3 things we can learn about UM’s Rhett Lashlee as a recruiter from his time at Auburn
The most important priority for the Miami Hurricanes when they hired Rhett Lashlee on Jan. 4 was to find an assistant coach to reinvigorate the offense.
The offensive coordinator brings a new scheme to Miami and the sort of track record with shaping an offense Dan Enos didn’t have when he came to Coral Gables last offseason.
Recruiting is always part of the equation, though. In his lone season with the Hurricanes, Enos was actually pretty successful as a recruiter — he was instrumental in signing four-star quarterback Tyler Van Dyke, and four-star wide receivers Michael Redding III and Dazalin Worsham — but Lashlee has a good track record there, too. Miami desperately needs to bolster its staff’s recruiting chops and Lashlee is an intriguing addition in this regard.
It’s difficult to judge Lashlee on his past three years. He spent the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator for the SMU Mustangs and the year prior in the same role with the Connecticut Huskies. Neither signed a blue-chip prospect in any of the three recruiting cycles with Lashlee.
Before he headed to the American Athletic Conference, Lashlee spent four seasons as the offensive coordinator for the Auburn Tigers, though, and he played a significant part in signing five classes.
In four of those classes, he landed four-star quarterbacks and at least one blue-chip prospect from Florida. He was either the primary or secondary recruiter on a pair of players who wound up earning Heisman Memorial Trophy consideration.
Lashlee was primarily tasked with recruiting quarterbacks and skill players, and he went all over the country to land them, particularly finding success throughout the Southeast or at junior colleges.
Let’s start with a rundown of some of the notable players he helped sign in each of the five classes:
Class of 2013: Nick Marshall, 4-star ATH, JUCO Garden City (Kansas) Community College
Class of 2014: Roc Thomas, 5-star RB, Oxford (Alabama); Sean White, 4-star QB, University
Class of 2015: Kerryon Johnson, 4-star ATH, Madison (Alabama) Academy*; Jovon Robinson, 4-star RB, JUCO Georgia Military College (Milledgeville)*; Darius Slayton, 4-star WR, Greater Atlanta Christian (Norcross, Georgia)*; Ryan Davis, 4-star WR, St. Petersburg Lakewood; Jason Smith, 4-star ATH, JUCO Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (Perkinston)
Class of 2016: Woody Barrett, 4-star QB, Winter Garden*; Kam Martin, 4-star RB, Port Arthur Memorial (Texas)
Class of 2017: Jarrett Stidham, 4-star QB, JUCO McLennan Community College (Waco, Texas); Devan Barrett, 4-star RB, Tampa Catholic*; Noah Igbinoghene, 4-star WR, Hewitt-Trussville (Alabama)*
* — Lashlee was the secondary recruiter for the prospect
There are a few big takeaways:
Lashlee knows quarterbacks
In his five years in Auburn, Lashlee helped sign four blue-chip quarterbacks.
Marshall started for two seasons as a JUCO transfer and guided the Tigers to the 2014 national championship.
Stidham also started for two seasons as a JUCO transfer and led Auburn to the 2017 Southeastern Conference championship. White, who hails from South Florida, had an underwhelming career, but still played in 18 games across two seasons.
Only Woody Barrett, another Floridian, was an outright bust, never playing in a game before he transferred to the Kent State Flashes.
Lashlee’s system is quarterback-friendly and he knows how to find players who fit, even if the skill sets are diverse.
Marshall was classified as an athlete in the 247Sports.com composite rankings and wound up playing cornerback in the NFL, but he was one of the best quarterbacks in the country in 2013.
Stidham, on the other hand, is such a traditional-style quarterback the New England Patriots drafted him as a potential successor to Tom Brady in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft and he was an All-SEC performer in 2017, albeit after Lashlee left for Connecticut.
It’s also worth noting a Class of 2021 prospect: Preston Stone, a four-star quarterback and top-60 overall prospect, orally committed to SMU on Jan. 4 and Lashlee was the primary recruiter for the elite prospect. While he can’t sign a national letter of intent until December, Stone’s commitment was one of the biggest recruiting moments in Mustangs history.
Lashlee isn’t afraid to go after JUCO prospects
The two quarterbacks were Lashlee’s two JUCO prizes from his time in Alabama — and making Marshall a late addition was a particularly savvy play — but his best recruiting haul in 2015 was buoyed by JUCO additions at other spots. Robinson, who was the No. 1 overall JUCO prospect, and Smith fleshed out a class behind future stars like Johnson, Slayton and Davis.
The Hurricanes haven’t dug into the JUCO ranks much in the last few years, although coach Manny Diaz turned Miami into a destination for players looking for a second chance with his work in the transfer portal last year.
With Diaz on the hot seat, the Hurricanes are in win-now mode and Lashlee’s success recruiting JUCOs could help Miami add a much-needed infusion of ready-to-play talent.
Lashlee has experience in Florida
In an appearance on WQAM on Friday, Lashlee mentioned his familiarity with Florida talent. He said he helped recruit the state while he was at Auburn and those inroads can only help.
In those five recruiting classes, Lashlee helped the Tigers sign four blue-chip players from Florida, although White was the only one from the Miami metropolitan area.
Lashlee had his most success in the Tampa Bay area, where he was the primary recruiter for Davis and the secondary recruiter for Devan Barrett.
He was never asked to own Florida for the Tigers — defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson, a Coral Park alumnus, is their current ace and former wide receivers coach Dameyune Craig, who now as the same role with the Texas A&M Aggies, was also successful there — but Lashlee acquitted himself well whenever he was asked.
While Lashlee isn’t exactly an ace recruiter and he doesn’t own one area, he has a proven track record to pull a variety of prospects from all sorts of different areas. Among blue-chip prospects Lashlee helped sign, four are from Florida, three are from Alabama, one is from Georgia, one is from Texas and four are from JUCOs. Twelve of his 13 blue-chip signings were four-star athletes and one was a five-star prospect.
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 2:09 PM.
