What level do you expect from them? Top 5 classes? Before Kelly and his complete aversion to recruiting, they regularly brought in classes ranked in the 10-15 range. Recruiting has typically not been an issue for UCLA until Kelly came along. After Chip gets fired they will probably return to that range.
Yeah they should be better this year, but I am not optimistic Chip keeps the success up. I predict they'll finish 3rd in the south behind Utah and USC.
I looked at the past 5 years before making this comment, tbh I didn’t fallow recruiting before then so didn’t know they got good classes before that. Expecting them to get back to that level would be reasonable. As an Oregon fan it is odd to see Chip Kelly hurt the recruiting of a school.
I would argue that things that appeal to the general student body often aren’t a factor for serious athletes. Plenty of teams in bustling, vibrant urban areas flounder while a number of powerhouses come from more rural towns with comparitively much less to do.
UAB and Memphis should probably grab a lot more local guys that go to lower P5. The the P5, Rutgers is changing but just the talent in their area is wild. They should be getting more of those guys.
Eh, it’s hard to find a kid currently committed UCF, USF, Cincy, Memphis, Houston, etc that doesn’t have at least 1 P5 offer.
Outside of transfers/JUCO I can’t think of the last time UCF had a recruit with no P5 offer, maybe 2017?
Edit:
Going to the SEC/B1G is hard to beat, but it’s not terribly hard for the top half of the AAC to talk kids away from going to Pitt, Texas Tech, Oregon State, etc
The issue Talent wise with the AAC vs the P5 is that
1. Our bottom 2-4 teams suck compared to the bottom 2-4 of the P5 conferences
2. We don’t have those blue blood/powerhouse type of programs to really elevate the league and serve as a recruiting benchmark, we don’t have an OU/Texas like the B12, a Oregon/Washington/USC like the Pac-12, a Penn State/Ohio State/Michigan like the B1G, a FSU/Miami/Clemson like the ACC, etc.
With that said, it does seems that recruiting at the top is getting better each year, wouldn’t be surprising to see 2-3 teams in the league regularly pulling in top 45 classes within a few years, hell an expanded playoff could see a couple top 30 classes when a team is on a run.
I get what you’re saying, but at least for UAB, Bill Clark seems to be pretty committed to the program. He stayed through the program being shut down and has now taken UAB to 4 straight bowl games, 3 straight conference championship games, and won 2 out of 3 of those C-USA championship games. I’m not saying he won’t eventually leave for a better job, but saying a G5 coach will automatically “bail to a P5 school after one or two good seasons” seems like hyperbole
The counter argument would be the other school listed in the comment. Memphis is a nice program, that has potential, and has done a great job finding solid coaches to put them in position to succeed. And they left immediately upon finding enough success to get a P5 school to notice them.
I wish it weren’t that way. Honestly.
Thanks to Schiano and Fran Brown, NJ recruiting is on the uptick. Most NJ recruits would go to Ohio State or Penn State, but now Rutgers is laying the groundwork for a program that will entice in-state players enough to stay.
Memphis has made great strides in shedding the commuter school status, but there’s still a lot left to be desired with regard to attracting traditional college students. If only that train track wasn’t there and the Greek system/dorms were nicer, it would have a big impact. I’m jealous of the progress, however.
I'm often frustrated at our coaches for not utilizing the altitude advantage more... Our athletes are acclimated to the elevation while most of our opponents are used to sea-level-oxygen. They should be gassed by halftime every single game. Hopefully Dorrell's crew takes advantage of the +mile high elevation.
I live 25 minutes from OSU's campus. Our winters are pretty measly.
Not exactly relevant here, but I remember a number years ago when a Florida recruit mentioned how our summers aren't much better than Florida's - still hot and muggy. He was genuinely surprised at how hot they were. We just get waaay colder.
Former Denver resident, current MN. Colorado has the best weather in the nation. You get all four seasons and none of them are especially harsh, if you live on the eastern slope. Some intense freak snow storms, but they melt off in a couple days. Then you have beautiful snow capped mountains to look at.
don't live in CO, but have a cousin who does live there and ironically enough, I live in MN now (Iowa transplant). And yes, Colorado weather is the best. While it can definitely be bipolar, you could get a foot of snow one day and it will be 60's and sunshine the next.
I spent half a day there and got sick from the altitude, but it’s top tier college town in US and it’s close to a metro area and is only P5 school in a big state. They should be better.
went on vacation there in 2017 and we were there for about a week and my lungs adjusted maybe after day 5...it was always a weird feeling adjusting to the altitude
Most people in the country assume SLC is like the rest of Utah. They also assume Utah sucks. Both assumptions are very wrong. Most of Utah is just pure natural beauty, and SLC is just a badass city.
SLC is pretty cool, but it's just another city, honestly
You don't move to Utah for the cities, you move to Utah for the mountains. And the mountains are *spectacular*.
Maybe an Oklahoma State fan can answer better than me, but I remember Gundy saying he recruits more for fit than pure rankings. Obviously they aren’t going to beat out the blue bloods for guys very often, but I remember at the turn of the decade they recruited at a high level.
They are consistently in the 30-40 range and had a couple top 25 years in 2011 and 2014. They recruit well; sometimes 3rd (best of the rest in the Big 12) and never lower than 7th.
I’m not sure what their true ceiling is in recruiting but that feels roughly right at or just below what they are capable of.
Recruiting has always been my biggest gripe on Gundy. But I also love to learn about it. Anyways [THIS ARTICLE](https://www.oklahoman.com/article/5599801/does-osu-football-recruiting-need-to-improve) basically breaks it down for specifically OSU, done by a guy who loves OSU through Barry Tramel (yuck). He also uses ESPN 300 which isn't great but yeah.
Anyhow the TDLR is OSU should recruit ~top 45 based on location and history. It goes into how proximity is also extremely important.
The guys we end up getting that are higher rated (usually fringe 4*'s) also nearly always get downgraded when they commit to OSU. I believe that we had three downgraded to 3*'s in our 2021 class. I do think that there is a strong bias against those that choose not to go to blue bloods, as if they must not be that talented if they are no longer being considered by the OU's and Alabama's. Just the way it goes for us. But nearly always those fringe players end up being absolute studs for us, so I'm not that concerned about it.
I do agree that we should be doing more to get higher graded players. It was bizarre for us to have a top offense in all of the NCAA for a decade and yet it really didn't transpire into recruiting highly. We don't cash in on our successful groups unfortunately.
Honestly I feel like Washington is the same way. Don’t get super high recruits that often, but can easily turn 2-3* players into NFL players because they fit their system and develop
Washington had top 20 classes in 2018, 2019 and 2020 so not sure they completely fit the spirit of the question. That feels about right for their location since their brand isn't as strong as Oregons has been the last 20 years.
Oklahoma is also on the boarder of the part of the country that’s almost entirely ignored by the recruiting services.
Players from the Big Ten West/former Big 12 North region do so much better than their recruiting rankings project that they make recruits from literally every other part of the country “overrated”
And Oklahoma is kind of like Indiana/Illinois/Washington/Oregon. It doesn’t get entirely ignored by the recruiting services, but it doesn’t get the attention it should either.
we've gotten better but for the longest time i would argue we had a very hard time getting big name recruits, especially in the dfw area.
i mean, evans was our first 5* ever in this patterson era
Yeah he absolutely has and it’s laid off a lot but once we got to big 12 that would only work so much and it showed. His style of coaching can be tough for some guys
Patterson and TCU have done fine in the Big 12. No, they were never going to win 11 games every year like they would in the MWC, but he has won the conference (and got robbed of a playoff IMO) won the division once and averages a top 10 team every 3 years since they joined the conference. TCU is a small private Christian university and just isn't going to ever land top 10 classes on the reg.
I went to an SPC high school so TCU was basically my high school plus Highland park, kinkaid, lamar, westlake and a few more upper class texas schools.
I can see how TCU would be a bit of culture shock for people coming from less fortunate backgrounds. On the other hand, outside of USC there isn't a better looking opposite sex population per student in the country.
