Signing Day - Round II

[TIMMY]

It looks like a good group. Quite a few DBs and since quite a few have left the program that seems to be a good place to focus. Just what I am seeing but I think Spack is going to concentrate on transferring QBs almost exclusively from this point forward. A strong argument could be made, and I will make it, that his record for developing QBs out of High School is ... yeah I will say it, abysmally bad. Why follow a bad strategy when he has had more success recruiting QBs from other programs where they were developed by others over their first couple of years? Tre was obviously the best of this group, Brady was a bit up and down but he showed some potential before the knee injury, and Annexstad looked good last year. Every coach has their strengths and weaknesses and to me, Spack's glaring weakness is QB development. We have chomped on this topic quite a few times before but I think if the strategy now is to let other more capable programs coach a QB for a couple of years and then obtain them in a transfer so they are plug-and-play, that is a good strategy for this coaching staff.

I was hoping we'd see Brady Davis back in the fold as a coach. He's got a pretty good resume at this point for a young guy. He played under some good OC's and went to the Manning camp multiple times as a counselor. He's now the OC at Tyler JC. He reminds me of the OC at North Dakota. Young, energetic, back at his alma mater. Anyway just thinking out loud.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

I was hoping we'd see Brady Davis back in the fold as a coach. He's got a pretty good resume at this point for a young guy. He played under some good OC's and went to the Manning camp multiple times as a counselor. He's now the OC at Tyler JC. He reminds me of the OC at North Dakota. Young, energetic, back at his alma mater. Anyway just thinking out loud.

Maybe a QB Coach? I liked what I saw from our current OC this past season but I would guess he is wanting to get back to FBS at some point. Maybe plan for the future without him. I would like to see Brady back. I truly thought he had turned a corner and was on the upswing when the knee injury ended it for him. He is certainly building his coaching chops and ISU gave him a chance to be the starting QB.

It worked for Brian Kelly at ND with Tommy Rees. Rees turned into a quality OC but there were some rumblings that he was too young and inexperienced when Kelly brought him in as a QB coach. Nick Saban snatched him up to be the Tides OC just recently so I guess this one we can say was a pretty good decision. I liked Rees as a player. Not the most talented but smart and has a lot of heart.

 

[Total Red]

Maybe a QB Coach?

Funny you should mention. Andy Belluomini is now the former coach QB at Illinois State. He has, according to his own twitter account, accepted a position as a QB analyst at the Univ of Missouri.

https://twitter.com/andybelluomini?lang=en

 

[Virginia Redbird]

Funny you should mention. Andy Belluomini is now the former coach QB at Illinois State. He has, according to his own twitter account, accepted a position as a QB analyst at the Univ of Missouri.

https://twitter.com/andybelluomini?lang=en

I think a change needed to be made but I wish Andy the very best of luck with his new position. It will be interested how the coaching staff develops from here.

 

[TIMMY]

Maybe a QB Coach? I liked what I saw from our current OC this past season but I would guess he is wanting to get back to FBS at some point. Maybe plan for the future without him. I would like to see Brady back. I truly thought he had turned a corner and was on the upswing when the knee injury ended it for him. He is certainly building his coaching chops and ISU gave him a chance to be the starting QB.

It worked for Brian Kelly at ND with Tommy Rees. Rees turned into a quality OC but there were some rumblings that he was too young and inexperienced when Kelly brought him in as a QB coach. Nick Saban snatched him up to be the Tides OC just recently so I guess this one we can say was a pretty good decision. I liked Rees as a player. Not the most talented but smart and has a lot of heart.

Yes, I meant as a QB coach. On a side note, my kid made a great open-field tackle on Rees in high school. Jumped as high as he could and bit him on the knee!

 

[Dmills]

Funny you should mention. Andy Belluomini is now the former coach QB at Illinois State. He has, according to his own twitter account, accepted a position as a QB analyst at the Univ of Missouri.

https://twitter.com/andybelluomini?lang=en

Mickey Turner Joins Redbird Football Coaching Staff - Illinois State University Athletics

Illinois State football head coach Brock Spack has filled a hole in his coaching staff with the announcement of the hiring of Mickey Turner to be the program's new

goredbirds.com

This seems like a good addition

 

[MadBird]

Mickey Turner Joins Redbird Football Coaching Staff - Illinois State University Athletics

Illinois State football head coach Brock Spack has filled a hole in his coaching staff with the announcement of the hiring of Mickey Turner to be the program's new

goredbirds.com

This seems like a good addition

Don't know about his ability to coach WR's, but he had some pretty decent TE's at UW.

 

[fourthandshort]

Don't know about his ability to coach WR's, but he had some pretty decent TE's at UW.

Welcome to WR coach Mickey Turner !!

He played TE at Wisconsin, was named captain his SR season, despite having very few catches .. just 10 over his last 2 seasons. I would deduce he was heck of a teammate and leader. Plus they were always a run focused team. So while he was involved heavily in pass game, he would have been doing a heck of a lot of blocking too. Based on this, it seems like it could be a good fit. And I'm totally good with Peterson moving to OC/QB coach .. that he wasn't also QB coach last year, never made sense to me.

 

[cubird]

Glad Peterson is sticking around!

 

[cpacmel]

 

[fourthandshort]

So just looking at his Kohls performance (fairly impressive but faded in 3rd round) and is Hudl measurables (not impressive) - this guy looks like has fair amount of upside - especially given we know Spack is good at identifying athletes with upside, and will have him in the weight room putting on much needed muscle.

Round 1 he finished 39th of 350 punters at Kohls. Round 2 was 46th, Round 3 was 79th .. Overall was 48th, with round 3 dragging him down. They also noted in notes below, he has shown some good improvement presumably he went to Koh's in prior years. For class of 2023 only, he finished 32 of about 200 in this class.

So at 6'2" and 170 lbs, he has a nice long lean frame and legs to support more weight. Plus, based on his bio photo at Kohls, I'm not even sure he's shaving yet !!!

I smell some serious upside potential with this guy, assuming he's ready to work .. welcome to Punter Hayden Futch

Hayden Futch | Kohl's Professional Camps

KOHL'S COMMENTS​

Futch recently competed at the 2022 Kohl's National Scholarship camp. His leg strength and refinement have improved and he had an impressive camp performance. He charted several impressive punts with the biggest one being 52 yard 4.48 second blast. His stepping pattern was consistent and he controlled his drop well. He has worked hard on his technique and proved he was one of the better punting prospects in the country at this camp. Futch competed at the Kohl’s National Scholarship Camp in July of 2021. He had multiple 40+ yard punts with over 4 seconds of hang time which allowed us to see that he has college potential. His roll out punts were also impressive and was able to score points during all three sessions. Futch attended the Kohl's Southern Showcase camp and Future Stars event in the winter of 2020/2021.