Ragin' Cajuns land two JUCO standouts

[NewsCopy]

  When Hurricane Katrina hammered New Orleans in 2005, the storm and its aftermath forced Tyrell Gaddies to leave Kennedy High and play his final two seasons of prep football at Eisenhower High in Houston.

Now, after spending two years at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas, Gaddies is coming home to close out his college career at UL. And the big defensive tackle is bringing one of his junior college teammates with him.

On Monday, Gaddies and Coffeyville Community College wide receiver Andrew "Rico" Joseph publicly committed to sign national letters of intent with the Cajuns. Both players, who redshirted during the 2007 season, will have three years of eligibility remaining.

The rest of the story

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • December 16, 2008

[anhil8tor]

Whoot!

[DestinCajun]

Another Tyrell. Outstanding!!!!

[jllanclos]

Joshua, you really do your homework on these guys and I appreciate my hometown paper giving such great coverage to the Cajuns. It occursd to me, also, that this can only help recruiting as well, to know that your hometown paper will cover your games more than most communities with Universities on this level. Thanks for contributing to the success of Louisiana athletics!

[DestinCajun]

_ Joshua, you really do your homework on these guys and I appreciate my hometown paper giving such great coverage to the Cajuns. It occursd to me, also, that this can only help recruiting as well, to know that your hometown paper will cover your games more than most communities with Universities on this level. Thanks for contributing to the success of Louisiana athletics! _

I have to remember to bring my sun glasses with me if JP is going to sit down below my section. The glare off his "dome" makes it hard to see the court.

[HoustonCajun]

_ Another Tyrell. Outstanding!!!! _

I gotta question both. Joseph was recruited by Hofstra and Charleston Southern as well as UL. Gaddies had a look by Central Florida and UL offered. No one else is recruiting them. Are these guys any good? Do our coaches see something in them that no other coaches are seeing? I certainly hope so. We can't afford to recruit marginal players any longer.

[Parrott]

_ I have to remember to bring my sun glasses with me if JP is going to sit down below my section. The glare off his "dome" makes it hard to see the court.
_

I'm sure it doesn't help having me and Jay sitting so close to one another on media row ...

[Parrott]

_ I gotta question both. Joseph was recruited by Hofstra and Charleston Southern as well as UL. Gaddies had a look by Central Florida and UL offered. No one else is recruiting them. Are these guys any good? Do our coaches see something in them that no other coaches are seeing? I certainly hope so. We can't afford to recruit marginal players any longer. _

Recruiting is definitely an inexact science. These two recruits were likely overlooked by other schools right now because they were redshirt freshmen. Most four-year schools are focused on junior college sophomores, knowing they will be eligible the following season. Other schools probably thought they had another year to recruit them.

That can make it easy for a recruit to fall off the radar, so to speak. I think it's a sign that the Cajun coaches are working hard to find talent. Remember, they found CB Dwight Bentley and RB Undrea Sails in similar fashions in junior college.

[DestinCajun]

Do our coaches see something in them that no other coaches are seeing? I certainly hope so. _

I found myself saying the exact same thing after reading the comments about Ryan McCoy the day after the blow out loss to Lamar. Yes, I'm guessing they are seeing something we can't but that's fairly typical. They were hot to sign receiver Ladarius Green last year and I had never heard of him. Derreck Dean looked way too small to pay NT to me but guess what.

[Cajunsmike]

_ I gotta question both. Joseph was recruited by Hofstra and Charleston Southern as well as UL. Gaddies had a look by Central Florida and UL offered. No one else is recruiting them. Are these guys any good? Do our coaches see something in them that no other coaches are seeing? I certainly hope so. We can't afford to recruit marginal players any longer. _

I also saw the note about who else was after these guys and wondered about that. However I have learned that Joseph is a fast guy but does not have much size. We will look at using him as a kick returner. Note he was on the Florida 1A All State team as a senior in high school. CajunT can perhaps tell you more about both committments. Last year we took Dwight Bentley as CB from the JC ranks and he was one of our top corners as a freshman-he did not play in JC.

[Bankruptcyman]

Tyrell Gaddies is 6' 2" 275 lbs and was a 110 meters hurdles champion in high school. Sounds like an unusual combination of size and speed. Looks like our coaches have found another great athlete that was off of everyone else's radar. Keep up the good work!

Our coaches seem to have a different approach to recruiting. Boomer is right. All of the lists and charts we see about UL recruiting are almost meaningless. In the last few years, most of the players UL signed were not even reported has having been offered a scholarship. This coaching staff appears to be very guarded and tight lipped about who they are targeting. I think for UL that is a good thing. Look at what happened to Tech last year. They had this great recruiting class on paper and was very public about their commitments. In the end, Tech lost several of their high level recruits at the last minute. Once again, ULM and Tech both have over a dozen public commitments. UL stands to be the recipient of some good high school players that are the victim of the over-recruiting practiced by bigger schools. Let's see who everyone signs in February.

[Parrott]

_ I found myself saying the exact same thing after reading the comments about Ryan McCoy the day after the blow out loss to Lamar. Yes, I'm guessing they are seeing something we can't but that's fairly typical. They were hot to sign receiver Ladarius Green last year and I had never heard of him. Derreck Dean looked way too small to pay NT to me but guess what. _

Ladarius Green had offers from FIU and FAU to play football but also had an offer from Tulane to play basketball. Late in the process that he decided to do football. Some schools overlooked him because they weren't sure if he was fast enough to be a WR or big enough to be a TE. Looks like UL's gamble worked out.

Despite being a few inches shorter than the typical DT, Derrick Dean got offers from Memphis and FIU and had a lot of interest from Minnesota. He was overmatched at times this season as a true freshman, but he'll get stronger in the offseason and will make a big impact next fall.

Ryan McCoy signed with Tulsa out of high school but didn't get a high enough ACT score. He won two NJCAA national titles at junior college powers before signing with North Texas but didn't get cleared because of a health issue. He's a Division I talent that has gone through some tough times, but so far is has shown to be worth the risk.