TE Dan Beilinson hopes to make his decision soon between three finalists
With the impending graduation of Cooper Helfet and Danny Parker, Duke will be looking to reload at the tight end position in the class of 2012. After an early verbal commitment from Florida prospect Erich Schneider, the Blue Devils have remained focused on a local prospect to fill their remaining spot at tight end. Dan Beilinson is a 6’5” 220 pound tight end from Cary, North Carolina. As a junior, Beilinson caught 37 passes for over 500 yards, helping Panther Creek HS to a conference title and the state regional playoffs. One of the top tight end prospects in the state, his performance earned him 1st Team Tri-Nine All-Conference, among many other accolades. Highlights from Dan’s junior year can be viewed here. With eight scholarship offers in hand and interest from several other schools, Beilinson has narrowed his college choices to three finalists. [private]
BDN: Where are you in your recruiting process?
I’d say I’ve basically narrowed the schools down basically to NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest, and I’m just trying to figure out which of those schools is the best fit for me. I’m not really looking at this point for anything else, I’m just trying to decide between those three schools.
BDN: Have you had a chance to visit your finalists recently?
Yes, last weekend I actually visited all three of them.
BDN: You’ve obviously had a chance to visit these schools a few times now; what are the specific things you have been evaluating on your more recent visits?
I’m just trying to see the best relationship with a coach that I can establish, how they coach and how that relates to me. Just try to see what they’re doing and just try to evaluate based on that.
BDN: It sounds like the relationship you are developing with the coaches is important; which coaches are you closest with?
At NC State, Coach Archer would be the recruiter for my area so I’ve got to know him pretty well. And then the former tight end coach, Coach Bridge, I know him very well and I’m establishing with the new tight end coach, Coach Horton, so I’m developing a relationship there. At Duke, mainly I know Coach Middleton and Coach Cutcliffe very well, and some of the other coaches I’ve established contact with. And then at Wake Forest, Coach Russ and Coach Tereshinski have been the two main people that I’ve talked to.
BDN: What stood out to you about each of your three finalists?
They’re all very good educational schools. If I choose to got to [NC] State or Duke, I’d probably do engineering and then if I go to Wake Forest, I’d probably do more of a science field. So in all aspects the education is really good and that’s really appealing to me. And then in football, all the programs are either rising or already good, so that adds more to the effect.
BDN: When do you expect to make your final decision?
I hope, in my head it just kind of happens, but it could be soon, or it could go past the season, I really don’t know, but it might be soon, I’m not sure.
Charlotte OL Casey Blaser commited to Duke on Saturday
Head Coach David Cutcliffe and Offensive Line Coach Matt Luke continue to build the Blue Devil offensive line with the addition of Charlotte OL Casey Blaser to the class of 2012. Blaser informed the Duke coaching staff of his verbal pledge to the program on a busy Saturday in Durham. Duke wrapped up its summer camps on Saturday, closing two straight weeks of camps featuring hundreds of high school prospects hoping to impress the Duke coaches. The Duke coaching staff was impressed with Blaser earlier this spring and were the first ACC program to offer him a scholarship, joining ECU, Ball State, and Marshall. At 6'5" and 261 pounds, Blaser is set to anchor the offensive line for South Mecklenburg HS this fall.
BDN recently spoke with Casey about his Duke offer.
Welcome to Duke, Casey!
UPDATE: Casey checked in with us on Sunday to let the Blue Devil Nation know about his decision.
BDN: How did you arrive at your decision to commit to Duke?
Well yesterday I attended their camp and I got to see how the coaching staff worked together and how they coached, and I really enjoyed that. Afterwards I got to see the weight room, the locker room, the training room and I really liked their facilities. I got to talk to Coach Cutcliffe and he told me what they’re trying to accomplish and what they have planned for the future and I just really liked what I was hearing and it just hit me that I want to go here to play football.
BDN: How did you tell the coaching staff and what did they say to you?
