Top 10 Quotes from Matt Rhule's NSD Presser

Baylor head coach Matt Rhule spoke with the media on Wednesday following the signing of 21 of 23 committed prospects on the first day of the early National Signing Period. Here are how I rank the top 10 quotes given by Rhule in his nearly 40-minute session.

1. Not signing any junior college players…
“I’ve recruited junior college players and I have had success with junior college players so I have nothing against them and we will probably visit a couple junior college players and they might come in January. In terms of wholesale I enjoy the process of taking a 17 or 18-year-old and watching them develop until they are 22. That process the way we practice, eat, lift, and everything else is important to us. Over time we think that the process is infallible. Over my career I’ve taken a couple junior college and transfer players and I really just like to go out and get as many young high schoolers as possible. Put them in the program and let them develop and see what we have.”

2. On desired number of scholarship quarterbacks…
“I’d like to have five scholarship quarterbacks. I think that’s where your program should be. But when I took the job, I said this roster situation we walked into here is unique. I think I was telling someone today, to take six offensive linemen last year and six offensive linemen this year is not really conducive to getting all the other positions you need. But it’s what we have to do right now. We thought we could get three, we’re at two right now. If something happens, great. If not, I have a lot of confidence in Preston Heard, and we are where we are. But at the end of the day, I know we have two really good quarterbacks. We have Charlie, who proved what he can do. And Gerry, who I have all the faith in the world in. So, just look at the positive part of it, and we’ll just continue to move forward.”

3. On what he would like to accomplish with final few spots in class…
“We’d probably like to just find a couple difference-makers. Probably the best available as we look out there. There’s some real difference-makers in the state. And we hope to just sign the best players available, because we’re probably whole at a lot of positions. Maybe not exactly where we’d like to be. But if you start just going for need, you don’t always end up with the best players. We’ll try to find the best available, the best fits for us.”

4. On areas to address with final few spots…
When you take a look at our roster, the depth of our roster at quarterback and at running back aren’t exactly at where we want them to be. Obviously, quarterback more so than anywhere else. But I think it’s good enough at a point where we’re kind of whole in all the different places and it allows us to go out and say, ‘who are the best available players’ opposed to ‘hey, we need to go fill in these gaps.’ I really want these last few spots to come down to ‘hey, that guy can really make a difference, that guy can make a difference’ and I feel pretty good about being at that place right now.

5. Do those remaining spots include recruits who are committed…
“That was just in general. There’s always different stories with each person, right? So, it could be an academic situation. So, I don’t want to get into . . . obviously, I’m not allowed to. But to me, the guys who signed today are with us. And if there’s anybody that didn’t, it’s either for a reason or they’re still looking. And we’re still recruiting probably eight, nine people for those last couple spots. And then I think what’s going to happen in college football in general is everyone’s going to sit back and say, ‘OK, who’s still out there?’ There will be some guys who you all of a sudden see and you say, ‘Wow, that’s my kind of guy.’ So, I’m always looking for the next Ashton Logan, who we signed last year who I think is going to be a great, great player here. I’m always looking for a player like that. So, we’ll evaluate. We haven’t taken this week off. We’re in the office right now still working, still recruiting. We’ll work tomorrow. So, we’ll have to kind of see.”

6. On hoping some of the O-Line commits coming in a playing this fall…
“Yeah, I hope that a couple of them can help us play. We will be a little bit more whole this year with [Jake] Fruhmorgen having two years left. We have [Blake] Blackmar, Pat Lawrence, and [Sam] Tecklenberg back. Xavier Newman and Ryan Miller are both back that played. We have Josh Malin who really developed into a solid offensive lineman this year, he just needs a great offseason. Then, we have all of the other guys who didn’t play or who redshirted such as Eleasah [Anderson] or Henry Klinge and all of the other guys. We have Khalil Keith who underwent a semester off to focus on his academics, he will be with us in the spring. I was at the Katy game this Saturday watching Connor Galvin. He is really big and athletic and he was texting me this morning asking me about plays. He is a football guy. I think this will really give us some size and talent and those who are ready to play will play and those who aren’t will have a chance to redshirt and get bigger faster and stronger.”

