[CleveBucks]

Four non-qualifiers at WSU, including Randy Estes (#1 safety who was caught selling weed)

Football recruits fall short in academics
WSU Daily Evergreen

Waylon Safranski
July 1, 2004

When the Cougar football team announced its recruiting class in February, numerous recruiting publications ranked it in the nation's top 25, and head coach Bill Doba gave it an "eight or nine" on a scale of 10.

But the class has lost some of its immediate luster, as some signees won't qualify academically and, therefore, will not compete with the Cougars this fall.

Robin Pflugrad, tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator, said high school signees safety Randy Estes of Long Beach, Calif.; defensive back Michael Willis of Lincoln High School in Tacoma; defensive lineman Lawrence Ball of Fresno, Calif. and receiver Benny Ward of Van Nuys, Calif. did not qualify academically.

Letrell Myers, a junior college signee defensive end, is also "98 percent done" Pflugrad said.

They are still waiting for test scores from running back J.T. Diederichs of Ballard High in Seattle and receiver Charles Dillon of Oxnard, Calif., and Pflugrad said there is only a slight chance they will qualify.

Pflugrad said the coaches can only do so much to help the recruits get qualified academically.

"We can't go over (to the schools) and make sure they get to every class," he said. "Geographically, it's difficult in Pullman to keep in touch. And there are a lot of distractions during your senior year (of high school). You get pulled in a lot of different directions."

Doba's staff will have their hands full as they try to help these players get into a junior college and keep them off the recruiting market. The players who did not qualify are not bound to their letter of intent after the start of fall classes, Pflugrad said.

"That's when the piranhas come out," he said. "Other schools try to eat the flesh off of someone else's program. We want to avoid another school scooping them up - but it's always a concern."

Pflugrad said the coaches will attempt to keep a line of communication with the players, but the process can turn into a wild goose chase.

"We are dealing with a new can of worms," he said. "They have to pay their own way and we tell them to do stuff, but it's tough. Sometimes they'll want to stay close to home, but that can be the worst thing to do. They got their buddies around who might not be going to school, and the environment is usually not about studying."

The losses hurt even more because the coaches anticipated Estes, Willis and Myers all had the ability to not only play, but contribute this fall.