As the spring continues to unfold that means more decisions being made for both football and basketball players and recruits. For Arizona it was another big week with a few more players deciding that Tucson will be their future home. On the basketball side it was a pair of players who decided to join the Wildcats while the football program added a prospect it already had in the fold once before.
There is plenty to get into this week so let’s not waste any more time. Here is the latest edition of the War Room.
Football recruiting
Rich Rodriguez’s staff - with its new additions and continued work from those already in place - has the Wildcats on the upward trend on the recruiting trail and the extra emphasis on recruiting has continued to pay off this spring. Rodriguez mentioned earlier in the year that he believed Arizona was in the midst of putting together one of the best if not the best recruiting class in school history this year. So far so good for the ‘Cats as another four-star prospect joined the group (again) last week.
* That’s where we’ll start with four-star quarterback Braxton Burmeister and his decision to rejoin Arizona’s 2017 class after opening up his recruitment earlier this year. In all it lasted about two months before the La Jolla (Calif.) La Jolla Country Day standout decided where things started out is where he belonged. Khalil Tate remains the biggest impact on quarterbacks and Arizona because the perception is that nobody will eventually be able to beat him out because the staff loves his game so much. Because of the potential to have a tough time cracking the rotation Burmeister decided to take some more visits and see what else was out there.
When that happened there really wasn’t much different with his other possible destinations. South Carolina was the early option that intrigued him quite a bit, but the situation there is only getting more competitive with young recruits and a true freshman who impressed as an early enrollee this spring. Washington was another option that intrigued him, but there too there are some options at quarterback and some more competition.
Also in the back of Burmeister’s mind was his relationship with Rod Smith and the rest of the staff. One thing we have always said was that if Smith was at Arizona that is where Burmeister would ultimately end up. That is one reason the de-commitment was surprising when those rumors started to fly. In the end it was that relationship and the best situation that brought him back in a rare case of a re-commitment by a recruit.
“Just the overall feel you get when you go to each school,” Burmeister said. “All of them have great facilities and everything. It’s just like when you’re on campus can you really picture yourself there and that’s where I can picture myself the best.”
Tate and Burmeister were seven-on-seven teammates for a time last year so there is a familiarity there, but for the 2017 prospect there has always been the thought of redshirting his first year while Anu Solomon plays out his final season. Time will tell if that plan truly comes to fruition, but Burmeister has all the tools plus some intangibles to be the best quarterback Rodriguez has had at Arizona by the time his career comes to an end.
* It was once again a chance for GOAZCATS.com to be in California over the weekend with the monster adidas SoCal Invitational seven-on-seven tournament going on. Rather than club teams, however, the event was made up of high school teams from Southern California and Nevada. One of the prospects on hand playing with his Pasadena (Calif.) Muir squad was three-star cornerback recruit Elijah Blades. The 2017 recruit has long had Arizona as either a leader or co-leader in his recruitment and with one more unofficial visit left to take place before he decides Blades plans on announcing his choice next month on his birthday.
All signs continue to point to Arizona being the spot he ultimately lands but he still plans on taking a trip to see Florida the week prior to his decision. Unless that visit completely blows him away the Wildcats remain in a good position to land him when he announces.
We took some time to talk with Blades about the Wildcats, his recruitment and upcoming decision at the event and if you haven’t seen it yet here is our interview with him.
* Augustus Hawkins (Los Angeles, California) has plenty of top talent. Two five-star receivers and multiple four-star prospects with big offers. Arizona commit Greg Johnson is on the team as well - a Rivals100 recruit. Arguably the top prospect on the roster, however, is five-star receiver Joseph Lewis and while he doesn’t talk too much about his recruitment and where things are headed he does have some schools that are currently sticking out. The theory that continues to come into play is that the program that lands one of the prospects from that school could very well get the whole lot and with UA striking first in that regard the ‘Cats are in a good position.
Lewis continues to take things slow, but Arizona continues to make an impression on him in the early going.
“Me and coach (Tony) Dews talk a lot about on and off the field stuff,” Lewis said over the weekend at the adidas event. “It’s like personal life stuff, but he’s a good coach and I can relate to him and stuff like that. I’m just real comfortable around them.”
The idea that the Hawkins prospects could all end up at the same place is not an idea that came out of nowhere. It is something the group talks about and realizes is a possibility and maybe even likelihood at this point.
