Speaker 1: The first weekend of official business was successful for Raging
Speaker 1: Cagen's Football as they add some commitments to the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty seven class. Let's break it all down here on
Speaker 1: Raging Rundown. What's good, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to
Speaker 1: another episode of Raging Rundown, the show where you will
Speaker 1: know all things ul sports. I'm your guy, JaMarcus Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: but you know you can always call me fits. And
Speaker 1: in today's episode, we'll be talking about the commitments that
Speaker 1: Raging Cajun Football has received to their twenty twenty seven class,
Speaker 1: as well as a pair of bullpen arms that Raging
Speaker 1: Cagen's Baseball has added to their team for next season. So,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about in previous episodes, we can which
Speaker 1: you can go and check that out. This past weekend
Speaker 1: or I guess the past couple of days has been
Speaker 1: the first official weekend of official visits for Rage Incag's Football.
Speaker 1: They have a couple of weekend schedule. I have some
Speaker 1: names listed down of what those guys will be for
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: But as it stood, you.
Speaker 1: Had seven players to come in and have official visits
Speaker 1: this past weekend, you had Summer Creek dB Caleb White,
Speaker 1: Very Day wide receiver Robert Taylor University lab d Lyman
Speaker 1: Mason Smith, Saint Edge Jock Robischow, Shadow Creek tight end
Speaker 1: Bryce Coleman STM safety Landon or t And then I
Speaker 1: was recently told while I was posting about it that PJ.
Speaker 1: Mackeon Junior was also on an official visit there as
Speaker 1: well this past weekend. But you were extremely successful because
Speaker 1: you got three players to commit while they were on
Speaker 1: their official visits. One actually just announcing right after I
Speaker 1: started recording this episode, So I initially had it as
Speaker 1: football gets a pair of commitments, and I just had
Speaker 1: to change into football gets commitments after official visits.
Speaker 2: I'm probably going to be checking my.
Speaker 1: Phone as I'm recording this episode to make sure nobody
Speaker 1: else comes back and circles back and announced their commitment
Speaker 1: as well. So we'll start with the initial guy that
Speaker 1: announced his commitment, which was a defensive lineman, Mason Smith,
Speaker 1: the university high defensive lineman. For him, he was initially
Speaker 1: offered back on June fifteenth of last year, so this
Speaker 1: is a year in the making process of getting him
Speaker 1: to commit to your program. If I'm assuming what happened
Speaker 1: is that he went to a prospect camp. They are
Speaker 1: holding prospect camps right now for the twenty eighth class.
Speaker 1: He probably went to a prospect camp. They liked what
Speaker 1: they saw, they gave him an offer. He was the
Speaker 1: third school that he received an offer from. And in
Speaker 1: the process, now you're beating out the likes of Southern
Speaker 1: miss Liberty, TWU Lane, South Alabama, and Arkansas State. So
Speaker 1: all very linear schools in terms of the level that
Speaker 1: you're competing against. You beat them out to be able
Speaker 1: to get this commitment. Obviously, he was a player that
Speaker 1: was on an official visit this weekend. He is listed
Speaker 1: as a three star. He's the thirty eighth best player
Speaker 1: in the state according to twenty four to seven Sports,
Speaker 1: and it's the second rank defensive lineman in the state
Speaker 1: of Louisiana. So you're getting a really talented player standing
Speaker 1: at six foot three, two hundred and eighty pounds. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, let me go back to his Twitter
Speaker 1: account just so I can confirm that six foot three,
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty pounds and runs of five flats
Speaker 1: in the forty and he also plays baseball as a
Speaker 1: first baseman. So he's got some athleticism to him. If
Speaker 1: I had to guess, he's probably going to be more
Speaker 1: of an interior defensive lineman, something like what we see
Speaker 1: with Fitzgerald West and Maxie Bodwin, players of that caliber.
Speaker 1: So adding him to the mix is really big for
Speaker 1: you because we know that the defensive line plays in
Speaker 1: a forty on set, but they don't just play with
Speaker 1: four guys. They like to rotate as many guys as possible.
