help Pitt a lot. I liked what I saw on a highlight video.
Football summer camps winding down
The Pitt football summer camps are over and so are the camps of most other schools although there are a few schools that counterpunch in attempt to get recruits on campus.
Historically the Pitt football coaching staff uses the next 30 days for vacation. They rotate so there are a few to cover the fort. The football players are basically turned over to Buddy Morris during this period. Once the staff returns there are no days off until after Letter of Intent Day in February.
It is not unusual to get a burst of commits around the summer camps and Pitt landed Chris Hayden-Martin, Lucas Nix, Manny Williams, Nic DiLillo and Ryan Turnley over the past two weeks so the pattern of Coach Wannstedt’s staff held up again this year.
You can never be really sure when a recruit will pull the trigger but the next group often comes on late July or early August before players start their high school season. Some will want to avoid the possibility of injury costing them a scholarship while others will wait and take their visits this fall.
Early in the process we heard Gateway’s linebacker Shayne Hale would head out of state and probably end up at Ohio State. Pitt made a run at him but could not move up. Not sure if the strategy to separate Hale and his cousin Cameron Saddler was a good one but it might not have matter in the end. Saddler has 27 offers but because of his size I am not sure he can do much beyond return kicks. Hale already has trouble covering backs coming out of the backfield and will probably grow into a defensive end. His final four are Ohio State, West Virginia, Virginia and Michigan.
Based on the Pitt passing camp there is a good chance Gateway and Central Catholic will play for the WPIAL AAAA championship.
In case you missed Chris Peak’s camp report Pitt has already given verbal offers to Gateway’s Corey Brown and Dorian Bell. They are both rising seniors and in the recruiting Class of 2009.
I think Pitt is in pretty good shape with Averin Collier from the Rochester, New York area. It should come down to Pitt and Syracuse. Pitt is the leader. The question is does he wait until this fall to see how things go for Kevin or does he pull the trigger later this summer.
Aliquippa’s Jonathan Baldwin should end up at Pitt, Michigan or Notre Dame. Pitt has gained a lot of ground this spring. He was very comfortable watching Pitt’s summer camp often acting as an unofficial coach monitoring other prospects and right now I like Pitt’s chances. Football players from Aliquippa, however, usually do not commit early in the process and often wait until after the football season. If history is an indicator he may not announce early.
Harrisburg defensive tackle Chris Henderson (6’ 1” 280) has transferred to Milford Academy. He reportedly has offers from Michigan and Syracuse but told Mike Farrell his favorite is Pitt. If he gets his act together and his grades in order Pitt should offer and he could be a Panther.
Four-star running back Ryan Williams came to Pitt’s summer camp with low expectations but he really enjoyed himself. His visit will probably keep Pitt in the hunt. One of the things I like about Pitt recruiting the Washington, DC corridor is you have shot a getting unofficial visits during the summer. It is really tough getting kids from Florida to come up early. Williams is Rivals Top 100.
Four-star defensive tackle Reggie Ellis from Dunbar HS in Washington is also scheduled to visit Pittsburgh. He is a Rivals Top 250 pick.
It will be interesting to watch which direction Pitt goes for a quarterback. The conventional wisdom is Terrelle Pryor will leave the state and land at Ohio State but Pitt will keep recruiting him hoping he eventually decides to stay closer to home. Best hope here is Pitt gets off to a big start and pulls at late season upset or two and Pryor does not make any quick decisions.
Floridian Star Jackson is a possibility as is Kiski’s Josh Vick. In Ohio you have Zack Stoudt and Zac Dysert. Reportedly the position coach for Star Jackson also coached West Virginia backup quarterback Jarrett Brown. There are mixed opinions on whether that helps or hurts West Virginia’s chances.
We also reported yesterday on Roosevelt Maggitt from the West Palm Area. He looks like a good athlete with some academic issues. He has an offer from Pitt but I suspect they will monitor him in his senior year and then decide if they should bring him north for a visit after the season is over. There is no sense of urgency with this prospect right now.
Nationally 95% of the players that commit end up at that school but the small percentage that change their minds get a lot of attention and publicity. Pitt was able to flip tight end Nick DiLillo. Pitt was always near the top of his list and he decided to stay closer to home. This is a common scenario. A few on the Southside were surprised when A.J. Alexander committed to Florida State. We think Pitt will continue to recruit him. No idea if they have a shot a realistically flipping this one.
We were talking to a reporter from a Jacksonville newspaper at the publisher’s conference. He has been covering recruiting in Florida. He had high praise for Pitt assistant coach Chris Ball. He said he was both a good recruiter and a very good coach. Hopefully he will help drag someone out of Ohio. This reporter had just been hired to be the beat reporter for BamaOnLine.com which covers Alabama for the Rivals network. The hiring of Nick Saban has the Tide faithful pumped up. They had a monster increase in circulation and became the number one site in the network passing Florida State, Nebraska and Texas. He will now be a beat reporter covering Alabama.
The Tennessee site landed a beat reporter from the Nashville Tennessean. I think it will be a growing trend going forward for the network to hire newspaper reporters. Incidentally Nebraska also has a monster site. Their publisher was named sportswriter of the year in the state by the National Sports Writers and Sports Broadcasters Association of America.
And finally we have seen a nice steady growth of annual subscriptions lately. Yahoo! has a market capitalization of approximately $36.6 billion so you should have a pretty good feel that we are going to be around for the long run. Now might be a good chance to jump on board.
Preview of coming attractions. We will have articles on QB Josh Vick, LB BJ. Machen and TE Hubie Graham today.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
