Sticking To Their Principles
Rams reload with the signing of 34 players
Mike Brohard
He’s precisely the type of kid the fan base will champion.
No stars. Under the radar. An 8-man legend from a place in Kansas you never knew existed. No other FBS offers. It also makes Jett Vincent the type of player who epitomizes the recruiting philosophy of Colorado State.
Trust what you see, even when others don’t.
“I’m not afraid to go where some people may not want to go,” Colorado State defensive coordinator Freddie Banks said. “We’re not afraid to stick to what we know and what we believe in.”
What this Colorado State staff believes in is simple – big and athletic – but layered, too. Everyone has their own definition of what athletic means, and for coach Jay Norvell and his staff, a big part of the definition is seeing position range. Even that has layers.
Director of personnel Lucas Gauthier knows what Norvell and even the position coaches are looking for and he helps set the algorithm to find those who fit. But physicality alone isn’t enough. It is the starting point.
“Coach has a saying -- big people beat up little people. We can’t negotiate on size,” Gautier said. “We need to get bigger, so that’s one thing you’re going to see in this class. But the intangibles do matter. We have character evaluations; we call their coaches. The way we’ve navigated the transfer portal, we’re typically going to recruit guys we had relationships with in high school. You’re recruiting on such a short timeline, the likelihood of making a mistake on somebody you don’t know is much higher. You recruit guys for six months and you still don’t know everything about them.
“We look for versatility and competitiveness. We want guys who are competitive, guy who want to come in and compete and win.”
All of those steps helped them find Vincent. Defensive analyst Jake Vang, who had recruited the area of Kansas in the past, heard of him. He presented him to defensive coordinator Freddie Banks and the evaluation started.
What Banks saw on tape was a long athlete who did a lot of things. Vincent played offense and defense and on special teams. He was a basketball player and a track athlete. Banks likes defensive backs who have played on offense, so he fit his profile.
Then he looked deeper.
“You look at his skillset, his lateral movement, his quickness and he’s doing everything. You know he’s probably a smart player because he’s playing offense and defense and he broke the state record for interceptions,” Banks said. “You see him doing so much, so you say, I want this dude on our team. We think he’s a safety, but he could grow into a linebacker. When I played at North Dakota State, I had teammates who were 8-man guys, and similar to Jett, they were the best basketball player in the town, the best football player and they ran track. They did everything, so you know when you can hone them in on one thing, they’re really good at it. I had teammates, they came in and played 8-man, and you’re like, ‘how is he here?’ Then he ends up all-conference.”
Vincent did set the Kansas all-classification interception record with 36 in his career. He also set the mark with seven pick-sixes. He was a do-it-all kid who was starting to wonder if anybody had taken notice.
In less than a week in October, all of his worries were put to rest.
“There were a lot of doubts going through the recruiting process the past couple of years,” Vincent said. “You go on Twitter, and you see guys in the same class you feel are maybe less caliber that are getting recruited at the high level you want to be, but then outside of the doubt, you have to know you have keep working and trust the process and have faith that a Coach Banks or a Coach Vang will find you. For me, it turned out good.
“It happened so fast. They found me on Monday. Tuesday, they were evaluating me and Wednesday they called me and offered me a scholarship. It was right around Week 4 or 5; I had put up some good film the first three weeks.”
Vincent is 6-foot-2, 180 pound out of Canton, Kans. Banks likes the size. He likes the speed which has made Vincent a state qualifier in both the 100- and 200-meters. When he went to watch him play basketball, he was all over the place.
In talking to him, Banks found the right approach, too.
“He just loves ball. For a small town kid, you’d think he’s a really humble dude who doesn’t think highly of himself,” Banks said. “He’s got some confidence to him, which is what I like. He will show up here and not be afraid of competition. He will not back down. He may not say it, but he expects a lot from himself. You see that humble, Christian guy, but he’s got a bit of attitude in him that’s like, OK.
“He's tough. He’s played in the cold. He’s played other positions and played hurt. He had an injured back and still played in the playoffs. In the Mountain West, you have to be tough to win, so you have to recruit tough kids. He was upset and there was a little chip on his shoulder that he wasn’t getting recruited and didn’t have more offers. We want those guys to play for us and ticked off at everybody else.”
That attitude comes naturally, built into him by his father, Jesse, over a period of years. It was tough love, even when Jett didn’t realize it. His father was his physical education teacher, and up until his senior season, one of his football coaches.
Year by year, lessons were being taught without Jett noticing it until much later.