Speaker 1: So adding someone young to the group is someone we
Speaker 1: could potentially see him slowly working his way in through
Speaker 1: special teams, maybe getting a rapper to here and there,
Speaker 1: and eventually becoming a guy that helps you to be
Speaker 1: able to win ball games on Saturdays. So kudos to
Speaker 1: him for announcing his commitment. I reached out to him
Speaker 1: to see what went into his decision. I have not
Speaker 1: heard back from him just yet, but once I do
Speaker 1: hear something, I'll either talk about it at on my
Speaker 1: day job at KTC, or I'll talk about it here
Speaker 1: on the pod. The next player that announced his commitment
Speaker 1: was Landon or Ti, who is a local product. So
Speaker 1: he is staying at home and coming up in a
Speaker 1: situation for you where you identified him as somebody that
Speaker 1: you wanted very quickly, and he committed very quickly. He
Speaker 1: received his offer on May the fourth. He had other
Speaker 1: offers from the likes of Nichols Incarnate Word in Northwestern
Speaker 1: State so FCS school. So this is his biggest offer
Speaker 1: that he head up until this point. You got him
Speaker 1: on an official visit and he commits. Getting the footprint
Speaker 1: of a local product, in my opinion, is always going
Speaker 1: to be really big because obviously the majority of this
Speaker 1: team's roster is comprised of guys in the state of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing better than being able to get a
Speaker 1: local guy. And like we've talked about before on this podcast,
Speaker 1: it's not that they don't recruit local guys. But when
Speaker 1: you think about some of the guys that are in
Speaker 1: this same class, you think of brayln Cale, you think
Speaker 1: of Kuran Eugene, you think of you know, so many
Speaker 1: other guys that are in this twenty twenty seventh class.
Speaker 2: They're receiving powerful offers.
Speaker 1: So once you kind of get outbitted in a sense,
Speaker 1: it's not that you're giving up, it's just that you
Speaker 1: know you're probably not gonna get them. You still cultivate
Speaker 1: that relationship in case he goes somewhere and it doesn't
Speaker 1: work out there and he wants to transfer back home.
Speaker 1: Like what we saw with Walker Howard, what we saw
Speaker 1: with Fitzgerald West. We've seen it time and time again.
Speaker 1: The guys will go to bigger schools, it doesn't work
Speaker 1: out out there for them, and they come back because
Speaker 1: they have great relationships with your coaching staff. So you
Speaker 1: still want to recruit the kid. It's just ultimately sometimes
Speaker 1: you're not in the ballpark to be able to land
Speaker 1: the commitment, but you land a commitment with him. This
Speaker 1: past season, he played in twelve games. He was first
Speaker 1: team All District and also All stayed for the LFCA,
Speaker 1: which I think is the Louisiana Football Coaches Association. If
Speaker 1: I'm remembering right off the top of my head, six
Speaker 1: for two, one hundred and ninety pounds As a safety,
Speaker 1: he had two interceptions, ten pass breakups, one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty two tackles, forty eight of them being solo. So
Speaker 1: he really has a nose for the football. And if
Speaker 1: I had to guess, he would probably be kind of
Speaker 1: that secondary safety that's near near the box in the
Speaker 1: Cajun's defensive scheme when they go in the four to
Speaker 1: two five set, because they're based out of a four
Speaker 1: to three, but when they take one linebacker out and
Speaker 1: they put an extra safety in based on those type
Speaker 1: of tackling numbers, that's probably going to be the type
Speaker 1: of safety that he would be in this particular ski.
Speaker 1: So you get a guy that is a local product
Speaker 1: to commit to your school after getting a extended an
Speaker 1: offer to him very early and being able to make
Speaker 1: that happen, that's really huge. So I asked him what
Speaker 1: went into his decision, and he said, the overall staff
Speaker 1: and how everybody treated you good from the second that
Speaker 1: you were in the building. So I'm probably going to
Speaker 1: try to talk to him in person to get a
Speaker 1: little bit more insight about what went into his decision
Speaker 1: and how the visit as a whole went. So that's
Speaker 1: another commitment. Kudos to him for making his decision to
Speaker 1: become a Raging Cajun that you add to the class
Speaker 1: as well. And the last commitment that Football received as
Speaker 1: of today and he announced it probably within the last
Speaker 1: hour is Summer Creek dB Caleb White. We talked about
Speaker 1: him in a previous episode that he is a cornerback
Speaker 1: and as I'm looking up some information about him as well,
Speaker 1: his father is Reggie White, a running back that played
Speaker 1: in the NFL. Not the great defensive lineman that we
Speaker 1: all know and love as well, but his dad also
Speaker 1: did play in the NFL. He originally went to Oklahoma
Speaker 1: State and was undrafted in two thousand and one. Spent
Speaker 1: a couple of years in the league. So he has
Speaker 1: a football pedigree and background and knows what it takes
Speaker 1: to get to that type of level because he has
Speaker 1: that example right there in his household. He originally received
Speaker 1: his offer from the Cajuns back in March. That was
Speaker 1: his twelfth offer, so he is a hot commodity. Getting
Speaker 1: him to commit to you. You beat out the likes
Speaker 1: of Apps State in Texas State, North Texas, Duke Texas
Speaker 1: el Passle, which actually has an official visit set with
Speaker 1: him for next weekend. So it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: if he will still go on that visit if he
Speaker 1: will cancel it. I have not heard from him just
Speaker 1: yet about what that decision will entel. But winning these
Speaker 1: type of recruiting battles is really important, you know, with
Speaker 1: college football twenty six or twenty five and now twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Coming out, we saw a lot of that usage happening
Speaker 1: in recruiting battles where you're going head to head with
Speaker 1: different schools, and when they are on the same level
Speaker 1: as you, or they're comparable with the same type of
Speaker 1: school as you are, it's really big when you're able
Speaker 1: to win these recruiting battles bring guys into your program
Speaker 1: when they're quality players. He is five to ten, one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy one pounds. This past season as a corner,
Speaker 1: he only had seventeen targets his way. He allowed just
Speaker 1: two catches the entire season, no touchdowns, five interceptions, with
Speaker 1: one of them being a pick six. He had ten
Speaker 1: pass breakups, two tackles for loss in twenty one tackles.
