Indiana University Athletics
CAM CAMERON COMMENTS ON 2000 RECRUITING CLASS
2/3/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
CAM CAMERON COMMENTS ON 2000 RECRUITING CLASS
From February 2, 2000 press conference
This press room is a little different than Memorial Stadium. The first time I walked in back there three people shook my hand. So I don't know what the deal is over here. Here's this recruiting class and you can take a look at (the press release). I think the first thing that you need to realize is that it takes a lot of effort on everybody's part to put together a recruiting class of 20 or more guys. This is two years in a row, for us, where we've signed at least 20 guys. This year it's going to be 22.
Really, if you look at the job that our staff has done, you'll see that we've signed guys from 11 different states and that takes a lot of effort out of seven coaches. You're allowed to have seven coaches on the road at a time and you're trying to cover 11 states every week for at least two months with seven guys and I thought that our staff did a really good job especially the full-time guys that go on the road.
I think the thing that may get overlooked that I'd like to mention about the entire athletic department, and I'll go through it with you, there's a few of these guys that wouldn't be here if it weren't for the other coaches in this department. (Head track and field coach) Marshall Goss and his entire staff have done an excellent job of identifying guys all around the country that are interested in not only playing football but in running track. We've got another guy in this class that (head baseball coach) Bob Morgan has helped us recruit that will come here to play baseball. There's not a school that we go into, whether it's California, Texas, Florida -- and it's gone from one program to two programs...It used to be all they talked about was Coach Knight and Indiana basketball but now with what (head soccer coach) Jerry (Yeagley) has done, and with more soccer being on t.v., and playing in the national championship and winning a national championship again, and I mean this sincerely, every school you go into people are talking about not only basketball but our men's soccer program. You can't imagine what a benefit that is for our football program. Now, if we could get Jerry to get us a kicker. But I will say this, almost every kicker these days that you recruit has played soccer growing up. They may not have decided to play in high school because sometimes it conflicts with football but I think our soccer program was a big factor why Ryan Hamre decided to come here as a punter and a kicker because he was a soccer player and followed our soccer program. There's a lot of things going on that help our football program.
Before we kind of go through these guys individually and take questions, I want to do one thing really quickly because I think it's important. It's difficult to predict which of these guys are going to be able to help us this year. I think the best thing to do is to go back a year ago. We had a solid class a year ago, one that had a strong emphasis on speed. I think that's the reason why we had nine out of 20 guys play significantly out of last year's recruiting class. (Fullback) Jeremi Johnson comes in and starts as a freshman. (Wide receiver) Jerry Dorsey comes out of junior college and starts. (Tight end) Kris Dielman comes in, a guy who really very few people knew about, and played in every game. We had nine guys total out of last year's recruiting class that made major contributions. What guys will contribute from this year's recruiting class? I can't answer that. But you can see there's more of an emphasis this year on the offensive and defensive lines. I think if you'll count the number of linemen we've recruited it will be eight or nine guys. Eight for sure, maybe a ninth guy that may end up being a defensive lineman so a little more emphasis on the guys up front. And then the other dozen or so guys are skill guys and in every recruiting class in football you want to recruit running backs, defensive backs, and linebackers because linebackers can become defensive linemen, running backs will become defensive backs, a corner may ultimately become a safety that can really run. So what we tried to do is to recruit enough skill guys to meet any of the needs that we have with (safety) Mike McGrath graduating and with Wally graduating as a defensive end. So we've met some needs in that area. We'll always have an emphasis on speed and skill but this year we felt like we had to go out and get some linemen to replace (Pita) Elisara, (Craig) Robeen, (Matt) Snyder, Chad Miller, Wally, and Jason Czap.
The other area, and I mentioned him earlier, we had to have someone that could come in here and potentially be our starting punter. Ryan Hamre gives us that opportunity and that's hard for a freshman to do. The thing that impressed me about him is the reason that he came here over the other schools that were recruiting him is that he felt like he has an opportunity to start. That impressed me. That impressed me that a freshman would want to come in here and be our starting punter.
