HOME IMPROVEMENTS

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 6, 2008 | by JAKE SCHALLER

If the Air Force football program was a house, then the 2007 season would amount to a paint job, new curtains and landscaping. First-year coach Troy Calhoun made the house look much more attractive by tweaking the Falcons' playbook, altering their approach to conditioning and re-arranging some players he inherited to squeeze out nine wins and a bowl berth. But the framework of a college football program -- the beams and struts that hold it together -- is recruiting. And in the years before Calhoun took over at the academy, that framework had begun to rot. "This was probably the No. 1 project that I thought we had to completely revamp," Calhoun said of recruiting. "We just made wholesale changes in the way we were going to approach recruiting." Calhoun realized how much recruiting had slipped in recent years when he looked at a list of the academy's top prospects from three years ago.

Early in 2005, Air Force brought 55 high school seniors to the academy for official visits prior to National Signing Day, which is today this year. Just five of those 55 are in the program today. And only three were in Air Force's two-deep chart during the 2007 season.

"That's where it just hit me," Calhoun said. "These are official visits. These are your best kids.... We've got guys on (the list) that are student managers."

The result is a dearth of top talent in the current junior and sophomore classes, next season's juniors and seniors. Calhoun has noted multiple times that many freshmen will play significant roles during the next two years. After that, he hopes, no more than one or two freshmen will play significant roles each season.

"We're going to become a more talented football team," he said.

Last year's recruiting class was cobbled together hastily after Calhoun was hired. So the high school class of 2008 will be the first true recruiting class for Calhoun and his staff. And Calhoun has called it "the key class" in rebuilding Air Force football.

Preliminary results come today. Most major college programs will announce lists of high school players signed to letters of intent.

Army, Navy and Air Force recruits don't sign binding letters of intent. Air Force doesn't release the names of its recruits until they arrive on campus in the summer due to the appointment process.

But many Air Force recruits will sign nonbinding certificates today in ceremonies at high schools across the nation, and others already have given verbal commitments.

Recruiting analysts are impressed.

"They have done a terrific job of revamping their efforts," said Jeremy Crabtree, the national recruiting editor at Rivals.com, a Web site that analyzes and ranks recruiting classes.

Crabtree said before Calhoun took over, the Falcons' recruiting classes included "guys that we honestly never had heard of before."

No more.

Crabtree mentioned two players who are rated as threestar (out of five) players by Rivals.com who have committed to Air Force -- defensive tackle Kebin Umodu (6-foot-2, 244 pounds) and offensive linemen A.J. Wallerstein (6-4, 274).

Umodu chose Air Force over several other Division I schools, Crabtree said. And ESPN.com, using data provided by Scouts Inc., ranks Wallerstein as the No. 22 guard in the country.

"So definitely there is a step up in the caliber of kid they've recruited the last couple years," Crabtree said.

Making it a priority

Recruiting has figured prominently in many of Calhoun's decisions at Air Force.

The recruiting ability was a key factor in Calhoun's choices for assistant coaches. Nine of his 13 assistants are academy graduates, which he said helps them significantly in recruiting.

Players and their families "believe me and trust me, because I did it," said cornerbacks coach Charlton Warren, a graduate.

Warren also serves as the Falcons' recruiting coordinator, a title Calhoun created so recruiting efforts would be better organized and one assistant would be the point man for NCAA regulations.

Calhoun also has emphasized the need to devote significant time to recruiting yearround, stressing relationships and better evaluation.

According to Blane Morgan, Air Force's co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, one of the reasons Calhoun simplified practices and offensive and defensive schemes was to give assistants more time to recruit during the grind of the season.

"Evaluation is extremely important, and he's put an emphasis on that, which is time consuming," Morgan said. "That's something that's certainly been an emphasis -- giving us time to evaluate and make contacts and call coaches."

Morgan estimated he spent five to 10 hours on recruiting per week during the season. That increases dramatically in the offseason. And the staff's efforts have been noticed.

"At the Nike training camps, every single time, Air Force people were there," Crabtree said. "You couldn't say that about too many staffs nationwide."

Other changes Calhoun made include evaluating and contacting players earlier in their careers. Air Force now starts a letter- writing campaign to recruits in the spring of their junior years.