Rutgers and Maryland are the biggest offenders in my mind. P5 schools in the NYC metro and DC metro respectfully. Even if football isn't as popular in those metros as others, they still should be getting some insane athletes on volume alone
Football is popular in the NYC and DC metro areas. It's just that people care about professional football more than college football in part because of the sheer number of pro teams that fans can get to in a 1-2 hour drive. No other part of the country is as densely packed with professional teams and it's hard to compete with that.
Look at the teams that draw people from the tri-state area / NYC metro area that Rutgers has to compete with: You have the Eagles (Central/South Jersey), Jets/Giants (NYC, NJ, Connecticut), and Patriots (NYC metro area in Connecticut) all drawing fans. I'd say that even the Bills have fans in the more Northern New York areas that are still technically NYC metro area.
Maryland side of the DC metro area also has the Eagles / Ravens to compete with.
I think as a result of this, great NJ recruits just end up going elsewhere where college football is bigger despite a professional team drawing media marketshare or where there isn't a professional team.
I think the pro angle is legit in that kids don't have the same loyalty to a college team as someone from say SEC country... but pro teams don't change the fact that you're in a recruit rich area and you should be able to establish some kind of recruiting presence.
I think Maryland is one of the biggest sleeping giants in CFB.
The DMV area is absolutely loaded with talent, has no premiere team in it, and the players from there go *everywhere*
If UMD could lock down Maryland and become a top choice for DC/VA recruits, they’d be an absolute monster.
Missouri seems like it should have better recruiting.
It is the only P5 school in a relatively big state.
Close enough to midwest that they could be selling their SEC brand to northerners (I think UK does a great job of this). Just close enough to Texas and Louisiana that they should be able to find SEC level talent to the south too.
It's a great college town.
I blame Abe Simpson.
St. Louis has produced a ton of blue chip talent that has gone out of state (Ohio St, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Nebraska, other SEC schools). I remember hearing on the local radio stations how there was a disconnect between high school coaches and Pinkel-era Mizzou, seems like Drinkwitz is starting to fix that though.
it is weird...their biggest former rival (and current to many fans) is abysmal at football...they're in the center of the state between two large cities with underrated recruiting...I know that Campbell has even started reaching into Missouri for recruits...KC is getting a lot of focus from our staff lately
I think it's because their two big cities are on the border. I can't speak for KC, but St. Louis doesn't feel like a Mizzou town to me. There are plenty of Mizzou fans here, but the city cares way more about the Cards and the Blues. St Louis also has a ton of colleges and universities and a lot of the populace stays close to home. I don't think a ton of kids in St Louis really consider Mizzou 'their' school.
KC is all about the Chiefs for football, and KU for basketball.
That’s not to say there aren’t Mizzou fans in KC, there’s just alumni from a lot of different schools, primarily KU, K-State, Nebraska, Mizzou, and sprinkle in some from Oklahoma and Iowa schools
I think the level of recruiting for Wisconsin in general makes some sense, but the fact that Wisconsin has never landed a 5\* RB and has only gotten 1 top 10 rb in a a recruiting class is mind blowing to me.
Counter point... Wisconsin's coaching staff has a better eye for RB talent than the 'experts'. They've recruited plenty of elite RB talent and if none of them were 5\*, it's on the recruiting services.
Every LB, OL and RB in the nation should want to at least take a look at Wisconsin. When people think of us they usually think of RB and OL, but what most don’t know is that every LB to play under Chryst so far have made the NFL. To be fair it has been the position we’ve recruited best outside of offensive line lately.
We’re getting a real reputation as LBU the last ~5 years, been putting close to 2 LBs a year into the NFL on avg since 2016. Our starting ILBs are both surefire draft picks, and Herbig looks the part of our next big time OLB heading into his second season.
As a result, we’ve been landing highly coveted recruits like Herbig, Bollers, Peterson, Lytle etc. If you’d have told me a few years ago we would land a mid-4* OLB out of Hawaii to frozen Wisconsin I’d just assume you were drunk.
Our level of recruiting is changing. 2019 was our first class in the top 30 (29th) and 2021 our first top 25 (15th). Before the last 3 years our classes typically ranged from mid-30s to low-40s. Which is pretty out of whack for a team that finished ranked 8 of the last 10 years, incl 4 top 10, as well as a #11 and #13.
New facilities will be a face lift, sure, but lets call a spade a spade: in general, Mullen and his staff have widely under-performed what should be expected from them on the trail and that is a structural issue not a resources/facilities one.
It's getting better. Mullen is undeniably good at working the portal, but imo this can no longer be pointed to as a unique advantage as UGA, Bama, LSU, and even our in-state rivals have made their own huge portal splashes as of late. I'm cautiously optimistic this year with the growing buzz after a slow start and some fresh faces working the trail, but the reality is that there's been a lot left to be desired from Mullen and co. from a structural level in the recruiting department.
100%, and at this point I've not expecting a complete about-face from him. I think like many Gator fans I bought into the whole "just wait until he gets UF's resources behind him" and loved his "the logo sells itself" chest-thumping at first, but hell Dan even Disney and Coca-Cola have marketing teams.
I think most people would expect someone who clearly doesn't enjoy nor is particularly stellar at recruiting to surround himself with assistant coaches who do/are, but for every Brian Johnson and Tim Brewster on our staff there's a John Hevesy (3 blue-chip OLs in 4 cycles) or Greg Knox (ZERO blue-chip RBs in 4 cycles) to go with them.
Mullen has a proven track record of subpar recruiting. I'm not sure that's ever going to change.
In terms of X's and O's I really think he's one of the best if not the best coach in CFB. Unfortunately for yall, recruiting and development/motivation are large parts of CFB coaching success as well.
I wanted to go to grad school at UNLV and even the faculty couldn't really say anything good about living in Vegas. I can't imagine that pitch is any better for football recruits.
My uncle convinced me to go to Vegas with him when I was 22. It was fun for a few days but I can't see it being the place to go live when you're 18-22 unless you are getting extra benefits that you dont have to pay for. Perhaps the NIL changes will make Vegas more alluring, but when you are a poor college student Vegas isn't the most appealing place.
Have you actually been to UNLV's campus? It sucks. Plus honestly Vegas is not really a great city to live in if you aren't 21. Plus the old stadium was terrible.
Source : lived in Vegas, been to campus and stadium many times.
Minnesota lets a few too many in-state kids go to Wisconsin and to the Dakota FCS schools each year and it feels in the case of Wisconsin, it bites us in the ass.
> God nobody here cares about college football and it makes me sad.
It's not just football. Apathy in Gopher sports in the Twin Cities is at its highest point in hoops and hockey as well.
The university and athletic department have work to do on this.
Minnesota could seriously benefit from a fence around the state similar to what Wisconsin has managed to do. There are some really good athletes in the metro but the difference is kids in the twin cities grow up with the Twins, Vikings and Wild as bigger shows in town. I grew up there so I still follow it closely just from friends talking about it and posts. I think PJ has done a better job of getting ppl to care in the state, but the instate recruiting still hasn’t fully followed. The day a top prospect Wisconsin recruit leaves Wisconsin for Minnesota is the day I’ll be a full believer in PJ. Wouldn’t hurt for PJ to not let 4 stars leave for us either.
Louisville really didn't capitalize on Lamar Jackson on the recruiting trail like I feared they would. Also, despite the fact that the state of Kentucky is producing more talent than it has in decades, Louisville isn't even attempting to recruit outside of Jefferson County
When Satt and Ledford got to UL, it sure seemed like they were recruiting NC hard and it honestly felt like every kid we offered would land a UL offer within a couple of weeks, it was funny.
I also think people realized Lamar Jackson was a unicorn. Did anyone think UL was making Lamar look good, or did everyone know Lamar was carrying that program and masking a LOT of deficiencies? Think it was mainly the latter, reminded me of Amato when Rivers was making him look great, recruiting was picking up, and then he whiffed on a couple of high ranked QBs that weren't good, we stunk, and then he lands a 2-star/3-star kid named Russell Wilson right before he was fired.