As you can see, we signed four kids from the state of Indiana. I think there will be a dozen guys or so that will play in the Big Ten out of the state of Indiana. We feel good about all four guys. Aaron Halterman from right up the road here in Center Grove and a guy, if you haven't seen Jason Fryar wait until you see him. He's at least 6-foot-8 and he's at least 300 (pounds). With guys like that their weight can fluctuate by the hour but he's big. Dan Phillips is a guy that very few people new about. He transferred from South Bend Riley to Mishawaka Penn and Chris Geesman says he's probably the best football player he's ever coached and those of you who know Chris know what that means. You know David Lewis is a player, he's from Terre Haute (Cam Cameron's hometown) and he's from Terre Haute South. We feel like we've got a kid who came to our camp as a freshman, then as a sophomore, and then again as a junior so we feel we know him extremely well and we think he's a guy down the road who is going to really develop.
Let me just run through these guys and then we can go back and take any questions.
Brandonn Baker, as you can see, is from Houston, Texas. He's from the same high school as Anthony Oakley, an offensive lineman we signed a year ago.
Jodie Clemons is a kid from right in Lansing who really got overlooked a little bit. He's only played two years of football. He really saw himself as a basketball player. He's 6-foot-4, maybe 6-foot-5. He's gone from 210 pounds to 230 pounds, maybe 240. He had a great year. Very few people knew about him. We were actually recruiting another guy on that team and found Jodie Clemons and we think he has a great upside to him.
Henry Frazier is currently here. He enrolled in January. You'll get a chance to see him this spring. He would like to concentrate just on football this spring but he'll have two years of eligibility in track after this year so you can anticipate seeing him run track in the future. I think he's got a chance to be a heckuva player.
We mentioned Jason Fryar.
Matt Genasci is also here. He'll play guard and center for us this spring so we'll get a chance to get a good look at him.
Antoine Grant was rated by SuperPrep as the number one junior college offensive lineman in the country. Whether he is that I don't know but if you looked at him you'd say he could be. He's a wonderful kid who is every bit of 6-foot-4, every bit of 340 pounds, and looks like he weights 280. You're going to be extremely impressed with him and I promise you there's never been a guy...where this kid lives in the middle of Mississippi, if we have another athlete here at this university who lives out in the middle of nowhere further than this guy I want to see it. That was an interesting home visit.
Aaron Halterman we mentioned him.
We talked about Ryan Hamre.
Travis Haney comes from Orange Park which is right outside of Jacksonville. We found him basically through (IU basketball player) Larry Richardson. He comes from the same high school as Larry. No wise cracks about the fact that we recruited someone who can catch the ball from the same high school as Larry Richardson. I said it and I think I can get away with it. No, Larry's fine. He helped us and that was a big factor in him coming here that Larry helped us out and his family.
Chris Jahnke is a kid from down there in Louisville and as you can see that's three years in a row we've signed someone from Ballard High School. Ron Bethel was the first guy and Jeremi Johnson a year ago. I think we've got three really good players from Ballard High School.
A kid we had in camp who very few people knew about was Herana-Daze Jones (pronounced Hernandez). He rushed for over 2,000 yards this year in nine games. He broke Shaun Alexander's, the running back from Alabama, he broke his record in the state of Kentucky. He's a guy that committed to us early and we were able to hold onto him. I think he'll be quite a player and he's led his basketball team to a 20-1 record right now.
David Lewis. We talked about David. One thing that I didn't mention about David is that I would guess he'll run track here. We'll have four guys in this recruiting class that will run track here. David Lewis won the hurdles last year in the state of Indiana.
Rico Lloyd came here to run track initially. I would imagine he'll be here for the Nike Championship which is held here in March. There's a good chance he'll be here to run in that. He came and saw the new track facility, indoor and outdoor, and told me that we have the finest track facilities in the country and that was a big factor. He visited Tennessee, Michigan State and Indiana and really, I think, the thing that got us over the edge with him was that we had the finest track facilities in his mind so we're thrilled to death to have him. He lives right outside of Washington, D.C., which is where Dumfries is.
John Lumpkin is a kid we've been recruiting for almost three years who will probably be a defensive end for us. He's from Warren Harding in Ohio. He is one of the more highly publicized recruits. Again, he's a wonderful kid that I think has a chance to be a great player.
