The Pilot News - PHS football player goes 'camping'

Ball State (June 8)
   More than 500 players attended the one-day camp, a record day according to the coaches.
   They split the players up by age, talent and weight. Blaine was chosen to be in the top 10 offensive lineman group. It was an intense day. The day started at 1:00 p.m. and lasted until after 8:30 (with a 1 1/2 hour break midway).
   Blaine took part in a couple hours of group drills and a couple hours of one-on-one. The coaches worked the kids very hard. Blaine had a good day, but is a little sore now.
   Ball State is down to 12 scholarships to offer this year. Blaine said he thought they only started with 15 to begin with. So, already they must have firm commits from three.
   Ball State’s O-line coach talked to him privately, as well as head coach Brady Hoke. Coach Hoke told Blaine that his name is definitely in the conversations taking place between coaches. Coach Hoke also said to Blaine that he thinks he is going to be a great player at the college level. The only thing they are trying to figure out is the mix of scholarship offers at BSU with regard to position. However, he assured Blaine that he is being seriously considered for one of the 12 spots.
   While at the Ball State camp, Blaine was approached by four other smaller schools – University of Indianapolis, Indiana State, University of Evansville and Tri State. Those types of schools back off as soon as Blaine tells them that he has a pending offer from a D1 school. The same thing happened the other day when Butler University called Blaine. As soon as the recruiter heard about the pending D1 offer, he just offered Blaine best wishes.
   Update: Blaine talked with Coach Ed Faulkner from Ball State later in the week. He told Blaine, and then followed-up with a letter, saying Blaine was at the top of their list. Blaine asked him if the scholarship offer would be made during the fall. He told Blaine that some would be, but he said he thought that they would make Blaine an offer yet this summer. We are waiting to see if that happens.
   I received this email from Coach Faulkner. This is how the recruiters work. I am sure he wants a call and Blaine will call him when he gets home. Recruiting coaches can email and text, but cannot call during this quiet time until August 31 for seniors. However, a recruit can call unlimited times to the coach.
   Blaine,
Our coaches were really impressed. I will continue to be in touch.
   Coach Faulkner

Cent. Michigan (June 9)
    We are leaving at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon traveling to Mount Pleasant, Michigan. It should be a four-hour trip right up the middle of Michigan. Blaine will be taking part in a one-day camp tomorrow at Central Michigan University. CMU was the MAC champions last year with an overall record of 10-4 and a conference record of 7-1. Blaine’s recruiting coach from CMU is Mark Elder. He is the linebackers coach for the Chippewas.
    All five of the schools we are visiting this week show a lot of interest in Blaine. It is our goal to end up with 2-3 offers. I am not saying 2-3 offers from the five we are visiting, but 2-3 offers before Blaine decides on where he wants to play.
    Blaine had another good camp. The Central Michigan day was more of a combine format versus instructional camp. There was a lot of testing and one-on-one. A better term might be “tryout”.
    I learned that a round-trip from Plymouth to Central Michigan is close to 500 miles. I thought I would be smart and wait to fill up my truck thinking there would be lower gas prices in Michigan. Well, it did not work out like I planned. Gas was 20 cents higher per gallon in Michigan!   Luckily, I was not able to forget this miscalculation happened because my wife kept reminding me the whole trip!