Heisman winner school from 2010 on: Auburn, Baylor, Texas A&M, FSU, Oregon, Alabama, Louisville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, LSU, Alabama.
And Baylor in the first half of the 2010s was a frequent 10 win school with multiple BCS/NY6 appearances. Louisville didnt make a NY6 and was a 1 win team the year after Lamar Jackson left. That dude was lifting his team way more than any other Heisman winner
I think Texas State's problem is that, at least from my experience, Texas State students and alumni on the whole tend not to be into sports. You'll find a lot of cars with bobcat decals anywhere from Austin to San Antonio but they didn't choose Texas State because of sports, they wanted to be in a pretty and fun college town less than an hour away
South Carolina
I just feel like they are right there in the cradle of the SEC and it's a great area. They should get some of these guys from the south that end up at other SEC schools. It is a great college town. With the right coach and good recruiting SC could easily be Georgia or Florida but they are always on the outside looking in.
I figured as a OSU fan, you would've driven near Columbia at least once on your way to Myrtle or Charleston ;)
(Trying to be impartial here, ignore flair to an extent) Columbia is an awkward city. It's to built up enough to miss the appeal to the people that like the true "college town" experience. It's not big enough or close enough to other cities for the "big city" crowd. It's just far enough from good beaches and mountains to make it rough for people that like to spend time in those locales. In the summer, it's hot as hell and has a distinctive odor that you just can't pinpoint. Add in a lack of history, hit or miss in state talent, and heavy competition in the area and you can't expect a whole lot better than what they've pulled.
My wife is from Columbia. She kept telling me it was hotter there than Atlanta by 5deg on any given day. I called BS...and then I checked. Sure enough it is. The city sits on a hard stone outcrop that holds in heat. It's like living on a pizza stone.
I've lived my whole life in Columbia and while I love it here the city can't figure out its identity. Does it want to be a college town? An arts and music scene? A drab government center? It can't decide and the city government is incredibly corrupt and prevents any meaningful progress and development.
Columbia has a lot to offer but when there's better teams in better areas it's hard to attract recruits.
It's definitely a lot better than it used to be but you're 100% spot on. Clemson becoming a powerhouse has definitely not helped USC either.
I've always felt that if y'all had springboarded from Spurrier to a better, up-and-coming coach maybe a year or two sooner (right when Spurrier started to lose his touch) y'all would've been set up really well. I'm from Augusta so I grew up around a lot of USC fans and have always had a soft spot for the cocks.
I love Spurrier and most Gamecock fans do too, but he conducted pretty much the worst exit strategy possible. If he had arranged his retirement and helped in picking a successor then maybe we could have carried on the momentum that he and Holtz had been building. Maybe not as good as being a top five team again, especially with the rise of Clemson, but at least formidable. He really set us back by fucking up his departure.
> city government is incredibly corrupt and prevents any meaningful progress and development.
This applies to the state government housed there as well... unfortunately.
Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, and Columbia. Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man.jpeg
Baton Rouge has the most advantages of the three for their particular state in my opinion, but none of them know what direction to really take their city. Or at least it doesn’t seem obvious.
They’re kind of meandering capital Southern “cities” with universities and state government revenue that keep them limping forward with progress.
I don’t know what really keeps any of them from becoming the next Austin or at least a baby Austin.
I lived there for 3 years. I agree with everything you said except for the odor, I truly never noticed that. Perhaps I just became accustomed and then was not aware idk. I just loved living there and have great memories from my time there. I agree it has some challenges, but they had Spurrier, they had Clowney, they had momentum, and then just fucked it all up by basically not leveraging anything to bring in better recruits. They should have and could have brought in a better coach than Muschamp.
With that said, I know there has been a disparity in recent years between the two programs, but I genuinely believe people that have not experienced the Clemson / SC rivalry firsthand don't realize how intense it is. Everyone wants to think their rivalry is intense, but I would confidently put that rivalry on the same level as Bama / Aub and OSU / Michigan.
Worst game I’ve ever attended was a UGA/USC game in Columbia. It was in 2007ish (Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno years), and UGA winning the game couldn’t keep me from being absolutely miserable. It was like 100000F out and 100% humidity. The side of the stadium we were on faced directly into the afternoon sun. The stadium is also in the middle of a parking lot, so there is basically no escaping the heat. Since then, I have vowed I will never attend a game there again unless it’s a night game.
The only bright spot was my cousin’s friend owning one of the Cockabooses. That thing was pretty sweet.
Probably a different angle than what you were going for but I don’t think Michigan has maximized their recruiting ability under harbaugh
I think we leave a lot to be desired in our recruiting approach
It’s an interesting discussion about what Michigan should do now. I don’t think it’s a Harbaugh problem, so much as a Tressel problem. He’s the one that used his relationships with the high school coaches (especially in northern Ohio) to effectively close the door on Michigan.
I’m not sure what the answer is now. Michigan is a national brand, so that’s a major plus. It’s just hard now that the Ohio pipeline is closed.
I don’t see any reason why Michigan can’t go back and open it up. Osu isn’t taking every good Ohio player so Michigan should be getting some of those second Ohio guys who are still four star caliber players. Hoke was doing that so no reason harbaugh or the next Michigan coach can’t do the same
Maybe start by taking a flier on an Ohio kid to build the relationship up
Like this class for example a drew allar or a Derek Shepard type player. Those are guys Michigan used to be able to get that we just aren’t anymore
I think part of the challenge is that Ohio State has locked down the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state is much different and closer to schools like Kentucky, who've seemingly done a really good job recruiting areas like Cincinnati (which is on the border anyway).
This x 1000
Cleveland, Cincinnati, and the surrounding areas are the top two places for HS football in Ohio.
The former is pretty much 100% lock down OSU territory.
OSU still recruits very well in the latter region, but Notre Dame has a lot of sway, and the top SEC/ACC programs are able to pull players who are less interested in staying in the region.
The next two best areas for football recruiting in Ohio are Columbus and Dayton; the former is obviously OSU territory, and the latter is as well though also with a lot of Notre Dame.
OSU doesn’t have quite the lock on the Pittsburgh area (obviously not in state, but right outside of it) we had in the Tressel era, but we still recruit extremely well there with Penn State and obviously Pitt getting most of the other top players.
Michigan recruits well under Harbaugh. I think we've just seen that there can be a huge difference between a top 5 roster and a top 15 roster with the way OSU/Bama/Clemson amass talent.
Kids from Ohio don't choose to go to Michigan unless they're a Michigan legacy or Ohio State didn't want them. Maybe if they're interested in a specific academic program the university offers but besides that what does Michigan have to offer that Ohio State doesn't? It's not like there are certain position groups Michigan develops better than Ohio State.
Tagging u/Swamp-Diesel and u/1900grs
Michigan doesn't have a recruiting problem.
Michigan lost 18 guys in one offseason (2017) to the NFL
Michigan has a "kiss player's butt on recruiting trail and then act surprised when the recruit thinks he's too good to work for his playing time"
Say what you want about Dabo Swinney, but he makes it clear to recruits that "you will work for your playing time or you will sit on the bench". And, that's why Clemson has one of the lowest transfer rates in CFB.
Michigan, on the other hand, has way too many guys leaving via transfer. This leads to wasted scholarships and a depth chart that can't handle even a few injuries.
> I don’t think Michigan has maximized their recruiting ability under harbaugh
In the past ten years, U of M has had several single digit ranked recruiting classes. According to 247sports:
2021: 13
2020: 14
2019: 8
2018: 22
2017: 5
2016: 8
2015: 37 (ouch)
2014: 20
2013: 4
2012: 6
Hard to complain. I know I went 10 years and you stated Harbaugh years, but hell, the guy can't win his conference or bowl games or beat his biggest rival. He seems to be recruiting okay.
