By Mike Vorkunov
JERSEY CITY — Joe Dailey placed a call to Savon Huggins earlier this week. It was one Saint Peter’s Prep product talking frankly to another. More importantly it was one Frank Cignetti disciple selling a future one.
Huggins was leaning towards Rutgers before he talked to Dailey but he was not sold yet. The hiring of Cignetti as offensive coordinator had placated some of his fears about an offense that was WildKnight heavy and not particularly attractive to a running back of his caliber. Then Dailey’s number came up on St. Peter’s Prep coach Rich Hansen’s phone.
Dailey was a quarterback at North Carolina when Cignetti was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach during the 2006 season. He could not speak more highly of their relationship.
“Savon asked him on the car phone, ‘So tell me about coach Cignetti,” said Hansen, recounting the conversation. “So Joe said ‘Savon, he’s one of my mentors. I love the guy. He’s a good football coach. If you go to Rutgers you’ll love playing for him.’ I think that really put his mind at ease and iced it.”
Dailey’s call convinced Huggins and helped put the finishing touch on what may be the best recruiting class in Rutgers football history. It is the first time the Scarlet Knights have landed the top recruit in New Jersey, the No. 58 player in the country according to Rivals.
So there was a touch of irony when Huggins played out the usual commitment bait and switch by putting a North Carolina hat on his head in the St. Peter’s library before switching it for the black and scarlet Rutgers hat. The Tar Heels missed out on Huggins because of the words of a former Tar Heel.
As much as Dailey’s words meant to Huggins, it was the hiring of Cignetti that made the difference.
“I know they needed a new offensive coordinator because they didn’t really run the ball as you can see,” said Huggins. ‘[Jeremy] Deering had what, 32 carries in one game as a wide receiver. That really didn’t sit well with me and I told Coach Schiano that. You guys will really lose me if you don’t hire somebody or something doesn’t change. Regardless if you hire a new one or not I want something to be changed. They changed it for the better.”
It was well-thought out decision for Huggins. He did not make up his mind until Wednesday. He was being sought after by many of the country’s top schools.
In the end, it was two things that made him choose Rutgers over all the other suitors: the hiring of Cignetti and how the program responded to a season of adversity on the field with a 4-8 record and off of it.
“Everything is fine when everybody is winning,” said Huggins. “But you get to see how a team is when they’re losing. They stayed together. There’s some things here and there but that’s with every team, no team is perfect. But I really got to see the lows and how the team felt and their body language and their mental state after a 4-8 season. I knew this was the place. Everybody in my top had a winning record and a bowl game but Rutgers didn’t. That told me something about them.”
While Huggins needed to be sold on Rutgers, the Scarlet Knights were always sold on him. They were one of the first schools to recruit him.
“They’re getting a dynamic back who I think can carry the ball 25 times or more,” said Hansen. “I think he gets better with each carry. Above and beyond all the football stuff and that’s really import but he is not going to be outworked.”
Aside from his on the field success—Huggins ran for more than 2,000 yards this season—his determination and demeanor earned praise. To get to school each day Huggins has a two hour commute from his Jackson home. On gamedays he is so prepared he can’t even make eye contact with his mother.
“On the field he really is a beast,” said his mother LaSaunda. “He’s not my child until after the game again and he’s had a chance to calm down. He’s really a different person on the field.”
Above all else Huggins wanted to go to a winning program and was willing to take that leap of faith in Rutgers after turning down, among others, national champion Auburn.
“It’s a leap of faith, that’s what I keep telling him,” said Hansen. “There’s a shared investment in this thing. Greg has as much invested in Savon Huggins as Savon has invested in Rutgers.
“I’ll be honest with you: the one caveat to this whole thing was ‘Coach I want to win. He had to be convinced that the plan was in place and the players were in place. I think he is. I think it’s a good recruiting class for them. I think he makes it a better recruiting class. I think he truly really believes in the plan.”