Illinois (June 12)
We made the trip to Champaign, Illinois, June 12. The drive was a little over three hours. Blaine’s recruiting coach from the University of Illinois is Curt Mallory. He is the son of Coach Bill Mallory of IU football fame. He is a nice guy and we all like him a lot.
    The facilities and surroundings at Memorial Stadium are incredible. They are in the midst of a $150 million renovation. It is and will be magnificent! All the staff and coaches were very friendly and supportive.
   We waited in the “Recruit Lounge.” It was a large room with dark oak wainscoting and large leather sofas. They had a big screen playing Illinois football highlights (although there couldn’t have been many highlights from last year) and hip-hop music. It was very nice, although the nicest recruit lounge I have seen was Purdue’s. It was fairly new, with flat screens all over the place. It also had display cases full of Purdue memorabilia. It was VERY nice!
   There were only 12 recruits to be observed at Illinois. We all moved to the player’s team room. Every school we have visited has this type of room. It always reminds me of a high school band room (chairs on risers), although admittedly nicer. It is a large room that can be divided down the middle when the coaches want to split their meetings into defensive and offensive squads. It was here that head coach Ron Zook talked to us. He came across as a sincere man. He said the two most important things in college football are getting a good education and having fun.
   After that, the group split into specialties. The great part about the day was there were only 12 players and the entire Illinois coaching staff. There was only Blaine and two other offensive linemen with Coach Wolford (the O-line coach) and his assistant (I missed his name but Coach Zook said he was a four-year starter back in the Florida glory years). Talk about great one-on-one instruction!
   The first thing they did was test all the players. They ran a 40-yard dash (it is the standard measurement of speed for recruiting) and then they tested the vertical jump. Blaine has done the dash plenty of times, but he had never tested for the vertical jump at a camp. Blaine usually runs between a 5.2 and a 5.4 in the 40. His 40 time is pretty decent for a 6-6, 275 lb. offensive lineman.
   Blaine had a hamstring pull a week and half or so ago while doing weight training at the high school. It had not bothered him too much at the camps at Central Michigan and Ball State. However, the worst thing that could have happened happened. When he came down after doing the vertical jump, Blaine said he felt pain and he knew it was bad. He reaggravated the hamstring pull.
   The rest of the camp was very painful for Blaine. Nevertheless, he did not sit out a drill or one-on-one play. My evaluation, as a father, was that he performed at the 50-60 percent range.It was a huge let down. Blaine went to Illinois to show his talents and he could hardly perform at all. The O-line coach talked to him afterward and he tried to tell Blaine he still did well considering the injury.
   Coach Mallory emailed me this morning and said that Blaine is still in the mix of things. He said not to worry and they will be watching him during the upcoming season. He said he would be in touch.
   However, the bottom line is this: Blaine was not able to show his stuff. I am doubtful Illinois will be in mix.
   We were supposed to be at IU today but Blaine called his recruiting coach, Bill Lynch, and said we will have to reschedule for next week. Our main goal now is to have Blaine ready for Bowling Green this Saturday. We are proceeding in that direction.
   The wildest thing about the whole trip to Illinois is this: We left Memorial Stadium and called Dr. Holm’s office from the stadium parking lot to find out the best treatment for the hamstring. They told us the normal treatment – ice and Motrin. We went to a Target store in Champaign to get a cooler, ice and the Motrin. We got Blaine situated with his leg elevated and ice in the truck and hit the road. We were an hour or so from the stadium when Blaine gets a text message from his Bowling Green recruiting coach, Mike Ward. He asked Blaine in the text if he was icing his hamstring. We were all freaking out! How does this person, two states away, know about Blaine’s injury? Blaine texted him back and asked him how he knew. All Coach Ward said was, that good programs and coaches stick together. This shows the closeness of the college coaching community. I was amazed!!

Bowling Green (June 16)
   We are leaving Friday around 5 p.m. for Bowling Green. Hopefully, Blaine will be ready to work out tomorrow (June 16) and then we are driving to Purdue to join the varsity basketball team for an AYBT tourney. The tourney starts Saturday and Blaine is hoping to feel well enough to play at least Sunday. We are very busy this weekend.
It took a little over three hours to get to the BGSU campus from Plymouth.
The campus reminded me a lot of Central Michigan University. The three MAC schools that are recruiting Blaine are very similar in size. They are all around 20,000+ students. The biggest difference between the three is the layout of the campuses. Where Ball State is a little more spread out and on the outskirts of town, BG and Central are more compact and integrated into the town.
At BGSU, it was a “Big Man” camp. It was open to offensive and defensive lineman. I would guess that there were approximately 200 “big” guys at the camp. They had a couple hours of offensive drills in the morning and then the afternoon was for defense and one-on-one drills. Blaine participated during the morning session only. When we arrived, the O-line coach greeted Blaine and said he had just reviewed his game film again and he said that Blaine looked “awesome” on film. That is always a great way to start a visit!
   We met the recruiting coach for Blaine, Mike Ward, who is actually the team’s defensive line coach. We also met the head coach for the Falcons, Gregg Brandon. Coach Brandon was an assistant and then became the head coach after Urban Meyer left Bowling Green to coach at Utah. Bowling Green State has a great schedule this year. They open with Minnesota, and then play Michigan State, Temple, Western Kentucky and Boston College.
   BG has a brand new athletic building, the Sebo Athletic Center. It is an incredible glass and steel structure. The building actually closes in the north end of the stadium. The football staff has only occupied the new building for the past month. It has the newest technology in therapy and weight training on the first floor. The other two stories are administrative and coaches’ offices. Everything is new and state of the art. They even have an underwater treadmill pool they use for therapy. It was equipped with underwater cameras that show the progress in treating an athlete’s injuries. The weight room was massive and once again, all brand new. The team employs three full-time weight trainers. They are also making renovations to the team locker room and installing turf to the field.
   We had a very good experience at BG. They have officially offered a scholarship and have made it very clear that they want him on their team.

