Here's the link:

Link

Here was the story from the Cincinnati Enquirer. I hope the story doesn't get converted to a paywall story like the last time I did this after the Green Wave's win at Memphis.

Link

Talked to some of the played and David Pierce yesterday and got some information

1) This isn't for public consumption because Pierce told me he wanted me to wait for an official word from the doctor, but J.P. France probably is done for the year. He had a setback with his injured elbow Sunday. Before practice on baseball media day, France told me he had a problem with a nerve in the elbow and that the injury happened in the summer. It aggravated him for a while before shutting him down, forcing him to miss fall practice and limiting him to an inning here or there this preseason.

France looked terrific in shutting out Arkansas Pine Bluff is his freshman debut last year as an opening-day starter, but he never pitched well again and lost his spot in the rotation after his next two starts, finishing with an ERA near 6.00.

2) Ian Gibaut will not start against Pepperdine this weekend unless Pierce changes his mind. Corey Merrill, who had a solid freshman season despite going winless (0-5) because of Tulane's inept hitting, will pitch in the opener, with junior Alex Massey (who I incorrectly listed as a senior in my Advocate story that ran today) going Saturday and Tim Yandel likely starting Sunday.

Yandel is a surprise. He came to Tulane as a hitter, starting 35 games as a freshman. Last year he spent most of his time as a pitcher, appearing in 13 games as a reliever and pitching 18 effective innings.

3) Unlike Rick Jones, Pierce does not like rigid roles for his pitchers, so he is not wedded to the idea of Gibaut being a closer. His actual quote on Gibaut was this: "We'll use him. We don't really look at him as a closer. We look at him much more as a stopper. If the game's on the line in the seventh inning and we have a chance to win, he'll be in the game."

4) Stephen Alemais led his summer league in stolen bases after stealing only 11 (in 12 attempts) for Tulane last year, but don't look for him to run willy nilly under Pierce, who pointed out at that A) Alemais needs to get on base more often to have a chance to steal and B) pitchers in college baseball are much more attuned to the running game than they are in summer ball, which is all about individual number rather than the team concept. In other words, it was easy to steal bases in the summer and won't be as easy this spring.

Still, Pierce likes Alemais' potential.

"He's been outstanding," Pierce said. "He's a great athlete. He's got fast twitch, he runs really well and he's got a great arm. He has fit right in and he really wants to win. I look for great things to come from Stephen."

5) My informed guess for the lineup in the opener is this:

Catcher: Jake Rogers
First base: Garrett Deschamp
Second base: Jake Willsey
Shortstop: Alemais
Third base: Hunter Hope
Left field: Richard Carthon
Center field: Grant Brown
Right field: Lex Kaplan
Designated hitter: Yandel

The infield is the same as last year. Carthon has come on in preseason practice after appearing in danger of losing his starting job while John Gandolfo, who had a terrific fall, has quieted a bit. Yandel, who was horrendous at the plate last year (one hit in 24 at-bats), has been much better this spring, and Pierce's mentor, Rice coach Wayne Graham, has a history of using two-way players. By no means is Yandel starting at DH written in stone, though. Pierce is circumspect about his lineup, and when I talked to him there were still two more practices before Tulane travels Thursday to get to Pepperdine.

One, I believe, is Manatee DE Kwanzi Jackson, who had more than 20 sacks last year as Manatee reached the semifinals of the Class 8A state playoffs.

I'm still looking for the other one.

Here's Jackson's link on Rivals.com

Link

This was a pretty interview with Lorenzo Doss by a site that covers the Green Bay Packers. He's a really good guy who doesn't give much in interviews, but he revealed some interesting thoughts.

I had to chuckle, though, when he praised himself for holding Smelter of Georgia Tech to zero catches. The Yellow Jackets only threw eight passes that day.

This post was edited on 2/11 11:31 PM by Guerry Smith

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Obviously, Hunter Dale would be the highest rated player in the class, and he has not signed anywhere yet, but what are your thoughts on this Tulane class?

Happy? Unhappy? Guardedly optimistic? Guardedly pessimistic?

LSU and SLU.

This is not in the release, but there also will be a game on CBSCollegeSports against an undetermined AAC opponent.

This post was edited on 2/11 8:50 AM by Guerry Smith

Link

Scott and Tammy had separate interviews with CJ today, and I will take their news and put it here.

According to Tammy, Eldrick Washington is the only Tulane player who will miss spring drills with an injury after having offseason knee surgery. Jarrod Franklin is back, which we pretty much already knew since he was close to ready by the end of last season.

Jordy Joseph has been awarded a scholarship because they have three to give. They are holding at least two, one of which could go to Hunter Dale (my info, not Tammy's) and the others to possible transfers.

110 High School seniors from Louisiana have signed FBS football scholarships with at least two virtually-sure FBS signees remaining, maybe more.

At least another 115 signed up for scholarships with FCS schools. (Really hard to track)

More Louisiana players received at least one three-star rating from the recruiting services than signed FBS scholarship papers. Talk about "grade inflation."

ESPN rated 89 players as 3 stars or higher out of the 93 kids they rated (95%). 247 had rated over 100 players with three stars or better out of 115 or so about two weeks ago. Since then, they've dropped a number of "three stars" to two stars who signed with "lesser program" (including a couple of ours) and virtually everyone who did not get signed by an FBS program. And, they gave two stars to another 50 or so who signed but they either hadn't rated or didn't have in their data base. In the end, for what it's worth, 114 players received 3-stars from at least one of the services, including 12 of Tulane's 15 Louisiana signees. I would suggest this "grade inflation" puts in doubt the value of the "stars system." Yet, when the services come to a consensus, I think that adds some credibility.

