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| Bradenton Southeast's Desmond Blue (10) dislodges ball from Manatee's Quinton Bundrage (11). |
"They want me to play safety up there, and that is fine with me."
_Desmond Blue
Ask any college football expert and they will tell you that the state of Florida is a gold mine._Desmond Blue
Florida produces more Division I talent than the next two states (Texas and California) combined.
Must be all the fresh orange juice.
That's why it's important for almost any school to not only have a presence there but someone who is expert in the mining process.
Temple has that in Steve Addazio. You don't get named national recruiter of the year twice without a solid knowledge of the roads that lead to the gold.
Now Addazio appears to be building a pipeline from Florida to Philadelphia.
It's only a 22-hour train ride away, two hours by air.
It looks like the first passenger to punch his ticket on Addazio's underground railroad could be Desmond Blue.
Addazio, due to NCAA rules, can't talk about it but Desmond Blue can and he's already seeing Cherry. He looks about to become part of Temple's football family. (Addazio also locked up Gulliver Prep's Cedric Walker, but Walker was an Al Golden recruit who was waiting to commit.)
One of the interesting items in that story was that Addazio is already going up against Al Golden for two recruits, Quinton and Chris Pompey.
For his part, Blue appears talented enough to provide immediate help in a secondary that could be hurt by the graduation of senior Jacquain Jarrett.
With all the talent Temple has returning on both sides of the ball, there are only three major holes to fill as I see them: 1) Backup running back to Bernard Pierce (with Pierce ability); 2) Strong safety and 3) Impact defensive tackle to replace Mo Wilkerson.
Of course, I could always use a big-time JUCO All-American quarterback with this kind of talent but I think, with this past year of seasoning under their belts, both Chris Coyer and Mike Gerardi could be championship-level MAC quarterbacks and I don't think that need is as pressing as it was in past years.
Plus, the JUCO ranks don't produce a Cam Newton or a Walter Washington every year.