Rashon Myles, another guy that my guess is will run track here, from Dallas, Texas, and what he'll run I'd imagine he'll run the 100 and 200 meters. Again, another guy, extremely talented and I think he'll have a chance to help us.
Prince Pack is the guy that my guess is will play baseball. The fact that Bob Morgan has guys playing both, Gibran Hamdan and Antwaan are both playing baseball, the opportunity to do that helped and I think here's a guy that has an opportunity to be drafted to play baseball out of high school. He's right out of Detroit.
We talked about Dan Phillips.
Michael Robinson is a kid we found about a year ago. He's from Orrville, Ohio. You can imagine where the connection is there. He's every bit of 6-foot-6, maybe 6-foot-7 and probably over 200 pounds by now. We think he's got a heckuva chance to help us.
Kevin Smith, from Canton McKinley, probably the top one or two and certainly top five football programs in the state of Ohio.
Clay Stuart. Another big offensive lineman who come in here and probably redshirt a year and have a chance to play three or four years for us.
Patrick Thompson is a guy we found at Fork Union Military Academy this winter. He is originally from Paterson, New Jersey, and he is here on campus now. You'll get a chance to see him this spring at quarterback. As you know, we did not sign a quarterback a year ago and we felt like we needed to get one quarterback this year and we'll probably sign another one this next recruiting class.
Then probably the most highly touted player in the class is Steve Williams from Bolingbrook in Illinois. He was a standup linebacker. He played middle linebacker at 6-foot-3, 275 pounds. He's the one guy, along with Antoine Grant, who if they walked in the door over there you'd say they have a chance to help you in a hurry. Whether that will happen or not we'll have to wait and see.
I think it's a solid recruiting class just as we said a year ago. Not quite the emphasis on speed but I don't think this class lacks speed. I think we've got some speed in this class. I think anytime you can put three recruiting classes of 20 or more guys back, to back to back that's going to give us a chance down the road. But really, it was a heckuva effort by the entire athletic department and our staff, especially the guys who are out on the road.
Questions:
On toughness: "We're no different than really any other
sport. You've got to have tough-minded people to compete in this
league. I don't care how talented you are. You talk to any coach
in this department, if your guys aren't tough minded ultimately
you don't have a chance. We feel good about all of these guys.
I think the one thing, too, I would add to that, Pete, is you
know we had a lot of early commitments. For example, Frazier,
Fryar, Grant, Halterman, Jahnke, Jones, Lewis, Phillips, Robinson,
Smith, all of those guys committed to us a long time ago and
all stuck to their commitment and I think that probably tells
you as much about these guys as anything because they all had
opportunities and they were all being recruited right down to
the wire and that tells you something about this recruiting class
too."
On Myles and Jones: "Myles is definitely a tailback. You're going to see him. He's at least six foot, maybe 6-1. He's an I-Back (with emphasis). That's where he's going to play. He looks like a linebacker. Jones will be a corner or a safety if he's not a tailback. We had him in camp as a defensive back and he's a heckuva defensive back but this year he had a great year at tailback so we're going to start him out and give him a shot at tailback."
On junior college recruiting: "We had to get at least one offensive tackle and we had to get one guard or center, at least. We were able to do that. And we had to get one wide receiver who can really run. You saw what Jerry Dorsey was able to do for us this past season just because he can run. This kid will be one of, if not the fastest guy on our team. We recruited a couple of other offensive linemen but we really only visited about five or six (junior college players). So if you can hit on one out of two that's really pretty good."
On Big Ten recruiting: "That's the league were in. There's a reason why this league is so good right now and that's because everybody in this league can recruit. There's not a team in this league from top to bottom who isn't great at recruiting. Why is that? One, because every school in this league is a good academic institution. Secondly, everybody has great facilities. We've done surveys and those are the things that are important to kids. What are your academics like and what are your facilities like? We have the best facilities in the country in this league. We've got the best, in my mind, athletic and academic combination so it's what you are presented with. We just deal with it. I don't know where we'll be ranked. I've never been really high on those rankings but we'll be competitive."
