Rams Recruiting Heats Up
By Greg Urbanoski
February is the month of sweethearts and the University of Regina Rams are busy wooing players they hope will win the hearts of their fans in 2008.
Rams Head Coach Frank McCrystal has just returned from a week of vacation and is putting the finishing touches on the Rams recruiting season.
“February is a very busy month,” said McCrystal. “We’re getting commitments sporadically, but we are very conscious that the players we recruit are good students and football players so we are taking our time with the recruiting process.
“We’re expecting to finish rounding it off in the next month to six weeks. I just got back on Feb. 22 and on Saturday we got a commitment from a recruit from Regina. We also lost a guy we wanted from Regina that is going to States. But that’s to be expected, we’re not going to bat a 1000. Right now we’re up to 55 committed athletes and those are guys we want on the team.”
McCrystal said the Rams are close to bringing in another 20 players in the hope that half of those players will make the team. McCrystal said he’s not sure the Rams will have the same players they had last year as camp should become very competitive.
“Competition for recruits is very intense,” said McCrystal. “We haven’t had American schools up here for quite awhile but some of the schools in North and South Dakota are up here recruiting”.
“We’ve had junior teams from across the country recruiting here and naturally you have a stable of opponents like the U of S, U of M and right across Canada West coming here. High school football in this city is so strong that we are consistently getting teams from all across the country.”
McCrystal said Ontario schools like Queens and McGill are also recruiting players who are also outstanding students. The Rams are looking to fill immediate gaps in their line-ups and also anticipating how they will fit in three to four years down the road.
“We might have someone from a junior team with more experience fit in right away, but you can have someone like an offensive lineman who needs two or three years. We’re not looking for players just for 2008, but also for 2009 and 2010.
“We are also looking for guys for certain situations in case of the CFL draft and players who can go like Brandon LaBatte. We are confident enough in our program that some guys who have red-shirted who are familiar with the program, are ready to step in.”
McCrystal said some of the players who step in may not be immediately familiar to fans, but have been groomed for the last few years. He said with the competition for Regina players from not just the Rams, but across Canada, that means the Rams will be looking into players from outside Regina.
“The high school system in Saskatchewan is so strong, with those players who are going elsewhere, we need to find out which players are good technically and are ready for an upgrade in competition,” said McCrystal.
“Since there is such great competition for recruits, they have to make their decision earlier than spring camp or earlier than they used to. We’d like to get an idea by the end of February and spring camp will give players an idea of how they fit into the team and what skills they need to develop.”
McCrystal said the Rams have sent out tapes and write-ups on each player that is draft eligible. He said some players who are drafted may be sent back for another year of development and last fall the club had a number of CFL teams coming through to look at players.
“I think players like Andrew Rumbaugh will surprise people in evaluations. Teams know how well our guys are trained, coached and what kind of character they have so when they are drafted, there are no surprises.”