Speaker 1: So he's not a guy that's gonna come up and
Speaker 1: make a whole lot of tackles for you. He's gonna
Speaker 1: come down and shut down one side of the field
Speaker 1: for you, which is really really big in your defense. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a Brent Gordon Junior, who's a man and
Speaker 1: man type of corner on one side. You have an
Speaker 1: Avery Demrie, you have a Jeremiah Moses, so you have
Speaker 1: a lot of cornerbacks that can play in pressman situations.
Speaker 1: It appears that that's gonna be the type of corner
Speaker 1: that this young man can be for you as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, he kind of has that that Eric Gearer
Speaker 1: type build in the sense of what he is, and
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe he could materialize and become something like
Speaker 1: that too, especially when it comes to the return game.
Speaker 1: So you add three commits from this class after going
Speaker 1: through your first weekend of official visits. So now you
Speaker 1: are up to nine players in this class and they
Speaker 1: are as follows. Shallow Creek tight end Bryce Coleman, who
Speaker 1: was also on an official visit this past weekend. A
Speaker 1: Oyls defensive lineman Kobe Smith. He'll be in town next weekend.
Speaker 1: This coming weekend. That is Faraday wide receiver Rob Taylor.
Speaker 1: He was on a visit this weekend. Westbrook quarterback Tam Anderson.
Speaker 1: He will be on a visit next weekend. Angleton offensive
Speaker 1: lineman Noah ERNs next weekend. Black Man and wide receiver
Speaker 1: John Walker. University lab defensive lineman Mason Smith, lend Nor Ti,
Speaker 1: and Caleb White are all a part of your class.
Speaker 1: So now things are coming even more closer to form
Speaker 1: your one commitment away from having double digit commits here
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty seven class, and the work is
Speaker 1: just continuing to go along, right. You get guys in,
Speaker 1: you get commitments very early, and now the thing is
Speaker 1: being able to hold the rope, as we always say,
Speaker 1: because as these guys continue to play through their senior seasons,
Speaker 1: somebody can see them and can offer them, and they
Speaker 1: can blow up and become a four star, even a
Speaker 1: five star.
Speaker 2: We've seen things like this happen overnight.
Speaker 1: You think about a guy like a Marquez Davis, who's
Speaker 1: a Northwest product here in Opelousis. You will originally offer him,
Speaker 1: he gets an offer from Lane Kiffin, goes on an
Speaker 1: official visit, and now he's projected to commit to the Tigers.
Speaker 1: So that's not to say that this could happen, that
Speaker 1: this will happen, but it's a possibility that it always
Speaker 1: could happen. So the Cajuns are going to have to
Speaker 1: hold the rope with these nine commits. Continue to cultivate
Speaker 1: these relationships. Let these young men know, hey, we want
Speaker 1: you to be a part of our program and if
Speaker 1: you come here, you will be a part of something
Speaker 1: building something special.
Speaker 2: Towards the future. So you're up to.
