'09 PA RB/LB A.J. Fenton (Wisconsin Verbal)

[TroyD92]

Originally Posted by Bernini

Rivals $

9/7

Was the lone visitor to Wisconsin this week and loved everything about the experience. They are #1 on his list. Still plans on visiting Pittsburgh, but seems to imply he could pull the trigger if all his factors add up before then.

yup I believe he also mentioned they were recruiting him as a LB.

[Bernini]

Fenton ran for 216 yards and 3 TD's in Erie's 49-13 trouncing of Norwin this weekend.

[TroyD92]

Just commited to UW per Scout Great pickup

[TroyD92]

Scout.com: Fenton is a Badger

I dont have a scout account so...

[marley26]

awesome commitment...not much is said other than that his dad told the news to scout.com...more will written later tonight apparently

[Bernini]

I thought we might get a commitment this week, following our big win on the road. Wisconsin has a little momentum now.

The biggest positive for me is this has re-established our presence in the northeast a bit, which is ultra important, IMO. This is our first commit from the region since John Moffitt out of Connecticut in October of 2005. I think we can all agree he's panned out tremendously thus far. The previous three were Jonathan Casillas (PA), PJ Hill (NY), and Matt Shaughnessy (CT) in late 2004 to early 2005. Any questions? There is a lot of talent in that region, in states, the majority of which, have no flagship school. Pennsylvania is an exception because Penn State has a pretty strong program, however relative to the amount of talent the state produces, there should be plenty of UW caliber leftovers.

A dearth of flagship schools give us two major advantage over recruiting other areas. #1. We don't have to battle a school who in state players have developed an affinity for growing up. #2. We can use our scouting skills to unearth talent that elite schools may not go after because an offer alone from UCONN, Syracuse, Delaware, even Rutgers; might not catch the attention of a USC or Ohio State. Recruiting is a bit of a copycat game, especially for the big dogs. No one program can be on the sidelines to watch every scholarship worthy recruit. So they rely on cues from other programs, usually in state, some which they respect more than others.

The biggest negative for me is we recruited another "athlete". The measureables are pretty favorable and on video they project to the field, but we recruited him as a linebacker, yet in his highlights he's always playing quarterback or running back. Linebacker is a very instinctual position and you're only as fast as your first step. If you're getting fooled and taking false steps as a result, an offensive player will blow by you no matter how quick you are. We can't see what kind of instincts or physicality Fenton has without seeing him play at the linebacker position to which he projects. So we're banking on even more unknown information than the average recruit.

Anyways, not to be Debbie Downer, here's some free video:

Brightcove- Fenton

ESPN- Fenton

[TheFresher]

glad we got a solid commitment in Fenton, but i still wanna see him playing linebacker

[TroyD92]

Originally Posted by TheFresher

glad we got a solid commitment in Fenton, but i still wanna see him playing linebacker

what does this mean for Graham or is he being recruited at DE? I really like tis pick-up however I would rather see us start recruiting more DB's only ones I can think of are Vlad, Preprah, Goodlow(maybe LB) im sure there are a few more but its deadly obvious what our biggest weakness is. Was Marcus Cromartie RS or not, because I was really high on him.

[TheFresher]

Originally Posted by TroyD92

what does this mean for Graham or is he being recruited at DE? I really like tis pick-up however I would rather see us start recruiting more DB's only ones I can think of are Vlad, Preprah, Goodlow(maybe LB) im sure there are a few more but its deadly obvious what our biggest weakness is. Was Marcus Cromartie RS or not, because I was really high on him.

I know for sure that we are recruiting Graham at DE. We are in the minority on that among schools recruiting him but that is the position he wants to play.

I'm assuming Cromartie was redshirted because I haven't seen him on any special teams.

After reading the latest article on Graham a while back, I'm pretty optimistic about where we stand with him.

[TheFresher]

After watching Fenton's Brightcove video, although he was at QB/RB, I could assess that he runs with a very low center of gravity. Hopefully that translates into being a low tackler.

[GoRU]

Bern, does Wisconsin have someone who recruits the Northeast? According to Rivals Joe Rudolph was recruiting Fenton, and he primarily recruits Ohio.

You may recall my posts on RP in the past about how NJ coaches are still angry about what happened to Nate Nurse (despite the fact that Nurse ended up washing out).

I read this article a few months ago which explains Bielema's thinking.

“That place, probably more so than any other part of the country, you almost have to be from there to get anybody out there,” Bielema said. “The East Coast is a different animal.”

John Settle found that out in a hurry. When Bielema hired a staff and outlined recruiting areas, he assigned Settle, the program’s running backs coach, to the East Coast.

“It didn’t work out,” Settle said. “I didn’t feel comfortable in that area.”

Settle, a native of North Carolina, felt like an outsider. You’d think using Dayne, Davis and all the other East Coast success stories the Badgers have had over the years as a recruiting tool would be helpful, but name-dropping had little effect.

“We tried that,” Settle said with a laugh. “It didn’t work.”

Instead of wasting precious time and money on the East Coast, Bielema reassigned Settle closer to his roots. Settle now recruits parts of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

“You can’t force a guy to recruit an area that he can’t recruit,” Bielema said. “Florida is a little bit different and Texas is a little bit different — anybody can go down there and recruit, I think. But because of the dynamics and the culture of New Jersey and New York, you kind of have to have a guy that’s familiar with that way of life.”

