Ok, just for the record, and despite my intent to be quiet.....
Last season my son's team threw the ball but the first three games were very early whippings so he did not get to throw much. The next to the last game he broke his ankle and needed surgery that he fought back from. He actually only had to throw in five games and had over 1600 yards. After fighting back from the ankle break and the surgery he had Alabama tell him he had a spot during a camp visit and they would be there for his first few games. He then helped his team win the Texas State 7on7. After that championship he had numerous typical top ten teams calling and telling him he was their man and they would be here for the first few games of the season. A week before the season practices started he was told that their offense was changing to a run based and all the college coaches arrived to see the Texas State 7on7 MVP hand the ball off over and over and they quit coming. Throughout this process he won numerous camp MVP awards along with a high school All American Bowl QB MVP. He had dozens of local public and private high schools try to recruit him away but he stayed loyal to the program despite the obvious signs, he had a team he refused to walk out on. He is a real 6'6" frame with the ability to easily carry 245 lbs. He came to the Uconn camp and he did not have an incomplete pass while throwing to kids he did not know and his team did not lose a game. Every coach in the SEC and Big 12 have said he has the strongest and most accurate arm they have seen but they needed him in a program that threw more than ten times a game and we understood, I would have said the same thing. So he came to a Uconn camp with another highly desired QB and went toe to toe and was made an offer and everything was set. Now a new QB entered the mix on literally the last day. He was not at the camp, or went unnoticed. Maybe it was too far.
Rankings on those "scouting" sites are largely based on what college coaches say after a kid visits the program on campus. If those guys had the ability to evaluate talent they would call them coaches and not several other less flattering descriptions. I actually told a Rivals scout to stay away from my son, he was later terminated but not before he refused to evaluate Richard. If a player visits a lot of colleges, or high profile programs, the writers add a star or say something nice. The thing about those "scouting" operations is that they follow the programs and they do not have the expertise or ability to have a program follow them. Richard visited Alabama at a camp and then Uconn at a camp. He did not make the circuit, did not get kicked out the door by Uconn, and anyone who thinks he does not have the stronger arm needs to quit looking at film because there is no help. Even in a run based offense he was able to keep his yards per completion at the top of the stats charts. His running yardage is poor because the only time they passed was when everyone knew they had to pass......off of deep drops with play action.
So, Uconn has a new QB, a local product from a good school who seems to be a good kid and Six schools have since come back into the picture concerning Richard. I have no doubt Uconn offers an exceptional education, that the new qb recruit is a good kid and can maintain the program, but as I told Richard last night he has something impossible to teach. He is 6'6" and not a stretched 6'3" like so many high school recruits. There are very few 6'6"+ QB's with a strong arm and good footwork that have the potential to develop and then maybe, just maybe, help change a program. Everything is about upside.