At first it was me, my mom and Coach Cutcliffe in his office and we were talking and then after we got done talking me and my mom walked out and as we were walking in the elevator, I told her, “Mom I want to commit here.” She was like “are you sure, do you want to think about it?” And I said, “No, I’m pretty sure I’m ready right now.” So then once we got the chance we went back into his office and we told him and they were happy and they were excited and we were all excited and happy about the decision.
BDN: What other schools were you considering?
I also had offers from ECU, Marshall and Ball State, and South Carolina and Georgia Tech were showing interest.
BDN: What are your plans for the rest of the summer?
Just to stay in shape and keep working for football for my senior year.
Booker HS WR Ricky Jones plans to visit Duke this summer
The Duke coaching staff is looking to add dynamic athletes to the class of 2012 and have been scouting the country in search of potential impact players for the program. In recent years, the Blue Devils have had success with pulling players from the state of Florida, headlined by the dynamic receiving duo of Donovan Varner and Conner Vernon. In the class of 2012, Duke is already off to a great start in Florida, securing commitments from TE Erich Schneider and SAF Dwayne Norman. Ricky Jones is a 5’10” 175 pound prospect from Sarasota, Florida. The speedy slot receiver is already up to over half a dozen scholarship offers, including the Blue Devils. Jones is developing a strong relationship with the Duke coaching staff and plans to visit Durham this summer with his teammate, DB Ezra Robinson. Highlights of Jones’ 12-touchdown junior year can be viewed here.
[private]
BDN: Can you start off by describing your strengths as a player?
Some of my strengths I believe, my after the ball ability. After I catch the ball, I feel like I’m a playmaker. I have a great burst off the line of scrimmage. I’m a slot player, a slot receiver, so I’ve got great quickness and great speed.
BDN: What are some of the things you have been working on as you prepare for your senior year?
I’ve really been working on my lateral speed and stuff like that, and working on my route running.
BDN: What are your goals for your senior year?
I believe, senior year, I just want to get better and better, beat all the rest of my years and go out strong.
BDN: What are the most important things you’re looking for in a college?
First I’m looking at the offenses and what type of offense they have. And another real strong point is academic-wise, where will it take me if football doesn’t work out? Looking at the graduation rate and stuff like that.
BDN: Is there an academic field you’re interested in studying?
Not right now, I’m still seeing what I want to do after, but I just want to see like what my major would be there if I do have it.
BDN: Which schools have you had the most contact with so far?
Wake Forest is pretty strong, Duke is very strong also.
BDN: Have you had a chance to take any visits yet?
I have plans to visit, I might be going up to North Carolina to visit with Ezra Robinson, he has family up that way so we plan on visiting a lot of schools up that way.
BDN: Is North Carolina an area you’re interested in going to school, or would you prefer to be closer to home?
I have no problem with being away from home, but not too far, I don’t want to go really, really far. I have no problem with moving away from Florida, though.
BDN: Have any schools stood out to you at this point in the process, either from your visits or your relationships with the coaches?
Not really, I’m still evaluating every school and see what would be the best fit for me right now, I’ve still got almost a whole year to go.
BDN: Do you have an idea for how you would like to narrow things down and make your decision?
I believe I might be breaking it down after the summer, dropping the list from like 25 to like 15 probably, dropping down closer and closer, but I don’t have a date yet.
BDN: Thanks a lot, Ricky, and best of luck to you.
DL Carlos Wray is the 6th verbal commitment in the class of 2012
Is it Friday already? Time flies when you’re knee deep in recruiting season. As we did last week, we’ll share Football Friday with everyone this week. If you like reading what we have to say, please consider joining BDN Premium. We’ve quickly become the best resource for all things Duke athletics around, and we’d love to have you join our community.
