Friday, May 04, 2007
Issues abound for younger Glennon
Miami the latest to enter the mix
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
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No one has offered a correction to the recent statement that a Mike Glennon football commitment to Virginia would be unprecedented, given that his older brother, Sean, is one of the marquee players for rival Virginia Tech.
On the other hand, it should be noted that former Warwick High School star Marcus Vick, brother of former Tech great Michael Vick, took a recruiting visit to Virginia and did not eliminate the Cavaliers until signing day Feb. 5, 2002.
On the day that he signed with the Hokies, Marcus Vick said he would not have considered the Hokies if Kevin Rogers had not replaced Rickey Bustle as quarterbacks coach.
Vick listed Tennessee and Virginia as his other finalists, although there was a difference of opinion as to how seriously he was considering the Wahoos.
In a phone interview Friday, Marcus Vick’s former coach, Tommy Reamon, said that he was careful to list Virginia whenever he was asked which schools Vick was considering. He said he did not believe Marcus Vick ever visited Virginia, although an official Vick visit to UVa has been confirmed elsewhere
So, if Marcus Vick was just being politically correct, what should one make of Mike Glennon, a rising senior quarterback at Westfield High School, his brother’s alma mater? The difference with Glennon, who has expressed sincere interest in Virginia, is that he’s doing the talking. When the Vicks were in high school, most contact was with Reamon.
Although he does not go into the season as the state’s No. 1 prospect, as his brother did in 2003, Mike Glennon (6 foot 6, 180 pounds) is the most compelling story in this year’s recruiting class. For one thing, Virginia did not make a scholarship offer to his brother, settling instead on California-bred quarterback Scott Deke.
Sean Glennon was recovering from a broken wrist at the time but that didn’t prevent Georgia Tech and Wake Forest from joining Tech in offering him a scholarship. Glennon became a starter for the Hokies this year in his redshirt junior season; Deke, who competed for the No. 2 job at Virginia this spring, has not played in a college game.
“To be honest with you, I think Sean is a little bit upset about that,” Mike Glennon said. “Tech was the right school for him, but I don’t really see anything wrong with [UVa’s decision]. They didn’t think Sean was the one for them, so I can’t hold anything against them.
“It doesn’t bother me. They’ve talked about it with my family and just said, ‘Maybe we should have offered him but we just felt, at the time, it wasn’t right.’ I think Sean is fine with them [recruiting Mike]. He knows it’s worked out for him.”
Westfield is one of the largest high schools in the state and last year sent 51 graduates to Virginia Tech. Needless to say, Mike Glennon’s decision is a big topic at the school – not just his possible choice of Virginia but the idea of following his brother as Tech’s quarterback.
“I probably hear that daily when people ask me what schools I’m considering and I mention both Tech and UVa,” he said. “Some say, ‘Don’t you want to get away from your brother?’ Some say, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to play with your brother?’
“I look at it as more of an advantage to be there with my brother. I know he would take me under his wing and I know it would help a lot to have him there. I would be able to get special attention; in fact, I’d be able to get it now if I wanted to. If I decided to go to Tech, he could start teaching me their playbook. That would be a big advantage.
“As for UVa, everybody says, ‘Oh, you’d have to play against your brother there.’ He tells me, ‘Go where you want to go.' When Sean first committed, I was all Tech, not UVa at all. I loved Tech. Once recruiting started, I couldn’t just put down a school because my brother plays for the arch-rival.”
Mike Glennon was at UVa’s camp last summer and received an offer from the Cavaliers on Sept. 1, the first day that schools can make an official offer to a junior. He subsequently received offers from Duke, Maryland and, this week, Miami.
“I like N.C. State and Michigan State, too,” he said. “Florida State came by. Those are probably the schools that are recruiting me the most actively. The offer from Miami was kind of unexpected. They just called last week and asked if I was interested at all because they’d be willing to fly up if I was.
“I told them I was and they came up. To have an offer from Miami is a real big honor. Miami is a powerhouse team and they recruit quarterbacks from all across the nation. It’s a real compliment.”
On the other hand, Glennon admits there is an attraction to staying in Virginia.
“I think it would be better to stay close to home, but, if not, I just want to do what’s best for me,” he said. “It’s a pro for a school to be close to home, but it’s not a con for some of the schools that are further away.”
Leaving the state would help him avoid the Tech-UVa rivalry, “but I’m sure that some of the comparisons with my brother will follow me wherever I go,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to get away from that wherever I go. Just like Peyton and Eli [Manning]. There’s going to be comparisons with them for the rest of their lives.”
At the two in-state schools, another factor would be the competition offered by the two young quarterbacks that will be enrolling this fall, Tyrod Taylor at Tech and Peter Lalich at UVa. It would be careless not to check out the depth charts for his principal suitors.
“I think that’s a big factor,” he said. “You want to pick a school because you want to play. There are some schools that have better situations than others, but, at the same time, you’ve got to be willing to compete wherever you go.
“You never know who’s coming in behind you. Sean picked Tech and there was nobody ahead of him, but Cory [Holt] came in the same time and Ike [Whitaker] came in after him. He’s been competing with those two guys since he got there.
“You can’t control who’s there. You’ve got to do what you can. Almost every school that I know has a quarterback in the [incoming] class. Every school has said, ‘You’re going to have to compete, but we’re not going to play a guy just because he’s older.’ ”
Whoever gets him won’t have to wait too long. Sean Glennon commited on Aug. 21, 2003, and his little brother expects to follow a similar timetable.