“Yeah, me and Hawkins boys we’re just so close,” he said. “We spend every day together and we plan to go to the same school and do what we’ve done at Hawkins.”
At this point Lewis said he knows he will be taking an official visit to Arizona and Nebraska but schools like Oklahoma and USC continue to make a strong push as well. Nebraska continues to be one of the programs standing out most as well and the Cornhuskers with their “Calibraska” movement have certainly started to gain much more interest from some of California’s top recruits.
The Trojans are a program to watch as things move forward as the intensity has picked up as well with the Pac-12 South team.
Dews has built a long-standing relationship with Hawkins and that cannot be overlooked as well especially with a player like Lewis who would be playing for the UA receivers coach and spending a lot of his time with him.
* One of the other big pulls to Arizona for Lewis is his teammate Johnson. The four-star athlete and Rivals100 member was the first big get for Arizona this spring and it has snowballed into a very strong class so far for the ‘Cats. The staff knew all along that it was going to have to play this one a bit differently as Johnson is going to take official visits and let the process play out, but he remains steadfast in his commitment so far and he continues to say all the right things about UA.
As UA would hope the versatile recruit, who is set to play cornerback for the ‘Cats, spent his weekend recruiting other prospects for the program while his Hawkins squad participated in the adidas event. Adding on to what the Wildcats already have is something that he has put at the forefront of what he does when he is at events. Because he has set his sights already on ending up at UA despite taking other visits he wants to make sure the roster around him is just as strong.
“We stay in contact all the time,” Johnson said of his relationship with Arizona. “So it’s not like they have stopped talking to me for a long time. I talk to the coaches often. I’ve been trying to recruit some of these players out here too. I’ve been talking to them trying to get them to come to Arizona too.”
For as much as a recruit in his position is really going to remain open to the process until the very end Johnson has only seemed to become more solid with his decision and is talking much more like a prospect who feels obligated to take visits than necessarily having a desire to see what other schools have to offer.
“Schools still try to get after me,” he said. “But I feel like some schools that were coming after me hard before I committed have kind of fell off. So it’s like four, five or six schools are still trying to talk to me. But I feel like Arizona that’s where I’m going to be at and that’s the school I’m going to.”
There is plenty to get into this week so let’s not waste any more time. Here is the latest edition of the War Room.
Football recruiting
Rich Rodriguez’s staff - with its new additions and continued work from those already in place - has the Wildcats on the upward trend on the recruiting trail and the extra emphasis on recruiting has continued to pay off this spring. Rodriguez mentioned earlier in the year that he believed Arizona was in the midst of putting together one of the best if not the best recruiting class in school history this year. So far so good for the ‘Cats as another four-star prospect joined the group (again) last week.
* That’s where we’ll start with four-star quarterback Braxton Burmeister and his decision to rejoin Arizona’s 2017 class after opening up his recruitment earlier this year. In all it lasted about two months before the La Jolla (Calif.) La Jolla Country Day standout decided where things started out is where he belonged. Khalil Tate remains the biggest impact on quarterbacks and Arizona because the perception is that nobody will eventually be able to beat him out because the staff loves his game so much. Because of the potential to have a tough time cracking the rotation Burmeister decided to take some more visits and see what else was out there.
When that happened there really wasn’t much different with his other possible destinations. South Carolina was the early option that intrigued him quite a bit, but the situation there is only getting more competitive with young recruits and a true freshman who impressed as an early enrollee this spring. Washington was another option that intrigued him, but there too there are some options at quarterback and some more competition.
Also in the back of Burmeister’s mind was his relationship with Rod Smith and the rest of the staff. One thing we have always said was that if Smith was at Arizona that is where Burmeister would ultimately end up. That is one reason the de-commitment was surprising when those rumors started to fly. In the end it was that relationship and the best situation that brought him back in a rare case of a re-commitment by a recruit.
“Just the overall feel you get when you go to each school,” Burmeister said. “All of them have great facilities and everything. It’s just like when you’re on campus can you really picture yourself there and that’s where I can picture myself the best.”