7. On Bralen Taylor’s versatility…
“Bralen [Taylor] is the type of guy that could play receiver, could play tight end, could play H-Back, he’s really someone who is kind of a unique weapon you can kind of put anywhere and that is why we listed him as an athlete. We are really happy with Ben Sims, you know he was one of the first people we offered. He was walking into Junior Day and I saw Ben and said to him, ‘We are going to offer you a scholarship,’ and he is kind of that prototypical move tight end and Christoph [Henle] is more of that prototypical tight end and Bralen we are going to just work on him because he is just so big and so athletic. I went and watched him work out one day and he was doing DB drills and he looked like a DB. I think that when they are that big and just that athletic that we take them and just see where Bralen’s future kind of moves to so that is why we listed him as an athlete.”

8. On importance of signing Bohanon…
“It was really, really important. I think Gerry [Bohanon] along with many of the young people, I think he was sort of a unifying force. As it came down the stretch, really talented offensive skill players like Josh Fleeks, Tyquan Thornton, Jackson Gleeson, the tight ends Christoph Henle, Ben Sims, Bralen Taylor, a lot of other schools with this new early signing period, it’s the first time we’ve really dealt with the new signing period, so it wasn’t just ‘Hey come to our school. It was Hey don’t sign early, just wait until January.’ What Gerry was able to do was tell them Hey, our all you guys still signing on Wednesday? In the end when he signed it sort of solidified the class. I think we had a lot of good players, a lot of other people wanted the young men to wait or come to their school, and I think he was just sort of a final force. It’s just kind of who Gerry is. It’s his personality. When you go to Earle, Arkansas, and you walk through the school, you can tell he is a person who lives his life trying to be there for other people, so the whole community is behind him. I think he’ll have that same effect on this recruiting class and hopefully on this team.”
 
9. On not losing any recruits during tough season…
“I think it shows a lot of things. I think it shows No. 1, that Baylor means something to them. You’re not coming to Baylor just because they have a good football program. You’re coming here because this is a life-changing opportunity, to get an education, to go to a school at a wonderful place whose mission fits what they’re looking for. So that in and of itself speaks to Baylor. I think it speaks to the players on our team that they developed relationships with some of them. They knew some of them. And when they came on their visits, I think the guys were really real with them. Hey, this is what Coach Rhule’s going to be like. This is what Coach Snow’s going to be like. This is what Coach Fran is going to be like. But at the end of the day, all these players, they saw us at our lowest. So, I think that’s the one thing as we talk about the relationships we have with the guys on the team, with these recruits, if you were there with us after we lost that Liberty game and you walked off the field, that was the lowest of the lows for us. And yet, we didn’t change. We were who we were. We just kept continuing to do what we do. I think young people are always looking for consistency. So, hopefully these recruits saw consistency in our approach and saw consistency in the approach of the players. I think they saw improvement, they saw hope, they saw us get better. I think many of them were touched by our fans. To be at those games, even though we weren’t victorious, the fans stood and cheered. I think it said to our players, hey, this really is a special place. And I think it probably speaks to relationships. Our relationships with our players aren’t built on how well you play or how well you win, it’s based upon who you are and what you do. A lot of these guys, where other people might see adversity, they see opportunity.
 
To be honest, I’m shocked. I’m not shocked, I’m excited, that we did have the record we had and no one decommitted from us. They stood firm. And that’s not without people battering against them, hey, come here, come there . But in the end, these guys are going to do something special. They’re going to be part of this remarkable turnaround, just like all the other guys on our team. I think they wanted to do something special, so that’s what they’ll do.”

10. On coaching changes effecting recruiting…
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t speculate on that, personally. I just feel like since Gerry came here this summer, I always felt like Gerry was going to be our quarterback. He just connected with us. I think he looked at the opportunity to play for Coach (Glenn) Thomas. Not very often in college football do you have a chance to play for a guy who coached in the NFL at the quarterback position for six years, who coached Matt Ryan, who coached in the Pro Bowl. He was telling stories about coaching Mike Vick in the Pro Bowl. So, I think he looked at it like hey this is a university that matches what I’m looking to do and they have the right coach. So, I always felt like he was going to be our quarterback. So to me, it was never about, ‘Hey, is he not going to go there?’ It was always, ‘Is Gerry going to come here?’ But, he wanted to do it on his own time. He wanted to take visits, he wanted to look around. And we respected that. And we respected his mother, who’s a wonderful woman. She’s an educator and she’s a principal. So, he was going to do his due diligence. And his father said he was going to do his due diligence. But from the time he set foot on campus, I just kind of always felt like that guy’s going to be our quarterback.”