Bob Lutz: Carroll’s Denzel Goolsby is the ideal K-State football recruit

You know who’s going to be happy when Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder decides to retire for good?

Yes, the rest of the coaches in the Big 12. Maybe his wife.

But the happiest people in the world will be those who evaluate college football recruiting. Because they have never been able to get a handle on Snyder.

Since he returned from Retirement I in 2009, the K-State football recruiting classes have been ranked 93rd, 63rd, 69th, 59th, 66th, 47th and, as of mid-afternoon Wednesday this year, 50th among the nation’s Division I programs by Rivals.com. Rivals is a recruiting service that, like parents, pays close attention to the decisions being made by 17- and 18-year-old high school kids.

According to Rivals, this is K-State’s best recruiting year since 2008, when Ron Prince brought in the nation’s No. 27 class. That Prince was quite a recruiter. A little lacking when it came to coaching, but quite a recruiter.

I think most K-Staters are content with the Snyder model. Bring in a bunch of two- and three-star recruits who are willing to work hard and let that coaching magic do the rest.

According to Rivals, Indiana and Illinois are rated to have better recruits this year than K-State. You might want to check out the pedigrees of both schools and get back to me in a few years.

This happens every year. K-State brings in guys the recruiting services think should be playing flag football and Snyder and his coaching staff eventually mold them into a contending team in one of the nation’s top conferences. If I’m a Rivals guy, I’m checking my evaluation formula.

The best example this year of how recruiting services undervalue K-State is Bishop Carroll running back Denzel Goolsby, who gained a two-star rating after attending a Rivals camp in St. Louis after his sophomore year.

As a senior in 2014, Goolsby rushed for 1,641 yards and 31 touchdowns on 162 carries. He caught seven touchdown passes while returning five punts and one kick for touchdowns. In the Class 5A championship game against St. Thomas Aquinas, Goolsby rushed for 113 yards and caught two touchdown passes in a 39-7 win to help the Eagles cap a dominating 13-0 season. He was Gatorade’s Kansas player of the year.

And still, Rivals.com has Goolsby rated as a two-star recruit in its five-star system. What’s a guy have to do to get to three stars? Sing and dance?

“Of course it motivates me,” Goolsby said. “I’m the type of player where I hate being kind of disrespected in a sense. Going to K-State, it’s all about earning respect and proving to people what I can do and what I’m capable of.”

In defense of Rivals, there are gobs of high school football players out there to evaluate. I get that it’s not an easy job. But I’ve seen Goolsby a handful of times during his career at Carroll and when he runs the football I see a bunch of stars, definitely more than two.

He’s 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds. He runs the 40-yard dash in 4.49 seconds. He has tremendous acceleration and moves.

“He went to four camps last summer – KU, K-State, Iowa State and Oklahoma State – and was offered (scholarships) at all four,” Carroll coach Alan Schuckman said. “Sometimes I think those recruiting services base their ratings on who is recruiting you and not how good you are. If Alabama is recruiting you, then you become a four- or five-star guy automatically.”

Since most of Carroll’s games in 2014 were blowouts, Goolsby was often pulled at halftime or minutes into the third quarter. He averaged only 12.5 carries but an incredible 19 percent of his rushes resulted in touchdowns.

He became a full-time running back only last season after playing receiver previously, something Schuckman believes may have hurt his ranking.

But when it’s all said and done, Goolsby has a scholarship in hand from Kansas State, where he’ll likely have a terrific career. It’s just strange that the best high school player in Kansas has to carry around a two-star stigma.

“I’m not sure why it is that they think of me that way,” Goolsby said. “But at the end of the day, they don’t have a ranking for work ethic or for how focused a guy is on and off the field. I’m going to go to Kansas State and out-work those five-star guys. If people want to give me two stars, one star or no stars, I’m ready to prove myself.”

Goolsby is a perfect K-State player. The Wildcats have one four-star recruit, 13 three-star recruits and six two-star recruits. It’s a typical KSU class.

Meanwhile, Alabama is bringing in four five-star recruits and 15 four-star recruits.

K-State has been getting blown out of the recruiting wars for years. And yet the Wildcats thrive because of players like Goolsby, who are inspired to prove the experts wrong.

This story was originally published February 4, 2015 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Carroll’s Denzel Goolsby is the ideal K-State football recruit."