Follow Mike Vorkunov on Twitter: @Mike_Vorkunov
Next time you publish a story about a person, do try to at least spell their name correctly. It’s a nice touch that says, “Hey, I’m a real journalist. I did some research and looked it up.
http://www.kuathletics.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/dailey_joe00.html
Yo, hack writer…It’s Dailey.
and joe dailey throws yet ANOTHER interception for the heels. also, savon, why does it impress you that cignetti was joe dailey’s mentor? if you want i’ll be your mentor; you’ll have just as good a pro career as joe, i promise
Savon Huggins is simply another classless individual from NJ. That stupid stunt he pulled yesterday was way out of bounds. His parents obviously did a terrible job of raising a respectful kid - which, again, is not surprising considering where he’s from. If my mother was sitting next to me and I did what he did, my mother would have kicked my butt in front of everyone and put me in my place. Of course, that never occurred to his low rent mom and dirt bag dad from Jersey who just want to cash in on their kid’s football prowess. Its not the fact he’s not going to UNC, he did not have to rub it in the faces of the coaching staff and players there that recruited him over the past two years. After seeing that, I’m glad he’s staying in Jersey and going to that third tier academic institution. And he’s going to get his head taken off in Chapel Hill next fall. And, as for his mom and dad, I look forward to him tearing up his knee and never making it to the NFL so they can’t cash in. And he can go work at a 7-11 off the Jersey Turnpike.
He would have fit in well with the Marvin Austin & Butch Davis shadiness at UNC
Talk about classless, reading the riot act to an 18 year old kid because he did not pick your school to play college football. What a disgrace. You should be embarassed.
Huggins made the decision he thinks is best for himself, and none of us at UNC are bitter about that. Best of luck to him. I would also like to note that the poster above is obviously NOT a UNC student/alumni/fan. None of us would speak that way about our coach. See you on the field Savon..Go Heels!
Best of luck to Savon, we would have loved to have him. However there was no reason for him to stick it to us like that. Stuff like that tends to come back to you.
I hope Savon has a better career than Dailey did. Dailey showed that he has no loyalty and is bitter at how his career played out.
Now that Joe Dailey has refuted your report, any thoughts on your faux pas and weak reporting?
http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/1043833.html
Dailey Responds
By Don Callahan
Inside Carolina
Posted Jan 29, 2011
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Joe Dailey was caught off guard by the negative attention he received from North Carolina fans this week.
“I got a call [Friday] night about it and a bunch of Tar Heel fans hit me up on Facebook upset,” said the former UNC football player and current assistant coach at Kansas.
The Tar Heel faithful were upset about an article published online Friday by The Press Box, a New Jersey sports website launched in August 2010, that said Dailey “convinced” Savon Huggins, a five-star running back, to choose Rutgers over UNC.
Dailey said he immediately read the article in question and did some research.
“I found out the guy that wrote the article is a Rutgers grad and he’s an amateur columnist for a startup website,” Dailey said. “And [the writer] quoted me through someone else… And it was blown out of proportion.”
Dailey recalled that he received a phone call from Rich Hansen, Jersey City (N.J.) St. Peter’s Prep’s head football coach. Hansen coached both Dailey and Huggins during their prep careers.
“He said ‘Savon has some questions about Frank Cignetti and North Carolina,’” Dailey said. “He asked me ‘Could you fill [Savon] in on some things, because you played for both Cignetti, [John] Shoop, and Coach [Butch] Davis.”
Dailey agreed to help.
“The kid asked me a couple of questions about Cignetti and I answered the questions for him,” Dailey said. “I said, ‘I played for the guy, he’s one of my mentors, [and] I love the guy dearly. He’s a guy that’s going to take care of you after football is all said and done. He has always stayed in contact with me. And I said he’ll always have a relationship with you.’”
Then Huggins asked Dailey about UNC.