IU (June 22)
   When Blaine re-injured his hamstring at Illinois, he was scheduled to be at Indiana University two days later. However, due to his injury, we rescheduled the visit for June 22.
   Then IU head coach Terry Hoeppner passed away on June 19. Blaine’s recruiting coach (Bill Lynch) was promoted to head coach and then the next day, Coach Hep dies. We decided to wait a day and then try to reach Coach Lynch later. Blaine tried to text him with no luck. I called the football office to verify that everything is a go. I was informed that we are still on for tomorrow (June 22) morning.
   We are leaving (June 21) and Blaine will have a workout with the IU coaches tomorrow. Blaine is very interested in IU. It has always been his dream to play for a Big Ten team and especially IU. This will be the last summer college visit.
   I have always thought that the Bloomington campus is one of the most beautiful of college campuses that I have visited. It just looks the part – old buildings with ivy crawling up the stonewalls. I really like the atmosphere of IU. It is unfortunate that the football program is going through all the turmoil right now. We are not sure how this visit will turnout. It is a very unsettled time for Indiana football.
   (Because of Coach Hoeppner’s passing) we weren’t sure what the mood would be at the IU football offices. Blaine had called Coach Lynch and asked if everything was still a “go.” He assured Blaine that everything would still be the same.
   We arrived at the football office Friday morning. The offices are located under the east stadium bleachers. There is a huge stairway leading down into a lobby/lounge area where the nine recruits that were invited for the day watched a highlight video. There is this HUGE limestone wall on one side of the lounge and IU football memorabilia in glass cases all over the place.
   The recruiting coordinator first told us that Coach Hep would have wanted everything to continue as if it were a normal day. He said that Coach wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, so they were going on as normal. He took us all on a tour of the offices and meeting rooms of IU football. Although as he noted before we started, all the areas we saw are to be replaced soon by the new building in the north end zone area.
   IU is expanding the stadium in a huge way. We toured the existing weight room, which was probably 3,000-4,000 square foot room. We were told the existing weight room will be remodeled into the players lounge and a new weight room 25,000-30,000 square feet will be included in the expansion taking place in the north end zone. We were told that it would become the largest collegiate football weight room in the country.
   Because of rain and the threat of rain, we all went to the indoor field at the Mellancamp Center. They had just finished installing new FieldTurf there. The coaches told us that Blaine’s group was the first to practice on the new surface. The Mellancamp Center is an amazing indoor facility with a full 120-yard field.
   As I said, there were only nine kids attending the workout and 20 coaches and assistants running the camp. Great one-on-one time for the players!
   Coach Lynch pulled Blaine aside right from the beginning and had a trainer stretch and rub Blaine’s hamstring down with Flex-All. I assumed the hamstring was bothering Blaine and he had said something to one of the coaches. Blaine told us later that he was feeling fine and didn’t say a word to anyone. However, I found out later when Coach Lynch talked to us after lunch that he was being over-protective because he did not want to re-injure Blaine and cause Coach Barron a problem. As you may or may not know, Coach Lynch was Coach Barron’s coach when Barron played at Butler University. The bottom line is that we thought they did not get to see all of Blaine’s skills because the coaches were not pressing him that hard.
   It was a good visit and I really wish Blaine could have done it over and to show his “stuff.” Nevertheless, things work that way sometimes. Blaine is still very much interested in IU and I hope Coach Lynch keeps him in mind. They told Blaine they would be following his senior season.

West. Michigan (June 28)
   Western Michigan University was a school Blaine had contact with last fall. After the visit, we thought that WMU was a place that would be high on Blaine’s list. Nevertheless, as the year went on, we never heard from them. To make a long story short, WMU had some personnel changes and the O-line coach we had met with last year during the WMU-Northern Illinois game was no longer there. He is now part of the Cleveland Browns organization.
   Coach Kershner played O-line for WMU in the ’90s. He attended a football alumni golf outing a few weeks ago and gave the new O-line coach a DVD of Blaine. Last Thursday night as we were leaving for IU, Blaine got a handwritten letter from Coach Stanley (ex-Kansas State, Purdue asst. coach) inviting Blaine to an evening workout on June 28. Western was calling it “Thursday Night Lights!” He stated he watched Blaine’s DVD and really liked what he saw.
   We traveled to Kalamazoo and talked with head Coach Cubit. He thought they were going to have 50-60 players show up for the “Thursday Night Lights.” Well, it ended up closer to 200 or more players that actually showed!
   Blaine saw some very good competition. Some of the best he has seen during our travels.
       Blaine had a good night, not the best, but okay. We left thinking there might be some interest from WMU, but we had no idea they would text Blaine today and make an offer. Blaine was pumped big time! This offer came out of nowhere. It is very exciting.