Tate and Burmeister were seven-on-seven teammates for a time last year so there is a familiarity there, but for the 2017 prospect there has always been the thought of redshirting his first year while Anu Solomon plays out his final season. Time will tell if that plan truly comes to fruition, but Burmeister has all the tools plus some intangibles to be the best quarterback Rodriguez has had at Arizona by the time his career comes to an end.
* It was once again a chance for GOAZCATS.com to be in California over the weekend with the monster adidas SoCal Invitational seven-on-seven tournament going on. Rather than club teams, however, the event was made up of high school teams from Southern California and Nevada. One of the prospects on hand playing with his Pasadena (Calif.) Muir squad was three-star cornerback recruit Elijah Blades. The 2017 recruit has long had Arizona as either a leader or co-leader in his recruitment and with one more unofficial visit left to take place before he decides Blades plans on announcing his choice next month on his birthday.
All signs continue to point to Arizona being the spot he ultimately lands but he still plans on taking a trip to see Florida the week prior to his decision. Unless that visit completely blows him away the Wildcats remain in a good position to land him when he announces.
We took some time to talk with Blades about the Wildcats, his recruitment and upcoming decision at the event and if you haven’t seen it yet here is our interview with him.
* Augustus Hawkins (Los Angeles, California) has plenty of top talent. Two five-star receivers and multiple four-star prospects with big offers. Arizona commit Greg Johnson is on the team as well - a Rivals100 recruit. Arguably the top prospect on the roster, however, is five-star receiver Joseph Lewis and while he doesn’t talk too much about his recruitment and where things are headed he does have some schools that are currently sticking out. The theory that continues to come into play is that the program that lands one of the prospects from that school could very well get the whole lot and with UA striking first in that regard the ‘Cats are in a good position.
Lewis continues to take things slow, but Arizona continues to make an impression on him in the early going.
“Me and coach (Tony) Dews talk a lot about on and off the field stuff,” Lewis said over the weekend at the adidas event. “It’s like personal life stuff, but he’s a good coach and I can relate to him and stuff like that. I’m just real comfortable around them.”
The idea that the Hawkins prospects could all end up at the same place is not an idea that came out of nowhere. It is something the group talks about and realizes is a possibility and maybe even likelihood at this point.
“Yeah, me and Hawkins boys we’re just so close,” he said. “We spend every day together and we plan to go to the same school and do what we’ve done at Hawkins.”
At this point Lewis said he knows he will be taking an official visit to Arizona and Nebraska but schools like Oklahoma and USC continue to make a strong push as well. Nebraska continues to be one of the programs standing out most as well and the Cornhuskers with their “Calibraska” movement have certainly started to gain much more interest from some of California’s top recruits.
The Trojans are a program to watch as things move forward as the intensity has picked up as well with the Pac-12 South team.
Dews has built a long-standing relationship with Hawkins and that cannot be overlooked as well especially with a player like Lewis who would be playing for the UA receivers coach and spending a lot of his time with him.
* One of the other big pulls to Arizona for Lewis is his teammate Johnson. The four-star athlete and Rivals100 member was the first big get for Arizona this spring and it has snowballed into a very strong class so far for the ‘Cats. The staff knew all along that it was going to have to play this one a bit differently as Johnson is going to take official visits and let the process play out, but he remains steadfast in his commitment so far and he continues to say all the right things about UA.
As UA would hope the versatile recruit, who is set to play cornerback for the ‘Cats, spent his weekend recruiting other prospects for the program while his Hawkins squad participated in the adidas event. Adding on to what the Wildcats already have is something that he has put at the forefront of what he does when he is at events. Because he has set his sights already on ending up at UA despite taking other visits he wants to make sure the roster around him is just as strong.
“We stay in contact all the time,” Johnson said of his relationship with Arizona. “So it’s not like they have stopped talking to me for a long time. I talk to the coaches often. I’ve been trying to recruit some of these players out here too. I’ve been talking to them trying to get them to come to Arizona too.”
For as much as a recruit in his position is really going to remain open to the process until the very end Johnson has only seemed to become more solid with his decision and is talking much more like a prospect who feels obligated to take visits than necessarily having a desire to see what other schools have to offer.
“Schools still try to get after me,” he said. “But I feel like some schools that were coming after me hard before I committed have kind of fell off. So it’s like four, five or six schools are still trying to talk to me. But I feel like Arizona that’s where I’m going to be at and that’s the school I’m going to.”