“I said, ‘You’re asking me to compare two universities that are like apples and oranges,’” Dailey said. “‘It’s a no-brainer, in my opinion, that North Carolina is where you should go. But that’s neither here nor there – you asked me a question and I’m going to answer it for you.’ I can’t turn my back on a university that took me in when I didn’t have a home.”
Dailey said he concluded the conversation with more pro-UNC sentiments.
Photo courtesy Topeka Capital-Journal
“I said, ‘Hey, listen, either place you go, you’re going to have a great opportunity, but you’re going to do more in life if you go to North Carolina,’” Dailey recalled. “‘When you leave North Carolina, you leave with a degree that means something. You’ll leave with an education in the league that will allow you to play in the league.’
“Never did I say you need to go here or there, because that’s not up to me. I gave him both sides and I treated it fairly. I gave him all pros – I never gave him any cons about going to either university.”
As a nationally ranked dual-option quarterback prospect out of St. Peter’s Prep, Dailey signed with Nebraska in 2003. After two seasons in Lincoln, including starting 11 games in 2004, he transferred to UNC. In 2006 he started seven games under center for the Tar Heels.
While at UNC, Dailey had three offensive coordinators – Gary Tranquill, Cignetti, and Shoop. Under Shoop, Dailey was moved to wide receiver for his final year of collegiate football.
“Shoop is responsible for a lot of my knowledge outside of the quarterback position and how I view offensive football,” Dailey said. “I was extremely appreciative of everything he did for me, because he’s the one that sat me down and said ‘Hey, listen, I know you like the quarterback position, but this is what you could do for us. If you move to this position, you could help a wide receiver group that’s young. You can bring some experience, some maturity, [and] some knowledge to a room that’s never really had it before.’
“He said, ‘You want to coach ball [in the future] right? This will be a good experience for you. Look at it as an opportunity to coach these young receivers, be a part of that group, and make them better. You’ll elevate their play by increasing their knowledge.’”
After graduating from UNC, Dailey became a graduate assistant at Buffalo under Turner Gill. After less than a year, he was promoted to the tight ends coach. When Gill left for Kansas prior to the 2010 season, he took Dailey with him and made Dailey the on-campus recruiting coordinator.
“I owe a lot to [Shoop] for sitting me down and talking to me in a mature manner and educating me on how this [move to wide receiver] is going to help me become a better football coach,” Dailey said. “So there’s no bitterness between me and Shoop about moving me to receiver. I think that’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me in college football.”
Dailey reiterated his loyalty to UNC.
“I’m a Tar Heel born and I’m a Tar Heel bred and when I die I’ll be a Tar Heel dead,” Dailey said. “I’m never going to go against a university that took me in, welcomed me in, and made me feel that I belonged. I hope that Tar Heel fans know that’s not how I conduct business.”
Yep, this writer belongs on the National Inquirer or the Star. Kudos to my Tarheel brethren for already giving the link to the Scout story with Dailey’s side of the story. Funny how Joe says the prep coach called him with questions, whereas this hack writer first claims Joe called the coach and kid first. I gotta go with Joe on this one, while he was awful at QB for us, he was a stand up guy to switch to WR when needed.
As for wishing Huggins injury, no real Tar Heel fan would do that. Most likely an ABC idiot trying to discredit the university. Most of all likely an NCSUX fan posing. But, Savon, when you come to Chapel Hill against us, be ready to be educated by Coples, Paige-Moss, and a host of other talented Tar Heel defenders who weren’t amused by the stupid hat switch stunt. If that’s is your TRUE character, we didn’t need you in the first place. Not to mention we have 2 other excellent TB recruits, and the behemoth Ryan Houston coming back next year.
Good luck son.
It sure is nice to see Manhattan Heel posting again. I assumed that her ham-encrusted fingers had become a liability to her typing skills. C’mon back to IC, big girl, we all miss you. And that is saying something, because you are hard to miss.