Our Honor Defend

June 08 2007: Down to 11

On June 08, 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran with the news that Terrelle Pryor had formally truncated his list to 11 schools.  A few of the schools in this list are of no surprise to anyone, but a few curious schools made the list.

Not Surprising

• Ohio State. Considering the aforementioned nice words Terrelle had for both the program at Ohio State and for Jim Tressel, this might have been the most likely name to be on the list.  The Buckeyes certainly fit the bill on a few of the important rubrics, such as distance and strength of both basketball and football programs.
• West Virginia. WVU had actually been in contact with Pryor quite a bit, and seemingly had amped up interest in Pryor roughly around the same time that Texas and Florida were recruiting him with keen interest.  WVU seems like a logical inclusion into his “top 11″ for a variety of reasons, such as distance and the spread offense that Rodriguez runs at WVU. Pryor said later that he enjoyed watching how Pat White runs their offense.  Making WVU an even more intriguing player was the recent hire of Bob Huggins to WVU.  Huggins had been all over Pryor while Pryor was on the AAU circuit.
• Michigan. I’m trying not to put the ordering of this list in a way that’s indicative of the events to follow, but Michigan has a competitive football program to go with a basketball program that, once it clears out the Amaker dross, should be one of the better programs in the conference.  It’s also within 5 hours of his Jeannette home.  Curious for me, though, is the fact that I just don’t believe Lloyd Carr was ever really interested in him being their quarterback, knowing that they signed Ryan Mallett to be the leadfooted dropback QB of the future for them.  That said, even though Michigan wanted him as a wideout by December, they had changed their tune in April.  Again, I just don’t buy it.  I’m sure Carr’s staff would’ve have willingly let him compete for the QB job against what would have been a true sophomore heir apparent in Mallett, but would’ve just been a lot happier if Terrelle had resigned himself to being a wide receiver.  Also helping Michigan this early on is Toney Clemons, a class of 2007 signee for the Wolverines from the Pittsburgh area.  Clemons and Pryor are cousins and are rather close.
• Penn State. The distance thing is appealling, knowing how close Happy Valley is to Jeannette.  Pryor had also built a good rapport with several assistant coaches, including Tom Bradley, Larry Johnson Sr and Jay Paterno.  Though there was more competition awaiting him at the QB position (Clark, Devlin) than there would’ve been at a place like WVU, Terrelle was consistent in saying competition doesn’t scare him.  Besides, Ohio State, at the time, was boasting a QB depth chart of RS freshman Antonio Henton, RS sophomore Robbie Schoenhoft, GS junior Todd Boeckman as well as Joe Bauserman.
• Florida. Running a spread option offense at Florida, to go with boasting two national titles in both sports Pryor hopes to play could only help, right?  That is, if Pryor is serious about leaving the Midwest if the college he chooses is the right fit.  Terrelle said competition doesn’t scare him, but he certainly wouldn’t be the heir apparent to Tebow.  Brantley and Newton would’ve posed serious roadblocks to him playing, and both would have an incumbency advantage.
• Texas. Working with the same coaches that “molded” Vince Young into a national champion quarterback became a big draw to Terrelle, as Vince Young was a player whose style he hoped to emulate.
• Tennessee. Tennessee made a last minute push (last minute, as in seemingly coming into the mix at the very end of May) to get on to Terrelle’s radar right as he was deciding on what schools he wanted to consider.  To no one’s surprise, David Cutcliffe was basically the only draw to Tennessee’s football program.  Cutcliffe, then an assistant with the Volunteers, can boast to being the QB guru to both Manning boys, which is important since Terrelle identified Peyton Manning as being another one of the select group of NFL QBs that he follows.  Tennessee’s hoops program is also an up and comer, but it’s not clear to me Terrelle ever referenced Bruce Pearl with any kind of frequency.

Huh?

• Alabama. I don’t think this was anything other than a flash in the pan flirtation with the Crimson TIde (and I don’t know it’s origins, other than guessing that it’s part of Saban’s recruiting blitz that he’s been on). Depth chart must have been appealling to him since, well, beyond John Parker Wilson (a would-be senior for Pryor’s freshman year, should Pryor have gone to Tuscaloosa) lies a bunch of scrubs.  Knowing the fan base down here, they would’ve been screaming at the top of their lungs to start a freshman Terrelle Pryor since John Parker Wilson, well… he just blows.  Knowing the area, Tuscaloosa is rather out of the way and the local airport only services the football team and the aviation enthusiasts.  He would rarely get to see his father.  That said, Terrelle said that Nick Saban told him that he (Pryor) fits Saban’s system well. Ooookie dokie.  Lest we forget: the basketball team at Alabama is awful.
• Georgia Tech. Chan Gailey was a head coach in the NFL, and Atlanta must be a city with some draw for a guy like Terrelle Pryor.  That’s the only reason I can think of, and I never once read of any mention of the Ramblin’ Wreck before they appeared in his Top 11.  How appealling could it be to follow in the legacy of Reggie Ball?
• Michigan State. They more than meet the distance requirement, and I can’t imagine the depth chart at Michigan State (immediately following the end of the glorious John L days) was intimidating, but I don’t recall any mention of Sparty before they appeared in his Top 11.
• Notre Dame. I’ll get to the Notre Dame issue in the Miscellany section, since it’s beyond funny, but Notre Dame’s inclusion in this Top 11 is a little mystifying.  Basically, of all the schools that were recruiting Pryor, Notre Dame was the only one that never honestly told him they wanted him as a QB.  The QB issue was important to Terrelle, but minus some discrepancies early in December about what Notre Dame expected, Notre Dame was mostly consistent in not wanting him to be a QB at the next level.

Notoriously absent from this list is Pitt.  Even though his father is a big Pitt fan and even though Terrelle had been on several visits to Pitt’s campus (and had even verbaled to them at one point), Terrelle wanted to move out of the city of Pittsburgh.  Most reports indicated that he still wanted to be close to Pittsburgh and to be close to his father, but he wanted some kind of change of scenery.  Pitt basically never regained any position with Terrelle Pryor again, though Dave Wannstedt made it clear that they would not stop recruiting him.  Indeed, the overtures from the Wannstache to Terrelle carried well into November 2007.

Pryor apparently indicated that seven of the eleven in his list stood out moreso than the others; I don’t know for sure if the seven I identified are indeed the ones.  That said, Terrelle had plans to dwindle his list down to five sometime in August, with Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas and Florida looking to be in the best shape.  However, it’s far too early to adequately speculate.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23