Leading off today: With National Letter of Intent Day for senior football players under way this morning, here's a
hard-luck tale that's more than a little puzzling and a lot disheartening.
Jontrey Tillman, a running back/defensive back for Baldwin (La.) West St. Mary High with about 5,000 career all-purpose yards, thought he would be signing today for a scholarship with Stanford University. He made a verbal commitment to the Pac-12 school in June and all but checked out of the recruiting process -- no visits and little contact with other schools.
All was well for the better part of six months, with Tillman in regular contact with the Stanford staff. West St. Mary coach Ryan Antoine told USA Today that Cardinal co-defensive coordinator Derek Mason made a home visit Jan. 16, but Tillman was informed four days later that he did not make the cut with the admission department.
"The kid was devastated and heartbroken," Antoine told the paper. "He has a 4.0 grade-point average and scored a 26 on his ACT test."
Antoine says he didn't get a clear answer from the Stanford staff as to what happened, and he's gone so far as to speculate out loud that the Cardinal found a played they liked more than the 5-foot-9, 180-pound Tillman.
Tillman is probably good enough to land somewhere else in Division I, but it won't be today. Instead, he'll have to wait out the first wave of signings the next few days and catch on with a school that still has a scholarship available.
Signings status: I've made updates to the list of New York seniors scheduled to sign with BCS schools today (scroll down the middle of the RoadToSyracuse.com home page), with the New York Post reporting Wednesday Wayne Morgan of Erasmus Hall picked Syracuse.
Morgan was the 24th Division I-A recruit in New York's Class of 2012 (Tottenville's Augustus Edwards may push it to 25 later today), and that number is down from 30 last year and 26 in 2010. That still beats the average of 19 a year from 2007-09, but 24 is not a very good showing for the state.
If that's bad news, then here's the worse news: It's still early, obviously, but next year's class of recruits looks as though it could check in somewhere between thin and anemic. Brace yourself for this, but an early guess pegs the New York number for 2013 at just 15 to 18 BCS recruits. Maybe -- hopefully -- that changes once colleges get a look at camp and combine performances, but 18 is a very scary number.
What's behind next year's disappointing forecast on the heels of this year's decline after four straight years of growth? Is it just an anomaly, or is there something else going on?
I have my suspicions that the budget-driven schedule reductions of the last few years -- a lot of teams are playing eight games instead of nine or 10 -- are beginning to take a toll. But the number of I-A recruits in 2004-06 checked in at 28, 27 and 24, respectively, before the 2007-09 drought and before the cuts kicked in.
Without data from other sports -- which is tougher to compile and analyze -- I'm not ready to blame the shorter schedule as the only factor. But if that's not the issue, then what is?
And ponder this for a moment: If we really end up dropping from 30 major-college recruits to 15 in just two years, the net loss in scholarship money, room and board for our class on '13 comes in north of $2.5 million over the full life of a five-year free ride.
Catching up on a few commitments: Abraham Lincoln two-way lineman Robert Kitching picked UMass after a weekend visit. New coach Charley Molnar is at the helm as the Minutemen prepare to make the leap from the FCS to the Mid-American Conference, which is a Division I-A conference.
"After the season, I got a lot of interest from Division I-AA schools," the 6-foot-3, 305-pound Kitching told The New York Post. "I had my mind set. Then all of a sudden Division I-A came around and I said, ‘Hey, this is a big opportunity for me.’ I can’t wait to step on campus.”
I apparently missed the news, but William Floyd running back Stacey Bedell also reportedly switched his commitment to UMass recently after committing to Villanova before the season and then being linked to James Madison last month.
Nick Wagner, a first-team all-state receiver in Class A for John Glenn, picked Stony Brook. He helped the