College football preview season
We mentioned last week that college football previews are in full swing as magazines hit newsstands and websites begin publishing their own predictions. While Duke is flying under the radar for most prognosticators in 2011, several Blue Devil players have garnered pre-season accolades. Will Snyderwine and Conner Vernon were named as preseason 1st Team All-ACC, while Matt Daniels, Cooper Helfet, Kyle Hill, Sean Renfree, and Donovan Varner were tabbed on the 3rd Team by Athlon Sports. I would caution those who are sleeping on Renfree and Varner in 2011; both have taken huge steps forward this offseason and are poised to lead the Blue Devils to a bowl this fall.
Chris Tavarez featured
Duke’s freshman safety has already made a name for himself in the acting world, and will star in a new NBC movie, “Field of Vision.” The Blue Devils are looking forward to Tavarez’s arrival on campus later this month.
Busy week
It’s been rapid fire at BDN this week, kicking off with the Blue Devils’ 6th verbal commitment in the class of 2012. Carlos Wray joins Allen Jackson as future Duke defensive linemen under new Coach Rick Petri. Wray and Jackson are both athletic prospects who will be fun to watch in Wallace Wade Stadium in the years to come.
With camp season in full swing, BDN checked in with several new Blue Devil prospects to learn more about where they are in their recruiting process, and learned that Duke has made a significant impression on many of them. Some of the new interviews we featured this week included:
If you’ve followed Duke football recruiting in recent years, you know we are just getting started here in early June. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
Recruiting rewind
Most Duke fans are conditioned to expect recruiting success due to Coach K’s historic run in Durham. In football recruiting, you win some and you lose some. At BDN, we believe it’s more important to focus on the recruiting victories and keep things in perspective. Here’s a quick recap of some of Duke’s biggest recruiting coups in the last two classes alone.
Class of 2010
LB Kelby Brown
Duke fans didn’t know how good of a player they were getting when Brown committed to the Blue Devils in July 2009. The coaching staff was able to secure Kelby’s commitment over nine other scholarship offers from programs like Arkansas, Boston College, Louisville, Northwestern, UCLA, and Wisconsin. After knee surgery cut his freshman year short in 2010, Duke fans are expecting Brown to lead the Blue Devil defense in 2011 and beyond.
QB Brandon Connette
With Sean Renfree entrenched as the heir to Thad Lewis, it was easy to overlook the commitment from Connette, which the Blue Devils received early in the recruiting season, in May 2009. The Duke staff was able to beat out in-state power Stanford for Connette, who came in and led the Blue Devils with 8 rushing touchdowns as a freshman, a new school record.
RB Juwan Thompson
The Duke coaching staff went down to Georgia in the spring of 2009 and stole a pretty good running back prospect from the Peach State. Thompson committed to Duke in June 2009 over offers from Minnesota, Ole Miss, Stanford, UVA, and Wake Forest. After finishing in the ACC’s top 10 in kickoff returns as a freshman, the Blue Devils expect Thompson to see an increased workload in 2011.
RB Josh Snead
After landing 4-star prospect Desmond Scott in 2009, the Duke staff continued their impressive in-state recruiting, adding the speedy Snead to the class of 2010 in December 2009. Snead chose the Blue Devils over Georgia Tech, Louisville, NC State, and Vanderbilt. Along with Scott and Thompson, Snead is expected to be a key playmaker in the 2011 Blue Devil backfield.
Kyler and Kelby Brown are two of the Blue Devils' biggest recent recruiting successes
Class of 2011
OL Cody Robinson
The Duke coaching staff landed four impressive prospects from the state of Tennessee in the class of 2011, led by the 300-pound Robinson. Cody chose the Blue Devils over 8 other scholarship offers and is expected to anchor the Duke offensive line for years to come.
OL Marcus Aprahamian
Coach Luke and the Blue Devils went into the Midwest and secured a commitment from the top offensive line prospect in the state of Wisconsin in May 2010. Aprahamian, who called Duke his “dream school,” is expected to join fellow 300-pounder Robinson and anchor the Blue Devil offensive line.