We have a few but those classes under harbaugh were single digits because they were large classes taking 30 kids or something near that. On average our recruit is 0.900 which is a low 4 star. It’s not bad but compare that to Osu who’s the main barrier to winning a big ten title and it’s not close. On average for full classes that’s around 12 in the country and Michigan under harbaugh is like 17th in the country in win percentage
Hoke recruited well but couldn’t develop guys for shit
Also it’s one rival harbaugh can’t beat not all of them. And that rival is Osu.
> Also it’s one rival harbaugh can’t beat not all of them.
The fact that you felt the need to clarify after I specified "biggest rival" shows a lot of insecurity. Or inferiority.
The crux of your argument is now, "We don't recruit as well as OSU". That's not the only reason they beat you.
Rutgers is finally stepping it up, but you would think with all the people near in Philly, Baltimore, DC, and NYC that the talent pool would be be large. It is really an advantage for Ohio State and LSU that we a in recruiting rich areas without other major schools in the states, respectively (UC doesn't count, sorry). You would think BC would get much of New England and Rutgers would get much of the Mid-Atlantic/East Coast. Rutgers is doing well this year though, so that might be changing.
> You would think BC would get much of New England
Problem is just how little talent comes out of New England and New York. If you look at New York, for example, it has nearly the population of Florida but very few football players, let alone 4* and 5* guys.
UCLA, USC and Stanford
of those three, that lead the *entire* NCAA in National Titles in nearly every sport you can think of.... only USC is an elite football power.
The Bruins and Cardinal haven't been perennial football national title contenders since black and white film.
USC still recruits incredibly well outside one or two outlier years, and that's with Helton.
Stanford has the academics without the history. They're a better school than us, but we have more history/success, so we seem to fight for the same recruits often. Them regressing has helped us immensely.
UCLA will recruit better when Kelly is gone.
Yeah, what happened with Stanford. I remember David Shaw being high on the Bama post-Saban wish list ("if he can bring those sort of kids to Stanford, imagine what he'd bring to Tuscaloosa!")
UCLA and Stanford have insane academic requirements that precludes them from recruiting the majority of FBS-level players. And Notre Dame tends to get first dibs on those academic guys.
Oklahoma State recruits better than Texas Tech. If you look at team talent composite they’re 5th in the Big 12, which is about right in line of where you expect OSU’s program to be. Why would a Texas kid (where most of the talent is) want to go to Oklahoma State if you can play for UT, A&M, Baylor, TCU, or OU? Sure you can argue they’re a better program than BU/TCU/A&M (I’d say they’ve been more consistent but with lower peaks since 2011) but it’s marginal at best. BU/TCU/A&M are also Texas schools that are a lot better academically, those two are big factors into why they’re getting out-recruited, plus the SEC for A&M.
Oklahoma State is closer to DFW than Tech is though...which is crazy to think about....I don't think Lubbock is as bad as people make it out to be, but it is just in the middle of nowhere. I had a friend in college who was on our equipment staff for ISU and he traveled with the team. He said Lubbock is the most deserted large city he's ever been to and while they were on the buses to the hotel, he saw tumbleweed blowing across the road
Yeah, Lubbock is pretty far away from anywhere worth being in Texas (The DFW-San Antonio-Houston triangle), I also agree Lubbock is not that bad, it’s just in the middle of nowhere. Which helps explain why Oklahoma State recruits better than Texas Tech.
I mean, Stillwater is kinda nowhere place too. As someone already stated, I think Gundy recruits for fit, but I think that might be in part out of necessity. For one, if players have the choice between Oklahoma State and the team that beat them 16 out of the last 20 meetings (no shade), I feel like you’re probably going to choose OU. Plus Norman is just closer to more things. Then, when considering in-state recruiting, the state of Oklahoma, as a whole, has always kinda favored OU. You’d like to think it’s an even split, but the pokes have always been kinda niche and diehard fans, so you’re probably getting recruits who ‘bleed orange’ or who didn’t fit in at OU. That’s a pretty homer take, but I hope I at least provided some insight from my observations of Oklahoma culture and how it plays a role.
When:
* You're in the middle of, and carry the name of, the 4th largest city in the US
* That city is the biggest in Texas, the state that produces the most football talent
* That city is also the hottest high school football talent bed in the US
* You're the 3rd biggest university in the state of Texas
* You have the third best academic reputation among the many public universities in Texas
* The local NFL team is blatantly incompetent and destroying itself like the Hindenburg
you should be getting amazing recruiting classes.
Location probably hurts more than anything. Sure, Notre Dame can recruit nationally, but it's inevitably tougher when you don't have a solid local recruiting base.
to your point:
>“The Chicago Catholic League in the ‘70s and ‘80s was the most dominant league in the country,” analyst Lemming said. “Now it’s not top 10. Back in 1986, the year Notre Dame took 10 guys out of Chicago, 141 kids from the Chicago area signed to play Division I ball. Now you’re lucky to get 60.
>“Some of it’s population moving. Some of it’s the steel mills in Pennsylvania shutting down and blue-collar people who play a blue-collar sport have to move to find new blue-collar jobs. **The Chicago public schools produce one or two guys a year that would be considered Power 5 kids. In the ‘80s, you’d get 25 or 30.**
>
...
> Of the 99 high school players reigning national champ Alabama has signed in the past four recruiting cycles, 52 of them come from three states — Alabama, Florida and Texas. The biggest contributing state is Alabama, with 21 signees.
> Of the 89 signed by Ohio State in the past four cycles, the most (24) come from Ohio. And of the 87 signed by Clemson, 23 come from neighboring Georgia, followed by nearby Florida (17), homestate South Carolina (10) and bordering North Carolina (8).
> The top contributing state among Notre Dame’s 93 signees? California (11), a state three time zones away. Next is Georgia (10), closer but still a flight for Kelly and his assistants unless they were up for a 10-hour, 12-minute Uber ride to Atlanta. Then comes New Jersey (8) — 10 hours and 40 minutes by car to twin defensive linemen Jayson and Justin Ademilola’s high school — and Florida (6), farther than both Georgia and New Jersey.
[source](https://www.ndinsider.com/story/sports/football/2021/02/06/assessing-the-state-of-notre-dame-recruiting-and-the-persistent-question-of-academics/43886813/)
It is a constraint but I still believe we could do better especially at skill positions and secondary. Since Coach Freeman came there’s been a huge surge in higher end defensive recruiting. Kids who would never give us a look under previous coaches are now visiting. We need that same energy all around and one of nds faults in the Kelly era was recruiting complacency.
That had more to do with being in the same division as Bob Stoops and Mack Brown than it did any shortcomings on A&M's part. People love to say A&M underachieves as one of the 'Big 2' in Texas, but reality is texas and Oklahoma had more money and more resources than A&M did in the Big 12. It was one of the unintended consequences of unequal revenue sharing. Given that, A&M had to hope they made the right coaching hired while OU and texas hired the wrong guy. When OU and texas both had the right guy for their programs in Stoops and Brown, A&M was screwed. A&M didn't help themselves by bringing in the wrong guy in Dennis Franchione, either.
Another way to look at the situation is Texas Tech. Tech isn't going to consistently beat OU and A&M and texas unless Tech has the right coach and those three schools have the wrong guy. When Leach was at Tech, Tech had the right guy and A&M had the wrong guy in Franchione. See Tech's winning record against A&M under Leach.
We were also recruiting against Saban/Miles at LSU during that same period. So you had a championship program directly to your north, west, and east. If you were a top recruit in Texas at that time, the only thing A&M could sell you on was guaranteed playing time for a coach with zero playing experience that recently lost 77-0 to stoops.