48 players received at least three stars from all four services. All received at least one P5 offer and only three signed with G-5 schools. LaTech, ULL, and UCF had one each. None signed with Tulane. 41 of the 48 were also included in Jimmie Smith's "Nifty 50." And, of those 41, only two (Garrett Thomas to Texas, who went 6-7, and Brandon Singleton who went with California, 5-7), signed with teams who had losing records in 2014. Only one player, Brandon Scott, who signed with UCF, went the G5 route among these 41.

In my opinion, anyone who receives a football scholarship to a school at any level deserves congratulations and admiration for their athletic accomplishments. But, despite my personal misgivings with the "stars system," I think these 41 players are legitimately considered the "elite" in the state. By position, these 41 included one QB, five RB's, 12 WR's, 2 OL's, one TE, 3 DT's, 5 DE's, 4 LB's, and 8 DB's.

If you count the number of services who awarded at least three stars and included Smith's "Nifty 50," the 41 previously mentioned received recognition from all five sources. Nine more were included by four of the five. Fifteen, including three Wave recruits, received recognition from three of the five. Nine more (two from Tulane) received two. And, 40 kids (including eight future Tulanians) were recognized once, almost always by either ESPN or 247, both of whom give them out in bundles. In the end, our highest ranked recruit, based on these criteria, was Nigel Anderson (#61 in the state).

79 Louisiana high schoolers received at least one offer from a P5 school. 16 signed with G5 schools, five of them with Tulane, the most of any G5 school. Several more, with apparent academic issues, signed with FCS schools or junior colleges.

Almost half of the FBS signees stayed "home" in Louisiana: Tulane (15), LSU (13), LaTech (11), ULM (8), and ULL (7). The University of Arizona signed the most for an out of state school-- 5 . A couple of years back, more than 60% stayed "home" in Louisiana. Out of state competition is getting tougher.

Twenty-Six out-of-state P5 schools signed Louisiana players this year. Only a few years ago, that number was more like a dozen.

Here's the link:

Link

Some really interesting stats, Guerry. I realized we had been held to 55 and below for the past five games but I had no idea the historic context. 70 years, most of it before the shot clock. Unbelievable!!

I just put it up in the Signing Day Live story at the top.

Keeping in mind that the rankings of all the recruiting sites are skewed a bit toward the power conferences because most of the individual sites cover those schools, here are some interesting nuggets:

1) The lowest rated SEC school was Vanderbilt at No. 47. The highest-rated group of five school (AAC, Mountain West, C-USA, MAC, Sun Belt) was Cincinnati at No. 57.

2) Although the AAC had a rough time on the field, it clearly won the recruiting battle against the other group-of-five leagues. Following Cincy in the rankings was South Florida at 58 and UCF at 63. San Jose State of the Mountain West was 60 and Boise State was 64.

3) Tulane ranked 104th, ahead of only East Carolina (113) and Navy (114) in the AAC, but the ranking are biased against small classes. The Wave is tied with Air Force, which signed 28 players, all of whom were two stars or no stars. Tulane had three three-star guys out of 17.

4) The rest of the AAC rankings were Temple (75), Memphis (77), SMU (82), Houston (90), Tulsa (99) and Connecticut (100). SMU, Tulsa and Houston have new coaches, which always hurts a recruiting class even if the coach is a good recruiter because contacts have not been established.

5) Combined, the group of five conferences signed eight four-star players. Temple, which has recruited really well the past two years but was hurt in these ratings by having a small, 19-player class, got two. UCF, Tulsa, Memphis, San Diego State, Boise State and San Jose State got one. Tulsa was the only school ranked outside the top 80 with a four-star guy. The only four-star freshman Tulane has ever gotten under Rivals. com was Darion Monroe.

6) Of the other Louisiana schools, La Tech was 78, ULL was 89 and ULM was 94. That's not good, but ULL had 28 signees and ULM had 26, skewing the numbers a bit.

7) Michigan, Pittsburgh and Houston, all of whom had coaching changes, were the only schools ranked ahead of Tulane that signed fewer than 17 players.

Guerry, any scoop on him?

I understand the concerns with Tulane promoting from within and hiring from within over and over, but in this case, I know the decision will be popular with the players. They really like Rollins and think he in an excellent coach.

Although it has nothing to do with his ability to be co-DC, Rollins doesn't get enough credit for opening the New Orleans pipeline before CJ and company arrived. He built the bridges to New Orleans high school coaches that CJ and company walked over and expanded upon.

Here it is.

Darius Williams

Doug Lichtenberger will return to the sideline as Tulane linebackers and special teams coach after spending most of the past three years in an administrative role, a source confirmed.

Lichtenberger replaces Jon Sumrall, who left in December to become assistant head coach at Troy. Sumrall also served as co-defensive coordinator at Tulane with Lionel Washington.

Lichtenberger worked with the tight ends from 2007-10 under former Tulane coach Bob Toledo and along with defensive backs coach Jason Rollins was one of two assistants Curtis Johnson retained when he was named coach in December of 2010. Unlike Rollins, Lichtenberger moved off the field into the role of assistant athletic director for football operations.

When former assistant coach Barry Lamb took a leave of absence for health reasons in early November of 2013, Lichtenberger stepped in to coach the special teams for the last four games, including the New Orleans Bowl against Louisiana-Lafayette. Although Lamb did not come back, Lichtenberger resumed his administrative position in 2014.

Johnson is expected to talk about Lichtenberger's new role on Wednesday at his Signing Day press conference.

This post was edited on 2/3 9:44 PM by Guerry Smith

Here it is.

Devin Glenn

Here it is.

Jeremie Francis

Here it is.

Dedrick Shy

Here it is.

Malik Eugene

Here it is.

Keeyon Smart

Here it is.

Keyshawn Mcleod

Here it is.

John Washington

Here it is.

Nigel Anderson