MADIA: Recruiting During Transition

Since his hiring at James Madison, new football coach Curt Cignetti’s primary task was to keep the Dukes’ recruiting class intact.

Cignetti showed he could do that by inking eight players a few days after he was officially introduced as coach this past December and then by adding five signees to the group this past Wednesday.

Since he signed those 13 athletes, they’ll always be the ones considered part of his first recruiting class at JMU.

Whether that’s the right way or wrong way to define what a coach’s first recruiting class is — the alternate is to give him a full recruiting cycle to scout players, offer them, take their verbal commitments and then sign them — isn’t the point. The point is keeping a recruiting class together during the program’s transition is one accomplishment, but developing those players who signed during transition into assets for the program is another.

And the last class pieced together during a coaching change at JMU largely hasn’t worked out.

Of the 20 prospects that signed Letters of Intent to create the Dukes’ 2016 recruiting class, only eight remain on the current roster while just five have become full-time starters and only two have earned all-conference or All-America honors.

For this exercise, the 20 were broken into three groups — high-impact players (starters), low-impact players (contributors) and no-impact players (those who never made it to JMU or those who left the program before graduation).

Former coach Mike Houston signed those 20 after he replaced ex-coach Everett Withers.

High-impact players (5): Defensive tackle Adeeb Atariwa, offensive lineman Zaire Bethea, defensive end John Daka, offensive lineman Mac Patrick, safety Adam Smith.

Daka could be the team’s best player in 2019 after recording 47 tackles, 17 tackles for loss and 10 sacks while earning All-American and All-Colonial Athletic Association accolades this past season. Patrick is the most veteran of the entire recruiting class, starting 28 games at center over the past two seasons and providing valuable depth as a freshman when he played the entire second half of the team’s FCS semifinal win at North Dakota State.

Low-impact players (3): Quarterback Cole Johnson, linebacker Bryce Maginley, offensive lineman J.T. Timming.

In three seasons with the program, Johnson has served as the team’s primary backup quarterback each year, and Maginley had a scoop-and-score touchdown on a blocked punt during the Dukes’ 2016 FCS quarterfinal win over Sam Houston State. Though he has bounced from one defensive position to another, Maginley has always factored in positively on special teams for JMU.

No-impact players (12): Safety Reggie Collins, quarterback DJ Daniels, offensive lineman Mike Faulkner, linebacker John Kinney, defensive lineman Rondre Knowles-Tener, defensive lineman Mike Mabry, linebacker Devin Medley, tight end Lawton Riggs, defensive lineman Dorrius Rodgers, offensive lineman Robert Snead, quarterback Mack Waldman, wide receiver Braxton Westfield.

For whatever the reason, these players weren’t around long enough — or at all — to make any impact on the field. Daniels was a highly recruited quarterback, but a terrific baseball player who opted to join the Toronto Blue Jays organization after high school instead of joining the Dukes. Others like Collins, Faulkner, Kinney and Snead were good enough to be on the team, but couldn’t crack a two-deep comprised mostly of veterans when they were young.

Anyway, a coach missing on more than half of the signees in his first recruiting class isn’t ideal and can result in setback for the program along with a slower build for the new coach.

What Houston did to erase the errors made with the 2016 class was masterly add transfers not only who could play, but also fit the identity of the his team while never disrupting the strong camaraderie in the locker room. Some of those transfers like quarterback Ben DiNucci, defensive end Ron’Dell Carter and defensive tackle Paris Black are still on the team, and most transfers Houston recruited arrived at JMU with at least two years of eligibility remaining.

On top of dependable transfers, Houston’s 2017 recruiting class has already produced more starters and contributors than the 2016 class, so those first-cycle misses are well in the past and aren’t negatively affecting the program currently.

But with as well regarded as the signees in the 2019 class are, Cignetti will want to keep the group together and progress those individuals to ensure success this season and in the coming years for himself and his new program. According to Rivals.com, JMU signed two three-star prospects and seven two-star prospects in the 2019 class.

“Excited about these guys,” Cignetti said last week. “They’ll all have an opportunity once they report. … The way it works nowadays with numbers the way they are, everyone has an opportunity to make an impact and show what they can do once you go to August camp.

“Everything is earned not given.”

Good Counsel (Olney, Md.) defensive end Jalen Green was a two-time first-team All-Met selection by the Washington Post while Good Counsel running back Latrele Palmer, Hermitage (Richmond) running back CJ Jackson and Mt. Vernon (Atlanta) running back Austin Douglas had at least one 1,000-yard rushing season as prep standouts.