FROM a bama fan on another board - not sure the source:
Henry Poggi
January 28, 2013
He has tremendous visit
Baltimore-Gilman defensive lineman Henry Poggi was in Tuscaloosa this past weekend on an official visit. The 6-3, 265-pound Poggi, who has been committed to Michigan since last summer, hasn't commented on his trip to Tuscaloosa, but his father, Gilman head coach Henry Poggi Sr., joined him on the trip and told TI this morning that their experience in Tuscaloosa was "tremendous."
"The people were just magnificent," Coach Poggi said. "Everybody from Coach Saban and his wife down through Coach Smart and the coaches Henry spent time with, the players and the support staff. The whole thing was just hard to describe in words. It's a one-of-a-kind type of experience. Henry had a fantastic time."
Coach Poggi has had two sons play college football, including one at Iowa. He's also been involved in the recruitment of several of his players. Coach Poggi said that he'd never experienced anything like he did in Tuscsloosa.
"It is the model that everybody is striving to get to," he said. "I don't think most people have any idea of how to get there.
"If Coach Saban wasn't a football coach, if he went into to business, he'd be running something like General Electric right now and it would be a whole lot better company than they are."
As for Henry Poggi, he earned rave reviews earlier this month for his performance during the week of practices for the UnderArmour All-American Game. Poggi is considered among the nation's top prep defensive linemen.
"I think what Alabama likes is that he's a different bird," Coach Poggi said. "He's had a lot of success, but he has zero sense of entitlement. He expects nothing. He wants nothing except a chance to compete. They like his athleticism, his quickness, his ability to be disruptive and his ability to pass rush.
"What he is not, and never will be, is a 340-pound, two-gap guy. But they only played that twenty-five percent of all the reps last year. What he is, is a guy that can play against the new wave of offenses in the league that everybody except LSU and Georgia are running. He is a guy you don't have to take in and out of the game. You can't run your defensive linemen in and out every play anymore. You saw that against Texas A&M. Alabama was trying to run guys in and out. You can't do that. So get an athletic kid that can stop the run and also rush the passer, and then you don't have to worry about playing nine defensive linemen."
Coach Poggi thinks that Henry is an example of a new breed of defensive lineman that Alabama will recruit.
"There is always going to be the big, stud defensive linemen," Coach Poggi said. "But they are going to really need to, and they are focusing on, recruiting more athletic, every-down kind of guys. I think Alabama thinks that is what Henry is. You've got to have a kid that is real athletic who can play that read option and who can get into the kind of condition to play 80 snaps. So you are going to see smaller, leaner, more athletic kids."
After the Alabama visit, where does Poggi's recruitment stand? Is he still firmly committed to Michigan?
"I'm not saying a word about that," Coach Poggi said.
We may have to wait until national signing day to get that word.\\