“I’ve felt like I’ve been the underdog my whole life. Since fourth grade PE, my dad was the teacher, he’d always stack the teams up against me and he’d be like the bad ref and call stuff that was completely not right, but it pushed me,” Jett said. “I was the underdog and I loved it. I loved not knowing that this game’s going to be completely even. I love almost being counted out and then being that guy who steps up to the plate. That’s the part of football. You can look at the mathematics and how everything adds up, but when it comes down to it, it’s really your passion, heart and love for the game and the guys around you.
“It wasn’t until high school, maybe my freshman year, where I was like, hum, maybe dad did me a favor all those years when I absolutely hated him leading PE class. In the long run, it helped me out and it built a little character. Once I realized what he’d done, he was like, you’re welcome.”
The staff sees Jett as a safety, but it doesn’t stop there, another principle firmly held by Norvell’s staff.
They all understand no class is perfect. There hasn’t been one in the history of college football. There are misses in every class from the Power 5 on down to Division III for a grocery bag full of reasons. The passion isn’t there. A love of the game had waivered. College is a lot harder, and natural talent won’t carry a player through. All of the above and more.
But sticking a player in a spot and leaving them there when it doesn’t fit has never worked, so this Colorado State staff wants a backup plan. A different position.
Jett is a safety for now, but Banks looks at the frame and possibly sees a linebacker. That’s the case for most of the players the Rams signed on Wednesday.
For example, Buom Jack is viewed by the staff as a rare athletic talent, with coaches drawing straws to see who gets the first crack at him. Defense won out. Jaylen Gardner was looked at by most as a receiver, but at CSU, they see a safety and, again, a potential linebacker. The idea is the same for the entire class.
“You’re dealing with 18-19-year olds. It’s not an exact science on what these guys are going to be,” Banks said. “If people say they do, they’re lying. You don’t know if they’re going to have issues learning or covering guys, but you can be wrong if he’s not this, he’s this, and you’ve made your roster better. We recruit dudes who have position flexibility. We don’t recruit guys who are only this unless it’s a no-brainer. We felt Jett was a no-brainer because he has position flexibility.”
Where this staff gains that vision, the most is looking at potential players away from the football field and in other arenas.
Part of their definition of athleticism is playing multiple sports, which is reached an almost have-to level for the group. Each sport requires a player to move a different way, which they all feel is especially telling.
“Playing multiple sports is probably the most important thing we look for. It’s a knock on a guy if he only plays football,” Gautier said. “You start to question if the kid is an overall good athlete. Most guys in professional sports were good at other sports. We’re looking for those guys, so we kind of filter out the guys who are only playing football.
“We don’t mean athletic in the sense they all have to be 10.3 in the 100 meters, we’re talking well-rounded athletes. Football players, basketball players, lacrosse, wrestlers, some other form of athleticism. We want the football tape to be very good, but we want verified athleticism in other senses.
Most of our commits are track and field athletes. Then you have a ton of basketball players. It just helps to prove versatility, then beyond that, we want guys who play multiple positions. In the secondary, we recruit players who were quarterbacks or point guards. They’re used to having the ball in their hands, they’re typically the best athletes and they have ball skills, and they can see the field. There are all sorts of things which contribute to that.”
Players who can be found everywhere if you look hard enough. Or you can sit in your office, make videos proclaiming where you can be found. You cast a net far and wide, and every now and again, you find a Jim Thorpe or John Mackay award winner in your backyard.
At the end of the first signing day (another follows in February), Colorado State’s class was deemed the best in the Mountain West by the recruiting services. It is a class of 34, and the coaches will put that feather in their cap, but they know it isn’t the true measure.
They will be graded by stars, but not beholden to them. Colorado State will not recruit based on them, either. There were six players signed on the day – Vincent one of them – who were given no stars by at least one of the national recruiting sites. But each of them shares one very important trait in common.
They fit the mold set by Norvell and his staff. Because none of this is written in the stars. Based on 247sports.com’s assessment of Colorado State’s history, not a single one of the top-10 all-time recruits has been all-conference. Not a Jack Howell, not a Weston Richburg or a Ryan Stonehouse to be found there.
All it takes is one school which believes, and for that, Jett is grateful. Driving back home after his official visit this past weekend, his father brought up Leighton Vander Esch, the former Boise State standout who now plays for Dallas. His roots were in 8-man football, and it worked out well.
Jett has never played 11-man football, so he knows there are things to learn immediately. The scheme will be different, as will be the field. He expects the terminology to be different. But he most definitely expects to fit the bill, as does Banks.
“If we see one who fits our profile, we go after it and we’re not looking back,” Banks said. “We believe in what we see and go after it. You root for them. He’s going to be a great program kid.”
See more on the full class of 2023 by clicking the image below.
