Signing Day Ceremony thoughts

Just a few quick observations from the Signing Day Ceremony in Hec Ed earlier tonight.

• These guys work their asses off. All of the coaches looked like they could use a 24-hour nap. They did the best they could and were generally funny, enthusiastic and charismatic, but you could tell they were all running on fumes. Sark mentioned his new DC, "Justin Sirmon" - I think that says it all about his exhaustion level.
• Related to the above point - one of the stories was about how the staff managed to flip Pio Vatuvei from USC. The USC coaches apparently finished up their call with Pio last night at around 10PM. Bad call - that left the window open for Tosh to call him, and by 1AM the staff had succeeded in finally flipping him. This wasn't the only good Vatuvei story...

• Sark talked Lupoi into sharing a story from their in-home visit to the Vatuvei household. Tosh apparently told an abbreviated version (according to Sark), but the gist was: They got wind USC was going to be there the same night, so they re-arranged to come in after the USC coaches. On the way in, they also got wind that USC coaches felt they'd sealed the deal. But they put their hard-hats on and went to work convincing Pio and his family to come to Washington. Then Pio's dad came home, and things got very chilly. Dad is a big-time USC guy. And after listening to Tosh's pitch for a bit, he blew up and asked him "I don't get you - first it's Cal this, Cal that, now Washington!" But the staff weathered that storm and left that in-home with Pio really torn about what to do.
• Sark also talked about Miles. Apparently Miles went "dark" for the 24 hours prior to 1PM today - Sark couldn't reach him at all. Said he figured he'd lost him. He was on his way to the sauna to get ready for the 2PM press conference, and it was Miles on the phone - said he paced back and forth on the Hec Ed floor in his gym shorts and towel around his neck, no shoes or socks, talking to Miles before he decided to stick to his commitment.
• Tosh isn't a big personality like a Demetrice Martin, but you listen to the guy speak and you get why he's so good. He's a good speaker, and you can see how he would be a guy that kids relate to and can confide in - just comes across as confident but not cocky, earnest without being geeky, tough without being a caveman.
• Heyward has a little more Martin in him, but is a touch more refined. Told a good story about playing here in 2000 when Oregon State suffered their one loss, and how intimidating it was to face our crowd.
• Sirmon was called by Sark "the miner", because he's got his hard hat on working his tail off in locating the next crop - already has logged more than 50 Skype calls to 2013 prospects. Good personality, easy to see why he's considered an ace recruiter. Talked about how he was finally a Dawg after so many years (I half expected him to call out Dick Baird for not offering him out of high school).
• Wilcox is a well-spoken guy, good sense of humor. Sark made a telling statement about how it's great to be a fiery, intense coach, but that you also need to be a great teacher. Clearly Sark thinks Wilcox is a better teacher than Holt was. And Wilcox talked about how he wants more length and more speed, but also more football IQ. They pointed out how much they liked the defensive players that also played a lot of offense.
• Nansen is still a bundle of energy, and it's easy to see why he does so well with the Poly players. The rest of the staff loves him - Lupoi in particular talked about the number of times Nansen kicked his butt for kids in Hawai'i.
• Really like Joel Thomas - I think he doesn't get enough credit as a coach and a recruiter.
• Jimmy Daugherty impressed me more than usual tonight - he's got more edge to him than I remember, and in a good way.
• Didn't get a great read on what Kiesau is like, but I didn't not like him. A little more understated than the other new hires.
• Cozzetto was not present - he's undergoing shoulder surgery.
• While getting Lupoi & Kiesau wasn't strictly about tearing down Cal, it was a factor based off of things Sark said. And I get it too - damaging Cal helps vault us clearly past them, and we can now focus on getting good enough to go toe to toe with Stanford & Oregon.

The comments on individual players wasn't much different than you've probably seen already from his afternoon press conference, but a few things that stood out to me:

• Cory Littleton will be an OLB, and was cited as the model for the LB's they want to get - longer, bigger, fast guys. They know they'll need to coach up Littleton a bit on being more than a hand on the ground edge-rusher, but I think the days of recruiting Safety-sized guys and hoping they get bigger are gone.
• Shaq is amazing - 'nuff said.
• I love Lindquist's film as much as I did the first time I saw it. The kid has great tools - terrific arm, compact delivery, good speed and really good size, great running instincts. He's probably a little slower and not quite as physical a runner as Locker, but he's a lot more refined as a passer.
• Miles clearly has the credentials, and he's accurate and has a good arm and is a good runner. But he's got a hitch in his windup that hopefully Sark & Kiesau can fix, and I didn't see the same arm strength as Lindquist. That said, his track record is fantastic, and it'll be a lot of fun watching he and Lindquist compete. Derrick Brown better bring his A-game if he wants to be the backup to Price...
  
• A lot of speed on display in this class - Jaydon Mickens, Dwayne Washington, Erich Wilson, Kendyl Taylor, Cleveland Wallace, Shaq Thompson all stood out.
• Pio Vatuvei is a beast. Hope the rumors of grade issues aren't true - this kid can compete right away for playing time.
• The JC kicker Coons has a really, really strong leg. He will for certain be our kickoff guy at the very least, and expect to see a lot of touchbacks.
• All of the OL highlights showed these guys staying with their blocks and burying their guy into the turf. Granted, these are highlight tapes, but they appear to have the nasty you want in an OL.
• Kalei Auelua (as noted elsewhere) is a greyshirt candidate due to an injury he suffered this season.
• Ryan McDaniel appears to be the only early-entry guy.
• Don't forget about Marvin Hall & Antavius Sims who will become members of this class due to their delayed entry - both are fantastic athletes and also bring a ton of speed to the team.