(first part of the article is about the Kansas & Misery coaches)
What other programs stand out for how they recruit the area?
Coach 1: If you get in that 500 or so mile radius, Nebraska has come back strong with (Matt) Rhule in our area and (linebackers coach Rob) Dvoracek and (E.J.) Barthel, the running back coach. Cockeye has always had a good presence with their coaches, and they’ve always been really good. Cockeye State’s always been around and they’ve done a nice job. I hated to see (Nathan) Scheelhaase head out to the NFL because I thought he was really good. But (Matt) Campbell has made his presence felt in Kansas City.
Coach 2: We’ve had everybody. We’ve had Notre Dame, Alabama. I was impressed with a lot of them, honestly. I loved the way the Oregon head coach, (Dan) Lanning, put it back on my guy. Like, he asked him, “What do you want?” My guy is, “Well, I’m going to look at the depth chart.” And he goes, “Oh, so you think you can get to the pros by going to some place and not competing for a job?” I thought that was pretty interesting. He threw it back on the kid, which most people don’t do anymore. They don’t want to piss off the kid and lose him.
Coach 3: Dan Lanning at the University of Oregon is a Kansas City guy. I’ve known him for a very long time, and he has that same relationship with a lot of the Kansas City area. Then you also have Willie Fritz at the University of Houston. He’s a Kansas City guy. Dave Doeren out at NC State, he’s a Bishop Miege, Kansas City guy. I think of Phil Longo up at the University of Wisconsin, he very much has that Midwest, “I’m only a phone call away.”
Coach 4: Cockeye State is really good. They do an outstanding job of being down here. It will be interesting with coach Scheelhaase, who was there for a while and now he left, he was a Kansas City guy and he recruited the area really well. They just have an incredible program that is another program that develops players.
Coach 6: I’d love to give a ton of credit to coach Rhule’s Nebraska staff. They’ve just done a fantastic job, and it’s a change. In the past, they’ve kind of paid lip service to recruiting (the area), and they’ve been very thorough and very genuine in recruiting recently.
Coach 7: South Dakota State, they do a great job coming down here, coach (Robbie) Rouse is our recruiter out here. He’s always done a great job of building relationships, not only with me but with the kids as well.
Coach 8: Nebraska does a good job of kind of getting out there. Cockeye State’s great. (Nationally), they’re only coming in if they see a kid that they want. (USC coach) Lincoln Riley landed a plane, came up for five minutes, just to say hi. It’s just crazy how much money and how much stuff they can move around. And if they want the kid there, they’re gonna be really, really good at it.
Who is the best recruiting head coach you’ve dealt with?
Coach 1: There’s something about Matt Rhule. His relatability, his genuineness. He seems like a guy that when you talk to him, he’s really listening and cares what you’re saying to him. Not that the others don’t. But there’s more of that with him. I’ve just been really impressed with him. And I can see why he has done what he’s done at the college level and what he’s about to do at Nebraska.
Coach 3: I think hands down that I’ve dealt with would be Willie Fritz. Locally, I think K-State, KU do a very good job. I think MU has a lot of irons in the fire. Obviously, we deal with area recruiters just as much. But Lanning, Fritz, Leipold and Klieman I think do a fantastic job.
Coach 4: Coach Drink. I think coach (Barry) Odom has done a great job. At each stop he was at — Missouri, then Arkansas and now at UNLV — he’s always been so visible at our school and in Kansas City. And I think he’s kind of created the same pipeline out to UNLV and just has done an outstanding job of recruiting kids and just kind of knowing the area. His background of being at Mizzou for so long just gives him a leg up on some of those guys.
Coach 5: It’s got to be between K-State and Cockeye State. It’s just the personal touch that they had being head coaches and coming into your building and kind of seeing those kids. Just to see those guys in the building and care for those kids that they’ve offered, I think is a really good touch in the recruiting process.
Coach 6: The best recruiting head coach I’ve dealt with so far is probably coach Klieman. I’ve only met with Drink one time and he was fantastic in the meeting, but coach Leipold is a very genuine friendly guy. Coach Rhule was very accommodating and an open book when he came in and just seemed very honest and real. I’ve gotten to know the Cockeye staff over the years pretty well, and they’ve always recruited us pretty heavily.