Settle has seen the kind of success two of his co-workers have had in warm-weather locales — defensive coordinator Dave Doeren in Florida and secondary coach Kerry Cooks in Texas — and believes prospects in his new region will warm up to the Badgers.

“We don’t need linemen, so I’m looking for skill guys and already have some good leads,” Settle said. “A lot of people are very receptive to the Big Ten coming into there and trying to recruit guys.”

As for the East Coast, Bielema doesn’t see the pipeline stoppage as a problem. Newly hired tight ends coach Joe Rudolph will recruit Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and Bielema said hiring an assistant with East Coast ties wasn’t a priority.

“It would be intriguing, but it’s not imperative for me,” Bielema said. “If we weren’t coming up with a number of skill kids out of Florida and Texas, I’d be concerned. We don’t recruit the two coasts; I don’t do California and I don’t do New York and New Jersey.”

I think the talent has been down in the Northeast recently, so there aren't really a ton of hot sleepers that Wisconsin is missing out on. Frankly, the odds are a lot better in Texas and Florida.

The kind of parochial attitude that the above article talks about really is emblematic of the Northeast from what I've read. Unless you're USC, you're going to need some kind of in. Erie is close to the Ohio border in Pennsylvania, I imagine it has much more of a midwestern mentality. You're understating the appeal of the local schools - there's somewhat of a culture shock between here and the Midwest.

[Bernini]

GoRU, Wisconsin has coaches who have ties to the northeast, but nobody has been assigned that region outside of Randolph, who covers western PA. The defensive line coach Charlie Partridge was stolen from Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh he landed Tyler Tkach from Slatington, PA; for their 2006 class. Rivals doesn't track back further so I don't know if he was an anomaly or not. I'd imagine during his 5 years in Pennsylvania he developed some relationships. However, right now, he's only been assigned Florida. He's one of two assistants designated to help pick up some of the Big 3's and elite school's scraps.

If nobody on the staff has strong enough ties to the northeast, that's a factor Bielema failed to consider when he transitioned to head coach and selected his staff. We basically have 2 coaches who don't help in recruiting much at all - QB coach Paul Chryst and RB coach Jon Settle. Chryst's offensive mind is of great value, but I can't exactly attribute the running back's success to John Settle. He didn't start as a coach at Wisconsin until 2006. Previously our running backs were: Brian Calhoun, Anthony Davis, Michael Bennett, Ron Dayne, Brent Moss, etc. Settle's ties to the southeast don't help us out at all. You think they're biased toward their schools and style of living in the northeast? Everybody in the southeast thinks that the SEC is God's gift to football and Wisconsin might as well be Antarctica weather wise. At least they're already acclimated to the cold in the northeast. And even if they're biased toward the programs in the northeast, at best that makes a UCONN, Pitt, or Rutgers (if they slide for another year) offer; comparable to a Wisconsin offer. If the northeast was parochial beyond repair, we wouldn't have been able to pull so many out of the region during the later years of the Alvarez era, no matter who was doing the selling, and even if the assistant was related to every head high school coach.

Notable earlier alumni- Ron Dayne, Troy Vincent, Anthony Davis, Tarek Saleh, Lee Deramus, Bill Ferrario

2001:

Antajj Hawthorne (CN) over everybody
Matt Bernstein (NY)

2002:

- Lamarr Watkins (NJ) over Virginia Tech, BC, Pitt, Syracuse, MSU, Va.
- Levonne Rowan (PA) over Clemson, Iowa, and Cuse
- Alex Lewis (PA) over Maryland, West Virginia, Cuse
- Elliot Goode (NY) over Cuse

2003:

- Andrew Weiniger (NY) over Pitt, Michigan St., Maryland, Zona, Cuse

2004:

- Bryan Savage (PA) over Notre Dame, Maryland, Iowa, Indiana
- Chris Pressley (NJ) over Tennessee, Maryland, Stanford
- Jameson Davis (CN) over Maryland, Michigan State., Cuse, UCONN
- Dave Peck (PA) over Cuse, Minnesota

2005:

- Jon Casillas (NJ) over Illinois, Kentucky, UCONN
- PJ Hill (NY) over Cuse, Vandy
- Garrett Graham (NJ) over Rutgers, Ga Tech, South Carolina, West Va, Cuse
- Jeff Stehle (NY) over Cuse, MSU
- Matt Shaughnessy (CT) over BC, UCONN, MSU, Purdue
- Jerry Butler (PA) over West Va., Indy
- Jarmal Ruffin (PA)

2006:

- John Moffitt (CT) over Rutgers, BC, MSU

I'll trust your opinion that it's a down year for talent in the northeast, but I see no logicial explanation for that to be the case long term. Ebbs and flows.

Hire an assistant with ties to the Northeast or just sell the recruit on the strength of the program alone relative to the others in the area.

[OnWisconsin07]

I agree. The northeast should be an area which we focus on heavily. They don't exactly have an "elite school" out there and as mentioned, the temperature shock would be much less. You would think we could get a much higher level of talent or at least the most talented in that region as opposed to getting the leftovers of Florida, Miami, Texas, etc. Yeah, sometimes you will have kids who have those offers that want to come to the Big 10, but it is much less likely. Lets be honest, the ACC and the Big East are the two worst D-1 football conferences...we should be able to get kids from these school's areas.

At least I would think so...