AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 01
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Say goodbye for good to DJ Donley
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Unless something strange happens, and that obviously is possible, I was wrong yesterday about D.J. Donley.
It looks like he’s gone, or will be in a couple months, to Purdue.
Strange thing about kids — and these are still kids we’re talking about when the subject matter is high school seniors, college freshmen and sophomores (not to mention some juniors and seniors — they can be fickle and unpredictable.
Hard for me to find fault in Donley’s logic for leaving, though.
I talked to his high school coach this morning (as numerous calls to DJ and his mother have failed in recent days), and Richard McWhorter said DJ chose Purdue for two reasons: they throw the ball a lot, and he thinks he can best develop as a wide receiver in that kind of setting; and he has friends there and will have more.
“If he transfers, he’s still going to have three years to play three,” McWhorter said. “It’s still early in the game. He was concerned with the receiver position [and the ability to develop] at Tech. He didn’t say anything negative about coach Johnson.”
I thought Donley might have been the most talented WR on the team last year. Do I think there is some sort of barrier between WRs who play for Paul Johnson and the NFL? No. But there’s absolutely no proof from his stops at Navy, Ga. Southern, etc. that he can grease a wideout’s path to the professional ranks, either.
At Purdue, if he performs as he did in practices last summer (or better), when 2009 rolls around, Mr. Donley will get quite a few chances to show his wares. Purdue threw the ball almost 600 times last year, and QB Curtis Painter has thrown for more than 11,000 career yards.
He’ll be gone by the time Donley is eligible, and coach Joe Tiller is retiring after this year (I think, or is it next year?), but they’ve already tabbed his successor from on the staff, and the Boilermakers are not going to stop throwing.
These kids always say when there is a coaching change that they didn’t pledge in the first place to coaches as much as the institution, but when you’re a pro prospect — and I don’t think it’s a leap so suggest that Donley qualifies as a pro prospect, though certainly not a lock — you have grounds after a dramatic change in coaching philosophy like Tech underwent to say (not that Donley himself has) that you didn’t pledge blindly to a school, either. There’s a mix of commitments.
Surely, some of you will argue that.
But perhaps not this: If you’re a Jacket fan, this is a big loss, one of the two or three most talented members of that very highly touted 2007 signing class is gone (barring a change of mind, which I’m allowing for … sort of).
QB Steven Threet didn’t make it to summer practice. He ended up at Michigan, where he no more fits Rich Rodriguez’s offense than I do. Strange how things work, isn’t it? Then again, had he stayed at Tech, he would no more fit the Jackets’ new offense than I would. It just goes to show ya, who knows?
Another would-be member of that class, Cedric Everson, also ended up in the Big 10. After Tech pulled his scholarship offer, he pledged to Michigan State. Then, he jumped to Iowa on signing day. Showed up at media day and said he didn’t want to redshirt because you can’t learn anything that way, and by mid-October, he flamed out of that program.
Anybody know where Ced is now?
Good for Tech, huh, that that one didn’t work out.
By extrapolation, does that make it good that basketball recruit Al-Farouq Aminu didn’t work out? Dunno all the details of the BB gun incident, but I know this. I hope none of my kids is ever involved in a BB gun event like that one. No gun incidents of any kind can be anything but bad news, save a kid hunting legally with adults.
On a side not, as for Jonathan Dwyer, whom I suggested yesterday might need to shed 10-12 pounds, OK, maybe not that much. Maybe (this was just theoretical based on a couple up-close sightings), he needs to shave less than that.
But I still think he’s too thick from mid-chest to the bottom of his rump, at least for a young man his age. No, I’m not saying in any way, shape or form that he is not abundantly talented. But comments by Paul Johnson have made it clear that coaches are looking for something more from Dwyer.
Finally, not that it’s here, there, or anywhere … two Charlton County High players are already on the roster at Purdue, and Donley and RB Ralph Bolden, who signed with the Boilermakers in February, will make four.
That will be four more players from one of Georgia’s very best small school programs on the Purdue roster than on the roster at Tech.
It just goes to show ya, ya never know.
Matt