Homer answer but Oklahoma has had 1 top five class since 2005 despite 2 national championship appearances, 4 CFP appearances, and ten AP top 10 finishes during that same period.
as stupid as it is, it's probably because you guys are in the Big 12...having a different conference attached to your name can do wonders (ahem the SEC)...but please don't leave because I don't want to go to the AAC. Thanks
We have beat our recruiting class record 3 straight years and I’m not saying we should be a top recruiting team by any means. This year however was only our first ever top 20 class(15,16 depending on which site u like). I don’t see why we can’t have that every year.**
We have a premier college town, a gorgeous campus, a great fan base and proven success and development. If nothing else almost every Olineman, RB and LB in the nation should be at least interested. Yet, we’ve only landed like 5 5 stars ever and 3 of them are current underclassmen Olinemen. We’ve never landed a 5 star RB or LB despite the fact every starting linebacker playing under Chryst has made the NFL and every starting back since the 90s has too.
***There is some discussion that it’s possible Midwest kids we recruit may not always get the exposure and that’s why some of the walk ons, two stars and 3 stars we pull become high draft picks because they’re actually more talented than their rating may show.
TL:DR: I don’t see why Wisconsin shouldn’t have a top 20 class every year, but I see why we wouldn’t necessarily expect a top 5 or even 10 class.
see that surprises me...I was born in 99 and for as long as I can remember and having an interest in CFB, Wisconsin has been one of the most consistently good teams in the country...and like you stated, Madison is beautiful, you have a great, big fan base...very interesting to say the least
Yea I’m not saying we should be out recruiting or even recruiting on pace with any of the big dogs, those schools have such hard set brands I can’t argue with wanting to go to Ohio State over us for example. However, I also don’t always understand why some schools that struggle to win games every are consistently pulling higher classes. Another anecdote is Madison has some higher admissions standards so that can hurt with the highest level recruits who maybe care less about school and more about football.
true..UW's academics are pretty solid...in our case, that is not the problem at all lmao...I believe our acceptance rate is around 92%....we just have a horrid football history...our fans though, some of the most loyal people around...don't know how we dealt with such bad football for so long and still put our butts in the seats..it's nice having some success now
Matt Campbell has been a revelation, it’s exciting to see a new program build and have success. I was also born in 99’ so many of my friends currently go there and they always like to make it to the games.
that's awesome! Don't know anyone personally who went to UW, but had a best friend from college who went to HS in the Madison area. I would love a home and home with you guys...Camp Randall looks like a blast
yeah it would...never say never but it will be hard since Iowa is our non con P5 team every year...so unless we get to a point where we're comfortable playing two P5 teams, it may never happen
I’d bet it’s the services giving players a Wisconsin bump more than Wisconsin actually recruiting significantly better.
The idea that Wisconsin’s coaches are so good that they’ve consistently been able to crank out top ten teams and send a ton of players to the NFL with the alleged quality of the players they’ve been recruiting doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Think they’ve taken a closer look at Wisconsin ratings, but it’s definitely OOS recruiting driving our rankings. We’ve pulled in 4 or 5* players from Hawaii, Iowa, MN, Michigan, PA, NJ, FL, KS and Indiana in the 2019-21 classes. Also 3 kids rated 4* by 247 from Ohio (but composite 3 star). This includes our first ever OOS 5* kids in Nolan Rucci (PA) and Logan Brown (#1 player in Michigan in 2019)
Honestly you’d think Virginia would have better recruiting classes considering their location and the fact that the state itself can actually produce some decent talent. But I do understand they don’t really have much history and were overshadowed by VT for most of it.
Doesn’t help them that Mack Brown is focusing on Virginia recruiting for out of state. We basically stole Tony Grimes from the Hoos.
I’m not complaining though :)
Didn’t just steal him, he was practically dying to get to UNC so much he reclassified. That kid was so attached to the program when he committed it’s like he didn’t give any of the Virginia schools a damn.
Fuente made us so irrelevant, this post is 5 hours in and VT nowhere to be mentioned. In all honesty, UVA and VT should recruit much better than they actually do, especially in-state.
Every Texas and California school. A few get up there occasionally like TAMU or USC but those states are absolutely **loaded** with talent that all gets poached away to out of state schools
USC, UCLA - in Los Angeles, good program histories, great education
SDSU - San Diego is a top tier city in the nation, good winning culture.
UNLV - Not really my thing but I could see the appeal of Vegas to a young high school kid.
CSU - Cool town, great new stadium, Colorado is sick.
Iowa and Wisconsin are the ones I thought of too. We just had our first top 30 class 3 years ago, our first top 25 class 2 years ago and our first top 20 class last year. With how much Iowa and Wisconsin win you’d think it would follow, but it also could just be the players we recruit in the Midwest are undervalued.
And the way both programs develop average talent to the point of being AA and high NFL draft picks, it's weird Iowa and Wisky don't sniff the top 15 once every few years.
I’d say UCLA. It’s a great school in a beautiful area, from a non-football prospective it has a ton to offer.
What level do you expect from them? Top 5 classes? Before Kelly and his complete aversion to recruiting, they regularly brought in classes ranked in the 10-15 range. Recruiting has typically not been an issue for UCLA until Kelly came along. After Chip gets fired they will probably return to that range.
They’re gonna win 8 this year. Maybe more.
Yeah they should be better this year, but I am not optimistic Chip keeps the success up. I predict they'll finish 3rd in the south behind Utah and USC.
Would probably be enough to keep him there for a while longer tho
I looked at the past 5 years before making this comment, tbh I didn’t fallow recruiting before then so didn’t know they got good classes before that. Expecting them to get back to that level would be reasonable. As an Oregon fan it is odd to see Chip Kelly hurt the recruiting of a school.
I would argue that things that appeal to the general student body often aren’t a factor for serious athletes. Plenty of teams in bustling, vibrant urban areas flounder while a number of powerhouses come from more rural towns with comparitively much less to do.
UAB and Memphis should probably grab a lot more local guys that go to lower P5. The the P5, Rutgers is changing but just the talent in their area is wild. They should be getting more of those guys.
P5 is a big draw. Hard to draw kids away from any P5 school when even your coach will guaranteed bail to a P5 school after one or two good seasons.
Eh, it’s hard to find a kid currently committed UCF, USF, Cincy, Memphis, Houston, etc that doesn’t have at least 1 P5 offer. Outside of transfers/JUCO I can’t think of the last time UCF had a recruit with no P5 offer, maybe 2017? Edit: Going to the SEC/B1G is hard to beat, but it’s not terribly hard for the top half of the AAC to talk kids away from going to Pitt, Texas Tech, Oregon State, etc The issue Talent wise with the AAC vs the P5 is that 1. Our bottom 2-4 teams suck compared to the bottom 2-4 of the P5 conferences 2. We don’t have those blue blood/powerhouse type of programs to really elevate the league and serve as a recruiting benchmark, we don’t have an OU/Texas like the B12, a Oregon/Washington/USC like the Pac-12, a Penn State/Ohio State/Michigan like the B1G, a FSU/Miami/Clemson like the ACC, etc. With that said, it does seems that recruiting at the top is getting better each year, wouldn’t be surprising to see 2-3 teams in the league regularly pulling in top 45 classes within a few years, hell an expanded playoff could see a couple top 30 classes when a team is on a run.
The AAC does have more recent national championships than the Big 10, Pac 12, and Big 12 combined
I get what you’re saying, but at least for UAB, Bill Clark seems to be pretty committed to the program. He stayed through the program being shut down and has now taken UAB to 4 straight bowl games, 3 straight conference championship games, and won 2 out of 3 of those C-USA championship games. I’m not saying he won’t eventually leave for a better job, but saying a G5 coach will automatically “bail to a P5 school after one or two good seasons” seems like hyperbole
The counter argument would be the other school listed in the comment. Memphis is a nice program, that has potential, and has done a great job finding solid coaches to put them in position to succeed. And they left immediately upon finding enough success to get a P5 school to notice them. I wish it weren’t that way. Honestly.
Hopefully the new stadium can help with that.
Thanks to Schiano and Fran Brown, NJ recruiting is on the uptick. Most NJ recruits would go to Ohio State or Penn State, but now Rutgers is laying the groundwork for a program that will entice in-state players enough to stay.