Coach 7: Coach Klieman I would say probably does the best job I feel like in terms of getting kids at K-State for game day visits and getting them to camps and getting them excited, where a lot of kids feel like that’s a place where they want to go. I hear that more out of K-State than Mizzou and KU, I would say.
Coach 8: We have three amazing schools right now with amazing people leading their programs. I don’t know that you can go back and look at KU, K-State and Mizzou and think there’s ever been a time where all three of them have been this good as they are right now. It all starts with their head coaches.
Which assistant coaches stand out for how they recruit?
Coach 1: I love Conor Riley at K-State who comes through. I really liked coach (Andy) Kotelnicki when he was at KU, but he’s now at Penn State. I thought Jordan Peterson when he was at KU did a really nice job, and he’s now down at Texas A&M. Erik Link over at Missouri has come over and done a really nice job. And like I said, Nebraska with Dvoracek and Matt Rhule. And then Cockeye State, Scheelhaase was doing a great job, but he’s not there now.
Coach 3: You get a lot more assistant coaches kind of rolling in and out. So I think longevity is something that is always nice. Conor Riley has always had the Kansas City area. I think he does a fantastic job. Jake Schoonover down at Ole Miss, he does a fantastic job.
Coach 4: My top one would have been Nathan Scheelhaase, but he left. He was outstanding. Coach Dvoracek up at Nebraska. He’s outstanding. He’s the linebackers guy and does our recruiting area here. He still comes down and checks in, even if we don’t have players. Another guy that does a great job is coach Miguel Chavis at Oklahoma. He’s the D-line coach there. Great personality, connects with kids just like coach Drink. He’s going to be a guy that I think will be a head coach soon. He’s just got that ability to connect with these kids and get them to buy in.
Coach 5: I really liked coach (Blake) Baker at Mizzou (now defensive coordinator at LSU). He would sit and just talk ball. The Cockeye State and the K-State guys do a really good job of just coming in and sitting down and answering questions. Cockeye State and K-State are the two top ones that stood out.
Coach 6: At KU, the guy that was in our building the most is now at Penn State. Andy Kotelnicki did a fantastic job recruiting our building. And then at K-State, Taylor Braet. Everyone knows his story and how much of a true Kansan he is.
Coach 7: Erik Link from Mizzou. He’s always done a great job of reaching out about kids, and if I need anything, I can reach out to him. He’s always done a really good job of just building that bridge with us.
Coach 8: Coach (Conor) Riley’s the Kansas City guy at K-State. He’s been an amazing recruiter. He was the Kansas City guy when he was at North Dakota State.
Which schools should be doing a better job of recruiting the greater Kansas City area and why?
Coach 1: I’m a little surprised that the Colorados of the world, those kinds of schools that aren’t that far away, that there’s not more of a Kansas City presence. Maybe they spend a lot more time in Texas and out west. But I would think they can do well in Kansas City and St. Louis because Missouri is a pretty good football state. And then the eastern side of the Big Ten Conference you don’t see much. You’re not going to see Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland. But you’re going to see the western Big Ten: Illinois, Cockeye and all them.
Coach 3: I’ve never spoken to a Missouri State coach up until about a year ago. I know that’s an FCS school. But they’re starting to get in this area a little bit more with the new staff that they have, which is fantastic. I would love to see Arkansas come up a little bit more. Same thing with Oklahoma. They will get involved in the area when they know that there’s a Power 5 kid involved.
Coach 5: Missouri State, especially now that they’re (FBS). I think that they probably need to do a better job of getting into Kansas City and kind of establishing a footprint here. A lot of kids that I think they miss are going to North Dakota State and playing that FCS ball, which is fine. There’s a lot of kids that they miss because they don’t really come in here and set the tone in Kansas City.
Coach 6: OU was here quite a bit this spring, but that’s really the first time they’ve been heavy in our building. I know with the state of Texas and the state of Oklahoma, the talent level and the availability of quality high school players, that they don’t feel like they need to come up to Kansas City as much. So I would say both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
Coach 7: Northwest Missouri State. They’ve kind of fallen off a little bit for sure the last couple years, and it shows. They’re not really getting into the playoffs. They were a big-time school in the Kansas City area for a long time, and a lot of kids were choosing to go there over some D-Is in the past.
Coach 8: (Cockeye and Michigan are) not going to come down here unless they think there’s somebody down here. I’m not saying they’re all necessarily Power 5 guys, but there’s some really good football players that I think some of the Division II guys should be better at checking in on.