Speaker 1: Nine commits here in your twenty twenty seven class. You'll have,
Speaker 1: i believe, two more weekends coming up with the official
Speaker 1: visits that you have going on. But football was not
Speaker 1: the only program that received some commitments, as we also
Speaker 1: saw baseball get a pair of commitments. And they are
Speaker 1: coming from a familiar place in the Sun Belt, and
Speaker 1: they have a lot of familiarity with your coaching staff
Speaker 1: as well. We'll discuss all of those things, what they
Speaker 1: will bring to the table, and who they are when
Speaker 1: we come back here on Rage and Rundown. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for tuning in to another episode
Speaker 1: of Raging Rundown. We're going to get back into the
Speaker 1: action in just a second, but before we do, please
Speaker 1: do me a favorite. If you're watching this on YouTube,
Speaker 1: please like the video, share it, and leave a comment
Speaker 1: down below. But most importantly, make sure you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the channel. If you're listening, follow the podcast feed, rate
Speaker 1: the show, and leave us a review because that'll help
Speaker 1: us get in front of more Raging Cajun fans like yourself. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before the break, Raging Cagen's Baseball also
Speaker 1: received a pair of commitments from guys out of the
Speaker 1: transfer portal. We've talked about some of the junior college guys,
Speaker 1: the high school signees that they've already added as commits.
Speaker 1: Now they're working through the portal, and coach Matt Diggs
Speaker 1: talked about it after they're lost to Mississippi State how
Speaker 1: he felt that if he could add some strong arms
Speaker 1: to the bullpen that he already has, that this team
Speaker 1: could be in line for having a goal of hosting
Speaker 1: a regional in twenty twenty seven. So they're one step
Speaker 1: closer to that as they get commitments from two pictures
Speaker 1: that are transferring from Marshall, which is the place that
Speaker 1: pitching coach Taylor Sanderford came from, so they are very
Speaker 1: familiar with your pitching coach, which is a huge positive
Speaker 1: to what you're having building in your program. The first
Speaker 1: picture is Blaine Albright. He is a lefty. He has
Speaker 1: two more years of eligibility. He stands at six foot three,
Speaker 1: he's two hundred and twenty five pounds. He originally signed
Speaker 1: with Indiana and red shirted that first year in Bloomington
Speaker 1: and then transferred to Marshall and played there for two
Speaker 1: seasons in his first season with the Herd, he was
Speaker 1: one to oher. He had a four to twenty four
Speaker 1: ERA and seventeen appearances, gave up fourteen hits, five walks,
Speaker 1: struck out twenty and seventeen innings, and his opponents only
Speaker 1: hit a two to twelve batting average against him. But
Speaker 1: then coach Sanderford obviously last season leaves and things didn't
Speaker 1: go as well for Albright. He was one for three.
Speaker 1: He had a seven point nine to two ERA over
Speaker 1: fourteen outings, including four starts and twenty five innings. He
Speaker 1: allowed thirty hits, twenty five walks, and struck out twenty three.
Speaker 1: He talked about in an article with Kevin Foote that
Speaker 1: he was struggling with a pulled hamstring in his first
Speaker 1: outing of the season and things kind of went downhill
Speaker 1: from there with him. But he talked about how much
Speaker 1: he appreciated coach Sanderford just as the coach that he
Speaker 1: truly is. And I reached out to him and asked
Speaker 1: him what went into his decision, and he said, coach
Speaker 1: Sanderford playing and simple played under him and Marshall and
Speaker 1: he's the best.
Speaker 2: Coach I've ever had.
Speaker 1: So you have a guy on your staff that has
Speaker 1: cultivated a relationship well enough, and that's that's going to
Speaker 1: be a key component to a lot of your recruiting battles,
Speaker 1: is that if you build great relationships and it's bigger
Speaker 1: than the sport with a lot of these guys and
Speaker 1: these coaches, it makes them want to play for you.
Speaker 1: I've been around enough of these programs at UEL that
Speaker 1: I hear that as a common theme that these guys
Speaker 1: really care. It's not just a business here. They truly
Speaker 1: genuinely care about you as a player and a person
Speaker 1: rather than just you being you know, an X or
Speaker 1: O on the on the field or whatever the competition
Speaker 1: state of where you're at. And I think that is
Speaker 1: truly important because that is what is going to matter
Speaker 1: most when things are hard in games and guys are
Speaker 1: not things are not going their way in different games,
Speaker 1: They're gonna play for you because they know you care
Speaker 1: about them. And so this is an example of that.
Speaker 1: Getting the commitment from him, and then he also got
Speaker 1: a commitment from Charlie Crabs, who also was at Marshall.
Speaker 1: He is a senior and this will be his last
Speaker 1: season coming in to twenty twenty seven. He's six foot two,
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifteen pounds, and he was under coach
Speaker 1: Sanderford for two seasons before obviously Sandy came to UL
Speaker 1: this past year. In twenty twenty five, he was five
Speaker 1: and two with a two to ninety two ERA in
Speaker 1: twenty seven outings for the thunder and heard he gave
Speaker 1: up thirty six hits in fifty two and a third
Speaker 1: innings with twenty four walks and forty strikeouts. And this
Speaker 1: past season, Crabs was two and three with three saves
Speaker 1: and a six point zero eight ERA in twenty four
Speaker 1: appearances in forty innings. He surrendered forty five hits, twenty
Speaker 1: three walks, and struck out thirty eight. So again he
Speaker 1: talked about how much he cares about coach Sandford and
Speaker 1: if I can go and pull that DM up of
Speaker 1: where I reached out to him, because I'm also reading
Speaker 1: from the article that Kevin put Kevin foot excuse me
Speaker 1: put out talking about the two commitments with the Advocate,
Speaker 1: I asked him what went into his decision as well.