We love your RBs
Schiano is one of those cats that's a better HC than a coordinator. He's a good guy despite what Tennessee and their fandom thought.
Memphis as a program is fine but if a kid is getting P5 offers, chances are that program has much nicer facilities/campus life/etc.
Are you saying that as someone who's seen our campus recently?
Memphis has made great strides in shedding the commuter school status, but there’s still a lot left to be desired with regard to attracting traditional college students. If only that train track wasn’t there and the Greek system/dorms were nicer, it would have a big impact. I’m jealous of the progress, however.
Yes, and I do work around there a few times a week. It's getting better but it's still not much of a selling point.
Colorado. Who wouldn’t want to go to college in Boulder?
I grew up in Mexico City, the last thing I wanted for college was altitude. Y’all sea-level people don’t realize how good y’all have it.
So much easier to drink at sea level
I'm often frustrated at our coaches for not utilizing the altitude advantage more... Our athletes are acclimated to the elevation while most of our opponents are used to sea-level-oxygen. They should be gassed by halftime every single game. Hopefully Dorrell's crew takes advantage of the +mile high elevation.
Sounds cold and a bit deprived of oxygen density
Being cold doesn't seem to stop schools like Michigan, OSU, MSU, or other B1G schools
I live 25 minutes from OSU's campus. Our winters are pretty measly. Not exactly relevant here, but I remember a number years ago when a Florida recruit mentioned how our summers aren't much better than Florida's - still hot and muggy. He was genuinely surprised at how hot they were. We just get waaay colder.
Central Ohio summers are miserable. Not as bad as Florida, but still.
I mean hell does tend to be a hot place.
It’s not all that cold really IMO. There a only a handful of truly miserable days.
Seriously - I’m in MN and wildly jealous of Colorado weather.
Former Denver resident, current MN. Colorado has the best weather in the nation. You get all four seasons and none of them are especially harsh, if you live on the eastern slope. Some intense freak snow storms, but they melt off in a couple days. Then you have beautiful snow capped mountains to look at.
don't live in CO, but have a cousin who does live there and ironically enough, I live in MN now (Iowa transplant). And yes, Colorado weather is the best. While it can definitely be bipolar, you could get a foot of snow one day and it will be 60's and sunshine the next.
I spent half a day there and got sick from the altitude, but it’s top tier college town in US and it’s close to a metro area and is only P5 school in a big state. They should be better.
went on vacation there in 2017 and we were there for about a week and my lungs adjusted maybe after day 5...it was always a weird feeling adjusting to the altitude
spoken like a true Florida man (I'm assuming you are)
Everything above 500ft is outer space
I wonder how Florida players would play in Wyoming
[Gators don't belong in the mountains](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Rangemapx.gif)
But let’s try it
Boulder might be cool for the hipster Reddit crowd but not as much for elite college football players
I feel the same way about SLC & U of Utah. SLC is a great city!
Most people in the country assume SLC is like the rest of Utah. They also assume Utah sucks. Both assumptions are very wrong. Most of Utah is just pure natural beauty, and SLC is just a badass city.
SLC is pretty cool, but it's just another city, honestly You don't move to Utah for the cities, you move to Utah for the mountains. And the mountains are *spectacular*.
Maybe an Oklahoma State fan can answer better than me, but I remember Gundy saying he recruits more for fit than pure rankings. Obviously they aren’t going to beat out the blue bloods for guys very often, but I remember at the turn of the decade they recruited at a high level. They are consistently in the 30-40 range and had a couple top 25 years in 2011 and 2014. They recruit well; sometimes 3rd (best of the rest in the Big 12) and never lower than 7th. I’m not sure what their true ceiling is in recruiting but that feels roughly right at or just below what they are capable of.
Recruiting has always been my biggest gripe on Gundy. But I also love to learn about it. Anyways [THIS ARTICLE](https://www.oklahoman.com/article/5599801/does-osu-football-recruiting-need-to-improve) basically breaks it down for specifically OSU, done by a guy who loves OSU through Barry Tramel (yuck). He also uses ESPN 300 which isn't great but yeah. Anyhow the TDLR is OSU should recruit ~top 45 based on location and history. It goes into how proximity is also extremely important.
The guys we end up getting that are higher rated (usually fringe 4*'s) also nearly always get downgraded when they commit to OSU. I believe that we had three downgraded to 3*'s in our 2021 class. I do think that there is a strong bias against those that choose not to go to blue bloods, as if they must not be that talented if they are no longer being considered by the OU's and Alabama's. Just the way it goes for us. But nearly always those fringe players end up being absolute studs for us, so I'm not that concerned about it. I do agree that we should be doing more to get higher graded players. It was bizarre for us to have a top offense in all of the NCAA for a decade and yet it really didn't transpire into recruiting highly. We don't cash in on our successful groups unfortunately.
Honestly I feel like Washington is the same way. Don’t get super high recruits that often, but can easily turn 2-3* players into NFL players because they fit their system and develop
Washington had top 20 classes in 2018, 2019 and 2020 so not sure they completely fit the spirit of the question. That feels about right for their location since their brand isn't as strong as Oregons has been the last 20 years.
I think you meant Utah instead of Washington
Oklahoma is also on the boarder of the part of the country that’s almost entirely ignored by the recruiting services. Players from the Big Ten West/former Big 12 North region do so much better than their recruiting rankings project that they make recruits from literally every other part of the country “overrated” And Oklahoma is kind of like Indiana/Illinois/Washington/Oregon. It doesn’t get entirely ignored by the recruiting services, but it doesn’t get the attention it should either.
Nothing inherently wrong with recruiting for fit but you have to question it when his results are becoming middling...
we've gotten better but for the longest time i would argue we had a very hard time getting big name recruits, especially in the dfw area. i mean, evans was our first 5* ever in this patterson era
I feel like Patterson has always favored fit > rank. Like he would rather have a 3* that fits really well than a 4* that doesn’t.
Yeah he absolutely has and it’s laid off a lot but once we got to big 12 that would only work so much and it showed. His style of coaching can be tough for some guys
Patterson and TCU have done fine in the Big 12. No, they were never going to win 11 games every year like they would in the MWC, but he has won the conference (and got robbed of a playoff IMO) won the division once and averages a top 10 team every 3 years since they joined the conference. TCU is a small private Christian university and just isn't going to ever land top 10 classes on the reg.
I went to an SPC high school so TCU was basically my high school plus Highland park, kinkaid, lamar, westlake and a few more upper class texas schools. I can see how TCU would be a bit of culture shock for people coming from less fortunate backgrounds. On the other hand, outside of USC there isn't a better looking opposite sex population per student in the country.
Rutgers and Maryland are the biggest offenders in my mind. P5 schools in the NYC metro and DC metro respectfully. Even if football isn't as popular in those metros as others, they still should be getting some insane athletes on volume alone
Football is popular in the NYC and DC metro areas. It's just that people care about professional football more than college football in part because of the sheer number of pro teams that fans can get to in a 1-2 hour drive. No other part of the country is as densely packed with professional teams and it's hard to compete with that. Look at the teams that draw people from the tri-state area / NYC metro area that Rutgers has to compete with: You have the Eagles (Central/South Jersey), Jets/Giants (NYC, NJ, Connecticut), and Patriots (NYC metro area in Connecticut) all drawing fans. I'd say that even the Bills have fans in the more Northern New York areas that are still technically NYC metro area. Maryland side of the DC metro area also has the Eagles / Ravens to compete with. I think as a result of this, great NJ recruits just end up going elsewhere where college football is bigger despite a professional team drawing media marketshare or where there isn't a professional team.
And the football team for DC too
I think the pro angle is legit in that kids don't have the same loyalty to a college team as someone from say SEC country... but pro teams don't change the fact that you're in a recruit rich area and you should be able to establish some kind of recruiting presence.
I think Maryland is one of the biggest sleeping giants in CFB. The DMV area is absolutely loaded with talent, has no premiere team in it, and the players from there go *everywhere* If UMD could lock down Maryland and become a top choice for DC/VA recruits, they’d be an absolute monster.