LB David Helton
Another good-looking Tennessee prospect, Helton chose Duke over 7 other scholarship offers, including ACC rival Georgia Tech. Helton is a player many think could contribute as a true freshman in 2011.
CB Jared Boyd, CB Tim Burton, S Chris Tavarez
Duke fans are going to love watching this trio of defensive backs develop in Wallace Wade Stadium. The three bring a distinct swagger to Durham, and they all know how to make plays. Boyd, who hails from Georgia powerhouse Stephenson High School, chose Duke over 14 other scholarship offers, including programs like Georgia Tech, Ole Miss, Stanford, and Vanderbilt. Burton brings the reputation of a big-time speedster and trash-talker from the talent-rich state of Florida, where he chose Duke over 7 other offers, including Big Ten power Wisconsin. Tavarez may be best known for his career as an actor so far, but he plans to make a name for himself on the gridiron at Duke, which he chose over 6 other offers, which included Maryland and Vanderbilt.
DE/LB Kyler Brown, ATH Jamison Crowder
Do you remember where you were on February 9, 2011? What about March 13, 2011? Of course, you were watching the Blue Devils beat the Tar Heels on the hardwood. What a great feeling for a Duke fan! So why don’t you remember July 20, 2010? Or February 1, 2011? Duke beat the Tar Heels on those days as well, landing commitments from Jamison Crowder and Kyler Brown. With Crowder’s athleticism and Brown’s family lineage, Blue Devil fans should know to expect both to find a way to make an impact this fall.
You could certainly add more to this list – TE David Reeves, who signed with Duke after a late push by SEC power Auburn; WR Blair Holliday, who chose Duke over hometown UCLA; big DL Sam Marshall, who chose Duke over ACC rivals NC State and Virginia; Will Monday, the top ranked punter in the class; and several others. For a program whose last bowl game was over 15 years ago, the Blue Devil coaching staff is doing an impressive job on the recruiting trail. If recruiting success is any indicator, Duke fans should expect to see results on the field sooner rather than later.
Keep up with all things Duke athletics here at BDN. As always, thanks for reading. Until next week, WE ARE DUKE.
Under new defensive line coach Rick Petri, the Blue Devils have targeted some of the top defensive line prospects in the class of 2012. One of the first linemen to visit Durham and pick up a verbal scholarship offer was Korren Kirven, a 6’5” 275 pound prospect from Lynchburg, Virginia. The recently-named ESPNU150 defensive tackle is now up to over 20 scholarship offers from many of the top programs in the ACC and SEC. Kirven visited Durham again for the Nike camp on May 23 and came away with All-Camp Team honors. When BDN last spoke with Kirven, he had come away impressed with the Duke program: “Duke – their whole academic thing down there is really good…it was a good visit.” With his recruitment picking up, Korren checked back in with BDN to update his summer plans.
BDN: How has your spring been going?
We had 7-on-7 stuff, that’s almost over. We have one more event, that’s at UVA and we’re going to be traveling up there to play. That’s it with spring ball, but we’re going to be starting weight lifting, our weight-lifting program on Monday.
BDN: How has your 7-on-7 season gone?
We’ve been doing good, I think we only lost one time. Other than that, I think we’ve been pretty good.
BDN: What schools have you visited this spring?
I’m going down to UNC soon. The schools that I’ve visited, though, have been Virginia Tech, Duke, Tennessee, and Virginia. I think that’s about it, but I’m going to be doing a lot of traveling this summer.
BDN: Which coaches have had a chance to stop by to see you this spring?
Virginia Tech’s coaches, UVA, Notre Dame, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Marshall, Colorado, Texas Tech, UCF, it’s quite a few of them. There’s a lot of them, I can’t really name all of them right now, but it was quite a few of them.
BDN: Which schools have you been in contact with the most so far?
My Virginia schools I always stay in contact with, but other than that, Alabama, Tennessee, Duke, Rutgers, Stanford, Notre Dame, Colorado, and Florida have been the schools that I’ve stayed in touch with, and Maryland.
