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Holgorsen's Take: Recruiting

Dana Holgorsen met with the media on Tuesday.
Dana Holgorsen met with the media on Tuesday.

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As West Virginia enters the bye week, all 10 members of the coaching staff will hit the road for recruiting.

For West Virginia’s coaching staff, the focus this week when it comes to recruiting will be visiting prospects who are already committed to West Virginia and those who the staff are trying to get on board.

The Mountaineers currently have 16 commits in their 2018 recruiting class and one in its 2019 class.

”That’s what we’re focusing on right now," Holgorsen said. “We’re evaluating a lot of guys right now.”

Holgorsen also added that official visits will begin soon and that they will be dealing with more in-season visits in October and November than they’ve ever have before due to the new early signing day period that will run from Dec. 20-22.

West Virginia’s coaching staff will also visit recruits following the end of its regular season prior to the new early signing period. The Mountaineers wrap up their the regular season on Nov. 25 on the road against Oklahoma.

“We still got two weeks in December that we can visit guys prior to that early signing period,” Holgorsen said. “I’m comfortable with we’re at with the numbers we got and who we got on board and where we’re at.”

Holgorsen also said that it will be interesting to see what the team can get in the early signing period and that the staff will not change their approach because of their previous success with recruiting.

The new early signing period will also give coaches the opportunity to calibrate and reevaluate what they need prior to the other signing period in January.

In terms of decision making, Holgorsen doesn’t believe that the early signing period will impact the evaluation and decision making on the 2018 recruiting class, but rather the 2019 class.

“What’s really going to be interesting is next year’s class,” Holgorsen said. “This year’s class seems very normal to me.”

Beginning with the Class of 2019, official visits for players will begin in April of their junior year which will change how and when coaches evaluate prospects and make decisions according to Holgorsen.

Holgorsen said that this change will force programs to make decisions about prospects and recruits before spring practice and before the prospects’ spring academic semesters end.

“To me, that’s ridiculous,” Holgorsen said. “They increased the academic requirements, and they decreased the amount of time you can evaluate them academically. I think there’s going to be issues with that.”

The early signing day and official visits will also force coaches to potentially decide whether or not it’ll be worth taking a chance on recruits that me be at risk of being academically unqualified, but Holgorsen won't be taking any chances.

“I’m not going to jeopardize and initial on a guy that’s not academically qualified,” Holgorsen said. “We just recruit somebody else. If you sign that kid and he doesn’t make it, you could lose that number.”

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