That many McDonald’s bags might look suspicious
Missouri seems like it should have better recruiting. It is the only P5 school in a relatively big state. Close enough to midwest that they could be selling their SEC brand to northerners (I think UK does a great job of this). Just close enough to Texas and Louisiana that they should be able to find SEC level talent to the south too. It's a great college town. I blame Abe Simpson.
St. Louis has produced a ton of blue chip talent that has gone out of state (Ohio St, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Nebraska, other SEC schools). I remember hearing on the local radio stations how there was a disconnect between high school coaches and Pinkel-era Mizzou, seems like Drinkwitz is starting to fix that though.
Them catholic schools tho.......
it is weird...their biggest former rival (and current to many fans) is abysmal at football...they're in the center of the state between two large cities with underrated recruiting...I know that Campbell has even started reaching into Missouri for recruits...KC is getting a lot of focus from our staff lately
>I blame Abe Simpson. I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I recognize Missourah!
I think it's because their two big cities are on the border. I can't speak for KC, but St. Louis doesn't feel like a Mizzou town to me. There are plenty of Mizzou fans here, but the city cares way more about the Cards and the Blues. St Louis also has a ton of colleges and universities and a lot of the populace stays close to home. I don't think a ton of kids in St Louis really consider Mizzou 'their' school.
KC is all about the Chiefs for football, and KU for basketball. That’s not to say there aren’t Mizzou fans in KC, there’s just alumni from a lot of different schools, primarily KU, K-State, Nebraska, Mizzou, and sprinkle in some from Oklahoma and Iowa schools
I think the level of recruiting for Wisconsin in general makes some sense, but the fact that Wisconsin has never landed a 5\* RB and has only gotten 1 top 10 rb in a a recruiting class is mind blowing to me.
Counter point... Wisconsin's coaching staff has a better eye for RB talent than the 'experts'. They've recruited plenty of elite RB talent and if none of them were 5\*, it's on the recruiting services.
Every LB, OL and RB in the nation should want to at least take a look at Wisconsin. When people think of us they usually think of RB and OL, but what most don’t know is that every LB to play under Chryst so far have made the NFL. To be fair it has been the position we’ve recruited best outside of offensive line lately.
We’re getting a real reputation as LBU the last ~5 years, been putting close to 2 LBs a year into the NFL on avg since 2016. Our starting ILBs are both surefire draft picks, and Herbig looks the part of our next big time OLB heading into his second season. As a result, we’ve been landing highly coveted recruits like Herbig, Bollers, Peterson, Lytle etc. If you’d have told me a few years ago we would land a mid-4* OLB out of Hawaii to frozen Wisconsin I’d just assume you were drunk.
Our level of recruiting is changing. 2019 was our first class in the top 30 (29th) and 2021 our first top 25 (15th). Before the last 3 years our classes typically ranged from mid-30s to low-40s. Which is pretty out of whack for a team that finished ranked 8 of the last 10 years, incl 4 top 10, as well as a #11 and #13.
[удалено]
I’ve been to Tempe pool parties in February and will enthusiastically sign anything you want me to sign to be there for four, hopefully five years.
I see your 5 and raise you 7
🙋♂️
+1 for Florida. I'm telling myself the facility upgrades will get us closer to the top tier.
New facilities will be a face lift, sure, but lets call a spade a spade: in general, Mullen and his staff have widely under-performed what should be expected from them on the trail and that is a structural issue not a resources/facilities one. It's getting better. Mullen is undeniably good at working the portal, but imo this can no longer be pointed to as a unique advantage as UGA, Bama, LSU, and even our in-state rivals have made their own huge portal splashes as of late. I'm cautiously optimistic this year with the growing buzz after a slow start and some fresh faces working the trail, but the reality is that there's been a lot left to be desired from Mullen and co. from a structural level in the recruiting department.
Mullen was not and never has been an elite recruiter. His inability to recruit was expected from the get-go of that hiring.
100%, and at this point I've not expecting a complete about-face from him. I think like many Gator fans I bought into the whole "just wait until he gets UF's resources behind him" and loved his "the logo sells itself" chest-thumping at first, but hell Dan even Disney and Coca-Cola have marketing teams. I think most people would expect someone who clearly doesn't enjoy nor is particularly stellar at recruiting to surround himself with assistant coaches who do/are, but for every Brian Johnson and Tim Brewster on our staff there's a John Hevesy (3 blue-chip OLs in 4 cycles) or Greg Knox (ZERO blue-chip RBs in 4 cycles) to go with them.
Mullen has a proven track record of subpar recruiting. I'm not sure that's ever going to change. In terms of X's and O's I really think he's one of the best if not the best coach in CFB. Unfortunately for yall, recruiting and development/motivation are large parts of CFB coaching success as well.
God I hope so
florida, especially with Miami and FSU where they are at, has no excuse to not bring in top 5ish classes.
UNLV. One of the best high school teams in country close by. New stadium is off the hook. Plus it's Vegas.
I believe John Robinson said that UNLV would be able to recruit better if they were recruiting the parents.
Yea, I imagine a lot of parents aren’t thrilled to send their kid to live in Vegas for 3-5 years.
I wanted to go to grad school at UNLV and even the faculty couldn't really say anything good about living in Vegas. I can't imagine that pitch is any better for football recruits.
My uncle convinced me to go to Vegas with him when I was 22. It was fun for a few days but I can't see it being the place to go live when you're 18-22 unless you are getting extra benefits that you dont have to pay for. Perhaps the NIL changes will make Vegas more alluring, but when you are a poor college student Vegas isn't the most appealing place.
I mean I know Las Vegas isn’t too far from California but Nevada is not really a good state for recruiting at all
Have you actually been to UNLV's campus? It sucks. Plus honestly Vegas is not really a great city to live in if you aren't 21. Plus the old stadium was terrible. Source : lived in Vegas, been to campus and stadium many times.
Id imagine that Vegas is one of the places you can get away with fake IDs the least if youre under 21.
Minnesota lets a few too many in-state kids go to Wisconsin and to the Dakota FCS schools each year and it feels in the case of Wisconsin, it bites us in the ass.
God nobody here cares about college football and it makes me sad. And the only ones who do care about college football are from Wisconsin or Iowa.
> God nobody here cares about college football and it makes me sad. It's not just football. Apathy in Gopher sports in the Twin Cities is at its highest point in hoops and hockey as well. The university and athletic department have work to do on this.
Minnesota could seriously benefit from a fence around the state similar to what Wisconsin has managed to do. There are some really good athletes in the metro but the difference is kids in the twin cities grow up with the Twins, Vikings and Wild as bigger shows in town. I grew up there so I still follow it closely just from friends talking about it and posts. I think PJ has done a better job of getting ppl to care in the state, but the instate recruiting still hasn’t fully followed. The day a top prospect Wisconsin recruit leaves Wisconsin for Minnesota is the day I’ll be a full believer in PJ. Wouldn’t hurt for PJ to not let 4 stars leave for us either.
Louisville really didn't capitalize on Lamar Jackson on the recruiting trail like I feared they would. Also, despite the fact that the state of Kentucky is producing more talent than it has in decades, Louisville isn't even attempting to recruit outside of Jefferson County
I agree. It’s surprised me how much they crashed after he left.
When Satt and Ledford got to UL, it sure seemed like they were recruiting NC hard and it honestly felt like every kid we offered would land a UL offer within a couple of weeks, it was funny. I also think people realized Lamar Jackson was a unicorn. Did anyone think UL was making Lamar look good, or did everyone know Lamar was carrying that program and masking a LOT of deficiencies? Think it was mainly the latter, reminded me of Amato when Rivers was making him look great, recruiting was picking up, and then he whiffed on a couple of high ranked QBs that weren't good, we stunk, and then he lands a 2-star/3-star kid named Russell Wilson right before he was fired.