Speaker 1: He said, getting back with coach Sanderford was a huge
Speaker 1: part of it. But during my recruiting process, I just
Speaker 1: started to fall in love with the Cajun's winning culture
Speaker 1: and especially what Coach Diggs preaches to the program. So
Speaker 1: another component about this that I haven't talked about. Neither
Speaker 1: one of these guys took a visit, None of them have.
Speaker 1: Neither one of them have come to Lafayette just quite yet.
Speaker 1: They'll be here later, probably in the back half of
Speaker 1: June to take their official visits. They are committing off
Speaker 1: of the strength of Coach Sanderford and off the relationship
Speaker 1: they have cultivated with him and what they believe can
Speaker 1: happen based on what Coach Diggs has told them through conversations.
Speaker 1: And that is paramount because you can wow people with
Speaker 1: glitz and glam, and you can show them great facilities
Speaker 1: and uniforms, and you can give them an NIO check
Speaker 1: and all of these things like that. But when guys
Speaker 1: are willing to commit to you off the strength of hey, man,
Speaker 1: I care about you as a person and I want
Speaker 1: you to be great in life, you can't beat that.
Speaker 1: So you get two bullpen arms. You get two arms
Speaker 1: added to your bullpen. That is one being a very
Speaker 1: experienced writy I believe Charlie krabs Is and then Blaine
Speaker 1: Albright having two years of eligibility, somebody that can help
Speaker 1: you as well with what you already have on your staff.
Speaker 1: The ty Romans that saw your Cruits, the Parker Smith's,
Speaker 1: the Hayden Pearson's, the cam Riley's, the Landing Victorians, like
Speaker 1: you're adding a ple tour of guys to give you
Speaker 1: an opportunity to be really, really special in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, I think I have a sheet
Speaker 1: pulled up where you guys know I like to do
Speaker 1: rock layouts, and I can see it fully and I
Speaker 1: think I did when I know I have one for football,
Speaker 1: because that's what's coming up on my sheets guide. Let
Speaker 1: me see I did do one for baseball. So right now,
Speaker 1: out of your bullpen, based on what we've heard of
Speaker 1: guys returning and the commitments that you have you currently have,
Speaker 1: I think this is sixteen pitchers, Ty Rowman, Garrett Carter,
Speaker 1: cam Riley, Parker Smith, Hayden Pearson, saw your Pruett, Chase Morgan,
Speaker 1: potentially Geral Tilett, land In, Victorian Bryce Wilson, Evan Vincent
Speaker 1: from Turlin's Catholic Trent Lape. I'm trying to remember how
Speaker 1: to pronounce his name. Correctly, but he's the BIBSI transfer
Speaker 1: coming in David and Kubat, Maddix, Sullivan, Charlie Cribs, and
Speaker 1: Blaine Albright. I think that is sixteen pitchers that you
Speaker 1: have in your bullpen, and what I've been told is
Speaker 1: they could be adding more out of the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: They're looking to add a catcher and maybe some infielder
Speaker 1: or outfielder as well. As the portal window will be
Speaker 1: said to close on June thirtieth.
Speaker 2: It's June the.
Speaker 1: Seventh as of now, so they have plenty of time
Speaker 1: to work through those things to see what guys they
Speaker 1: want to add to their program. So it was a
Speaker 1: very eventful week, a big week for the Raging Cajun's
Speaker 1: football and baseball programs as football gets three commitments and
Speaker 1: now gets their twenty twenty seven class up to nine players.
Speaker 1: Baseball adds a pair of arms to the bullpen as well.
Speaker 1: So that's going to wrap up this episode here on
Speaker 1: Rage and Rundown. If you've made it to this point
Speaker 1: in the video, thank you so much. Please do me
Speaker 1: a favor, like it, share it, and leave a comment
Speaker 1: down below. The most importantly, make sure you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the channel. If you're listening, follow the podcast feed, rate
Speaker 1: the show, and leave us a review, because that's going
Speaker 1: to help us get in front of more raging Cajun fans.
Speaker 1: Just like yourself, I'm your guy, jam Marcus Fitzpatrick. We'll
Speaker 1: see you guys next time.