My take on Travonte Valentine cancelling OV to Miami on Friday

NSD is 6 days away. However, according to Ryan Bartow this afternoon, Travonte Valentine has cancelled his OV to Coral Gables on Friday. Its expected now that when he makes that announcement on NSD, it will be LSU that he goes to.

We sent the heavy hitters on this one (Al, D, Jethro, Hurlie, Williams). The tide really turned when Valentine de-committed at the US Army game because of Golden having one foot out the door to Happy Valley and he met that Saturday with PSU officials in Miami. On that Sunday, when Golden gave Penn State a 4 p.m. deadline, PSU brass balked, and once Munchak was fired by Tennessee, everything changed dramatically, and in the end, PSU said no. Hence, the statement from Al that night that he was staying. However, the damage was already done with Valentine. 

On that Monday, in the interview with Joe Rose, he wasn't going to discuss PSU at all. When he defended D, to me and I've been a big supporter of Al through all this, it told me that kids weren't going to come here and play in D's failed scheme. 

How it relates to Valentine, Al and Hurlie went up to Palm Bay to meet with Valentine's mom yesterday or this morning. D and Jethro, according to Bartow, were at the Champagnat Hoops game last night meeting with Valentine's coach Mark Tunsil. 

Here's what it all tells me, once Al had one foot out the door, Valentine decided to walk and open up his recruitment. This is also a message to Al from the kids in the area, who are very smart, they don't want to play for D and with Valentine likely going to LSU, and the hat (Miles) is coming in tonight to meet with Valentine's mom, to likely seal the deal, is a major indictment on Al, D'Onofrio and the entire staff and why D needs to go yesterday. Al keeping D, to me, is scaring away top defensive recruits who have made it clear (See Bethel), they don't want to play for D and his system. 

This is a MAJOR loss, and those that say it isn't, is just fooling themselves. This was a player we could NOT afford to let get away and in a need area too. The fact that he's likely going to get away to me, speaks volumes about the ineptitude of this staff and Al's rep being a closer taking a big time hit here. The kids are starting to see through Al's sell job. This loss is clearly on Al because a) he had one foot out the door to Penn State, and B) having D still around. Also, this loss is also on Hurlie because this was his responsibility. 

Al and the staff better have someone in mind on the interior of the DL between now and 2/5, because losing Valentine is a MAJOR LOSS. To me, this sets us back at least 3-5 years. Valentine is that type of player that comes around once every 5-10 years.