Jan. 30, 2012
Subscribe to the Commodore Nation | JANUARY
In advance of this week’s National Signing Day, Coach Franklin sat down with Commodore Nation to lay out five of the things he and his staff evaluate in each prospective student-athlete. This feature originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of Commodore Nation..
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“Character, integrity and work ethic are the things that I think are the most important in really determining how far you can go.”
| 2 |
“There are a lot of different traits you’re looking for–height, weight, speed and quickness–in terms of physical skills.”
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“How important is football? I think you have to be careful, to be honest, at a place like Vanderbilt, because you could get kids that are just coming here for the academic experience. You have to make sure you get kids here that love academics and want to have an unbelievable experience, but also are passionate about the game of football. They have to have both. A kid’s passion and love for the game is very important.”
| 4 |
“Looking at each class as a whole, you need some guys that you had to recruit and convince that this was the best place for them, but you better have a group of guys that are excited and passionate about coming to Vanderbilt and truly believe in what we’re doing here. That’s really what we’ve got going on right now, and I think that’s very, very important.”
| 5 |
“You want to have some flexibility. You don’t want to recruit guys that can only do [one thing]. Lafonte Thourogood is a perfect example. We knew that if he could be a quarterback we had a chance to have a really special one; but if he couldn’t, if he comes in and wants to move to running back, he’s got a chance to be good there as well. Recruiting those type of athletes that have that flexibility–those guys allow you to reduce the mistakes that you’ll make.”
