BeaversEdge Q&A with OSU Director of Player Personnel Vincent Guinta

Oregon State inked three new Beaver football players on Wednesday, and BeaversEdge.com had the chance to Oregon State Director of Player Personnel Vincent Guinta about those three young men and much, much more.

Guinta spent the 2013 and ’14 seasons as director of football recruiting at Wisconsin for then head coach Gary Andersen. He has also worked at Utah, Nebraska, and Fresno State.

What are your day-to-day duties as Oregon State's Director of Player Personnel?

Guinta: "My day-to-day duty is that I oversee the recruiting process. That's my directive. I work with our coaches under the direction of coach [Gary] Andersen to establish our recruiting process. Day-to-day depends on the time of the year - whether that be overseeing the establishment of recruiting areas for assistant coaches, marketing procedures - how we are going to reach the kids and market to the kids. I oversee recruiting visits. I have someone who is the Coordinator of On-Campus Recruiting, Darrick Yray. He handles the logistics and all of that. Then there's coordinating the process of identification of potential recruits as well.

"On a day-to-day basis, I am working on something having to do with those aspects of recruiting, whether that be communicating and marketing to individual recruits, communicating and organizing our staff, identifying prospects, or all of those things put together. I'm very familiar with coach Andersen - having known him for literally decades. I know what his vision is, what he wants out of a program, what he wants out of an individual player, and how he wants to conduct our business. He and I are on the same page with those things, and I just implement it for him. I'll tell ya - my job is easier because his involvement level as a head coach is very unique in what we do in our business."

So when do you get to sleep?

Guinta: "You'd be surprised. I try to be efficient with our time. I think we have a great staff. We have shared duties. It's not like the old days; it's not just me. I have a department with multiple graduate assistants that work in different realms whether that be graphics design, social media, and prospect information and identification. We have a team; it's definitely not just me."

The assistant coaches that recruit the kids get the credit when that recruit commits/signs. How much are you involved with direct messaging on Twitter the kids and contact on-campus?

Guinta: "I would say that I am very involved. The NCAA doesn't let me make direct phone calls to recruits or [high school] coaches, but they do let me have general correspondence with those people. I am very frequently direct messaging, text messaging with kids and parents, and with coaches to a certain extent, but more so with the kids.

"For us, when you hear the term relationship-based recruiting, the more people that have relationships with these kids and their parents, the better. I take it upon myself, and so does everybody that works for me, to have a relationship with all of our recruits. [My staff's] medium is done through direct messaging and text. You have to have a relationship with the kids, because sometimes the coaches actually have to coach football other than just recruit. For coach Andersen, it's important that every assistant coach and everybody has a relationship with the kids and it's genuine."

We only get to see the coach Andersen that has a microphone in front of his face doing an interview. What is he really like as a boss?

Guinta: "I think that the thing with him and why people love working for him is because what you see in the media - genuineness, the honesty, the caring about people - that is the same with him whether the cameras are on or off or if, whether it's you and him in a room together, or whether it's in a staff room, you're going to get the same genuine, compassionate, and caring person all of the time. He cares about your quality of life, he cares about the life that you have away from football, and he cares about your family.

"He expects you to do your job and to do it well, and he'll do anything he can to support that. He doesn't make us work crazy, excruciating hours. He wants his coaches to be fresh and efficient. That's the way he's been since the first time I've met him in 1997."

I know you can't comment on the two high school recruits [Kolby Taylor, Isaiah Hodgins] that signed financial aid agreements, but you can with the three junior college mid-year signees. Are there any interesting/funny stories you can share in OSU's recruitment of those three junior college recruits?

Guinta: "The first guy to start with is Jake Luton. Jake is a professional person in that he carries himself so straight laced; he's so focused. There aren't any crazy stories with him. Everything he does - he's like the prototype. He makes decisions and is intelligent with what he does. With his methods, you don't get crazy stories or crazy stuff with him, because he just handles business.

"Craig Evans, from a human interest standpoint, is probably the most intriguing story, because of relationship with coach Andersen and our staff has been built over a number of years. The thing with Craig is that Craig is Craig. Craig says things, and he's so entertaining.

"I remember when we went down to see him in Arizona, there were lines of coaches trying to talk to him. Like, head coaches. When you go to Arizona Western, most head coaches fly down there on private planes. So there are a line of head coaches that want to talk to Craig, and he wouldn't even talk to anybody.

"Craig didn't make a highlight tape; he's one of the few recruits I've ever come across that didn't release a highlight tape of himself, because Craig knew where he was going. It's just cool that we got to recruit him again."

With Justin Sattelmaier's recruitment, it seemed pretty straight forward. Once he committed, his recruitment was pretty much over. I don't think he even got any other offers besides one from Oregon State.

Guinta: "Which is shocking. He's 6-foot-7, 310-pounds. He comes from a very business-oriented family. They own a business and are management type people. He's very smart. He's not your typical JuCo kid; he was a qualifier. He is a guy that has a belief in himself and is a late bloomer physically. He was a state champ wrestler that was undersized weight-wise. When he realized that he had the chance and was meant for bigger things, he took that on and invested in himself. He loved it up here in Oregon when he was at Western Oregon. We've built some strong relationships with the coaches down there. All of the factors just lined up to be so solid with that kid. It was a no brainer for him."

Back to Craig. You said that he wouldn't talk to a lot of other college coaches. Would you say that he was a "silent" commit ever since his official visit during the Boise State game?

Guinta: "I don't know, I knew that he and coach Andersen had a special relationship, and I knew the opportunity given to recruit him, that it would happen. I felt confident in the strength of their relationship. I knew he talked to a couple of coaches. He didn't go totally silent, but there were a lot of coaches that he wasn't interested in talking to."

Did you guys get nervous when he took that Kentucky official visit?

Guinta: "No."

With the three junior college signees, two high school recruits that signed financial aid agreements, and the rest of the commits in the class, would you say that this is shaping up to be one of the better classes in school history?

Guinta: "There are different metrics and different ways to judge classes. Some people will say, 'Who gives a crap what the ratings are.' You could have 25 four and five star guys, but if they don't pan out and become great players, then you didn't have a good recruiting class. So when you look at a recruiting class from a rankings standpoint, yes, it will probably be the highest ranked class, but ultimately, what you judge a recruiting class on is the impact that the class has on your team.

"We need freshman that can come in and play, and we showed that we play freshman this year. We need junior college players that will come in and be elite right away. We need guys that have an instant impact. We're going to have a lot of instant impact guys in this recruiting class. That will make the class very, very successful.

"All you have to do is look traditionally over the years at the rosters that Oregon State has put together, and I feel like I would put this class up against any class as far as the quality of schools we beat on most of these guys. But there have been some pretty good classes. We don't have a five-star guy, but we have some guys that are pretty dang close."

What does Luton bring at quarterback that you guys might not have on the roster right now?

Guinta: "If you look at him physically, he's a little different [than the other quarterbacks]. He is 6-foot-6 and 230-pounds. Jake has a very unique arm strength. From those standpoints, he's a little bit different from what we have. He has division one experience, which most of our other guys do now. He'll be able to compete for that job; I know it will be a competition. He's definitely physically different."

Does Luton fit the mold of an air raid quarterback if that's the direction you guys are moving towards?

Guinta: "I can't really get into those philosophy things, but I just can say that he makes our football team better. He adds another dimension."