BDN: You mentioned taking a lot of visits this summer, which schools are you definitely planning to visit?
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Stanford, Tennessee, Colorado, and possibly Oregon.
BDN: Obviously you’ve got a lot of great choices in front of you, how you do plan to start to narrow things down at this point?
Yeah, I’m going to take all my visits and slowly narrow down my list and go from there. I’ll take all my officials and then I guess I’ll have a school.
BDN: That sounds like a long way off right now, doesn’t it?
[Laughs] Yeah, yeah.
BDN: Which schools do you feel like you have the best relationship with right now?
Always the Virginia schools stand out, but like I said, Florida and Alabama, and Tennessee.
BDN: Thanks a lot, Korren, and best of luck to you.
Valor Christian's Alex Kozan is one of the top OL prospects in the class of 2012
In their three-plus years in Durham, Head Coach David Cutcliffe and Offensive Line Coach Matt Luke have built the Duke offensive line into what is expected to be a position of strength in 2011. The past two recruiting classes have brought in a very good group of young offensive linemen, and the Blue Devils hope to continue that trend with the class of 2012. Alex Kozan, a 6’4” 295 pound prospect from Valor Christian in Colorado, is one of the most highly recruited offensive linemen in the country, and the Blue Devils are among the long list of schools he is considering.
BDN: Can you start off by describing your strengths for fans who haven’t had a chance to see you play?
As a player, I’m smart, I never forget my assignments, I’ve got good quick feet that allows me to stay in good position. Explosiveness off the ball, hand contact, hip movement, that kind of stuff, that’d be my strength.
BDN: What are some of the things you have been working on this spring?
Pretty much everything, you know, you just work on technique, you’ve always got to work on technique when you’ve been off the game for six months, so you just work on pass technique, run technique, that kind of stuff.
BDN: Coming off back-to-back state championships, is a three-peat your goal for your senior year?
Definitely, you know we’ve got a strong senior class, we’ve got probably 25 seniors this year. A lot of us have been with the program since our freshman year, our first varsity year when we went 4-6 that year and then won two back-to-back championships, so we’re just trying to get it done for a three-peat this year.
BDN: As you look at your college decision, what are the most important factors you are looking for in a school?
Five things. Number one, business program, that’s going to be my major in college, so a good business program. Number two would be coaching staff that I get along with and is going to develop me as a player, send guys to the NFL and send guys to be All-Conference players. Number three is going to be the strength and conditioning program of the team, does it have a good strength and conditioning program? Will they develop me physically, get me bigger, faster, stronger? Number four is whether it’s a place where I can compete, both as a player to start earlier and where I can compete as a team for conference championships, BCS bowl games and national titles. Number five is that I have a strong faith in God, so a place where I can grow that faith and they’re going to be supportive of that.
BDN: What schools have you been in contact with the most?
On the East Coast, for your region, I’d say North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, South Carolina, would kind of be in that area. Up more Northeast would be Pitt, Syracuse and Connecticut.
BDN: Have any schools stopped by your practices this spring?
We’ve had Syracuse, UConn, I don’t think Duke came out, Wake came out, North Carolina is supposed to come out, I don’t know if they’re still coming. Those are the schools that have come out from the East Coast.
BDN: Do you have any visits planned for this spring or summer?
I’m still looking at it. I’m going to narrow it down to 7 or 5 by July or August and I’m going to try to visit as many of those schools as I can unofficially, and then a couple of them on official visits if they’re farther away, like schools on the East Coast, to get a better feel for the program.
BDN: It sounds like you have a good idea for when you want to narrow things down; do you have an idea for when you would like to make your final decision?
I want to take a couple officials, so I’d probably say October.
BDN: Is there anything else you think is important for college football fans to know about you?
You know, just off the field, I’m going to be a great person, a strong character for the team, I’m going to help the team off the field, I’m not a guy who will get in trouble or anything like that. On the field, I’ll give 110% and people will see that in my game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.