BRADENTON HERALD: USF withdraws Carnes offer; Kinnan incensed

[chrisdashley]

USF withdraws Carnes offer; Kinnan incensed

By ALAN DELL

adell@bradenton.com

MANATEE — In a move that Manatee High School head football coach Joe Kinnan called classless, the University of South Florida withdrew its scholarship offer to Hurricanes quarterback Brion Carnes on Friday.

Carnes was the first player in the class of 2010 to commit to USF. He had been wavering since former Bulls head coach Jim Leavitt was fired Jan. 8, and offensive coordinator Mike Canales was not retained by new coach Skip Holtz.

“In all my years of coaching, I have never seen anything like this. The USF coaching staff is no longer welcome at our school,†Kinnan said. “If they thought he was not going to sign with them they should have at least given him the opportunity to take his last visit and make a decision. After all, he was their first commit.â€

Carnes had taken an official visit to Nebraska last week and is at Western Kentucky this weekend. National signing day is Wednesday, the first day players are allowed to sign a binding national letter of intent.

Carnes was in Nashville, Tenn., headed to the WKU campus in Bowling Green, Ky., when he got the call about USF dropping his scholarship and could not discuss it. Kinnan first found out about the withdrawal on a voice message left on his phone.

Kinnan said he finally received a phone call from Holtz and that the USF coach apologized about the way things were handled and said it was a miscommunication.

“It doesn’t change anything. They are still unwelcome here. I don’t know if I can trust them,†Kinnan said. “I am very disappointed in how they handled things. They say they had no more scholarships, but they never gave Brion a deadline. You have to be upfront with the player and his coach and they were not.â€

Before the Leavitt firing, Carnes was considered a fairly solid USF recruit and was very close with Canales, who was let go on the same weekend Carnes made his official visit to the school. He met coach Holtz at that visit and said the Bulls were still his first choice, though it was not definite he would go there.

But other things also changed, including the hiring of former Manatee High great Willie Taggart at WKU last November. Taggart hired former Palmetto head coach Ray Woodie was one of his assistants to help with recruiting in the state of Florida and Manatee County.

[BULLfreak]

I think its a good move because he seemed to be drifting away from the program.

[E.T.]

It's a tough call, but Holtz just needs to explain that we are moving away from this style QB(it seems with the GA offer to the Drop Back Passer). It is better for Carnes if he wants to stay at QB in college.

Our recruiting base has widened.

Go BULLS !!!

[South_Florida_Flip]

Where was Kinnan's quote about how Carnes was most likely not coming here anyway?

Sour grapes much?

[bulldozier1]

He never seen a university pull scholarships? Sorry coach, USF has a limited amount of scholarships. We'll use them on players that want to be here. Life goes on.

[Rizman]

Since we have limited number of Scholarships we have to focus on serious opportunities and one kid jerking us around while he looks for a better offer is not a well placed offer. 

[Atlanta Bull]

Don't forget Kinnan and Leavitt had  a really good relationship. They both interviewed for the USF job in 1996. Is Kinnan pissed his friend is no longer at USF? Maybe. Is he looking for some reason to **** on Holtz/USF? Maybe. Do miscommunications ever happen? Yes. If anyone is to blame it is Franks. He is the face of USF recruiting that should be dealing with the Kinnan's of the world, miscommunication should not happen. Kinnan has been coaching for about 30 years, If thinks can't get patched up with him now at least he's going to retire in a few years. But is anyone going to be surprised if we loose some of our old HS coaching relationships? Maybe Dickie V. can smooth things over, he's a USF/Notre Dame fan and he lives in Bradenton. We need a T.O. baby!!

[usf97]

Somehow I doubt if a kid wants to stay close to home and can't make it at UF, we will have a hard time getting kids from Manatee. So what is coach Kinnan going to sell the kid on, well just go to UCF instead or FAU?!?   Yeah right.

As has been mentioned, Coach sais he wasn't probably going to sign with USF anyway. So you don't mind the kid changing his mind on his commitment but the coaches have to hold a schollie for him? Sounds like posturing.

Personally, if we had to pull Carnes schollie for T-Rex or Robey or Chandler. I say go for it. It's unlikely a true freshman is going to have any impact at QB, the same cannot be said for the secondary or D line.

[BULLfreak]

It's a tough call, but Holtz just needs to explain that we are moving away from this style QB(it seems with the GA offer to the Drop Back Passer). It is better for Carnes if he wants to stay at QB in college.

Our recruiting base has widened.

Go BULLS !!!

I got that feeling too about moving to a more traditional QB. What does that mean for BJ?

[DELdaBull]

Have we ever had an impact kid from Manatee?