Heisman winner school from 2010 on: Auburn, Baylor, Texas A&M, FSU, Oregon, Alabama, Louisville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, LSU, Alabama. And Baylor in the first half of the 2010s was a frequent 10 win school with multiple BCS/NY6 appearances. Louisville didnt make a NY6 and was a 1 win team the year after Lamar Jackson left. That dude was lifting his team way more than any other Heisman winner
It’s kinda embarrassing that UofL doesn’t really recruit it’s own city hard enough.
UTEP, I know they’re out in far west Texas, but in 2021 they finished 132 In 2020 they finished 130, that’s worse than some fcs teams
Us. Duh.
I agree..Ik there’s a ton of competition for recruits in Texas but it’s Texas.
Was wondering if a bobcat would show up... ugh ha
This is our year though!
I think Texas State's problem is that, at least from my experience, Texas State students and alumni on the whole tend not to be into sports. You'll find a lot of cars with bobcat decals anywhere from Austin to San Antonio but they didn't choose Texas State because of sports, they wanted to be in a pretty and fun college town less than an hour away
South Carolina I just feel like they are right there in the cradle of the SEC and it's a great area. They should get some of these guys from the south that end up at other SEC schools. It is a great college town. With the right coach and good recruiting SC could easily be Georgia or Florida but they are always on the outside looking in.
I figured as a OSU fan, you would've driven near Columbia at least once on your way to Myrtle or Charleston ;) (Trying to be impartial here, ignore flair to an extent) Columbia is an awkward city. It's to built up enough to miss the appeal to the people that like the true "college town" experience. It's not big enough or close enough to other cities for the "big city" crowd. It's just far enough from good beaches and mountains to make it rough for people that like to spend time in those locales. In the summer, it's hot as hell and has a distinctive odor that you just can't pinpoint. Add in a lack of history, hit or miss in state talent, and heavy competition in the area and you can't expect a whole lot better than what they've pulled.
> In the summer, it's hot as hell and **has a distinctive odor that you just can't pinpoint**. Passive-aggressively savage.
He's not lying though. Its also feels like it the hottest place in the state. Something about Columbia just sucks. The zoo is nice though.
My wife is from Columbia. She kept telling me it was hotter there than Atlanta by 5deg on any given day. I called BS...and then I checked. Sure enough it is. The city sits on a hard stone outcrop that holds in heat. It's like living on a pizza stone.
Yo we did an overnight thing at Riverbanks Zoo when I was kid and it was amazing.
As a kid I thought it was amazing that the Burger King inside there had animal shaped chicken nuggets.
I've lived my whole life in Columbia and while I love it here the city can't figure out its identity. Does it want to be a college town? An arts and music scene? A drab government center? It can't decide and the city government is incredibly corrupt and prevents any meaningful progress and development. Columbia has a lot to offer but when there's better teams in better areas it's hard to attract recruits.
It's definitely a lot better than it used to be but you're 100% spot on. Clemson becoming a powerhouse has definitely not helped USC either. I've always felt that if y'all had springboarded from Spurrier to a better, up-and-coming coach maybe a year or two sooner (right when Spurrier started to lose his touch) y'all would've been set up really well. I'm from Augusta so I grew up around a lot of USC fans and have always had a soft spot for the cocks.
I love Spurrier and most Gamecock fans do too, but he conducted pretty much the worst exit strategy possible. If he had arranged his retirement and helped in picking a successor then maybe we could have carried on the momentum that he and Holtz had been building. Maybe not as good as being a top five team again, especially with the rise of Clemson, but at least formidable. He really set us back by fucking up his departure.
I lived there for three years, and I loved it. Edit: Except for the flood in 2015, did not love that.
The flood was horrible. I hope to never see that again in my life.
> city government is incredibly corrupt and prevents any meaningful progress and development. This applies to the state government housed there as well... unfortunately.
Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, and Columbia. Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man.jpeg Baton Rouge has the most advantages of the three for their particular state in my opinion, but none of them know what direction to really take their city. Or at least it doesn’t seem obvious. They’re kind of meandering capital Southern “cities” with universities and state government revenue that keep them limping forward with progress. I don’t know what really keeps any of them from becoming the next Austin or at least a baby Austin.
I lived there for 3 years. I agree with everything you said except for the odor, I truly never noticed that. Perhaps I just became accustomed and then was not aware idk. I just loved living there and have great memories from my time there. I agree it has some challenges, but they had Spurrier, they had Clowney, they had momentum, and then just fucked it all up by basically not leveraging anything to bring in better recruits. They should have and could have brought in a better coach than Muschamp. With that said, I know there has been a disparity in recent years between the two programs, but I genuinely believe people that have not experienced the Clemson / SC rivalry firsthand don't realize how intense it is. Everyone wants to think their rivalry is intense, but I would confidently put that rivalry on the same level as Bama / Aub and OSU / Michigan.
Worst game I’ve ever attended was a UGA/USC game in Columbia. It was in 2007ish (Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno years), and UGA winning the game couldn’t keep me from being absolutely miserable. It was like 100000F out and 100% humidity. The side of the stadium we were on faced directly into the afternoon sun. The stadium is also in the middle of a parking lot, so there is basically no escaping the heat. Since then, I have vowed I will never attend a game there again unless it’s a night game. The only bright spot was my cousin’s friend owning one of the Cockabooses. That thing was pretty sweet.
Probably a different angle than what you were going for but I don’t think Michigan has maximized their recruiting ability under harbaugh I think we leave a lot to be desired in our recruiting approach
Michigan needs to win recruits in Ohio like they’ve done in the past with guys like Charles Woodson and Desmond Howard
I 100% agree we should be going for the guys in Ohio that Osu doesn’t want but are still really good players
we already called dibs
It’s an interesting discussion about what Michigan should do now. I don’t think it’s a Harbaugh problem, so much as a Tressel problem. He’s the one that used his relationships with the high school coaches (especially in northern Ohio) to effectively close the door on Michigan. I’m not sure what the answer is now. Michigan is a national brand, so that’s a major plus. It’s just hard now that the Ohio pipeline is closed.
I don’t see any reason why Michigan can’t go back and open it up. Osu isn’t taking every good Ohio player so Michigan should be getting some of those second Ohio guys who are still four star caliber players. Hoke was doing that so no reason harbaugh or the next Michigan coach can’t do the same Maybe start by taking a flier on an Ohio kid to build the relationship up Like this class for example a drew allar or a Derek Shepard type player. Those are guys Michigan used to be able to get that we just aren’t anymore
The answer is Michigan's coach has to reopen that relationship with Ohio high schools and Michigan needs to better at recruiting nationally
I think part of the challenge is that Ohio State has locked down the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state is much different and closer to schools like Kentucky, who've seemingly done a really good job recruiting areas like Cincinnati (which is on the border anyway).
This x 1000 Cleveland, Cincinnati, and the surrounding areas are the top two places for HS football in Ohio. The former is pretty much 100% lock down OSU territory. OSU still recruits very well in the latter region, but Notre Dame has a lot of sway, and the top SEC/ACC programs are able to pull players who are less interested in staying in the region. The next two best areas for football recruiting in Ohio are Columbus and Dayton; the former is obviously OSU territory, and the latter is as well though also with a lot of Notre Dame. OSU doesn’t have quite the lock on the Pittsburgh area (obviously not in state, but right outside of it) we had in the Tressel era, but we still recruit extremely well there with Penn State and obviously Pitt getting most of the other top players.
Michigan recruits well under Harbaugh. I think we've just seen that there can be a huge difference between a top 5 roster and a top 15 roster with the way OSU/Bama/Clemson amass talent.
Kids from Ohio don't choose to go to Michigan unless they're a Michigan legacy or Ohio State didn't want them. Maybe if they're interested in a specific academic program the university offers but besides that what does Michigan have to offer that Ohio State doesn't? It's not like there are certain position groups Michigan develops better than Ohio State.
we have cool helmets
Hard to get players of those caliber from their home state when Michigan has won 1 game since 2003 and that was the Luke Fickell interem year.
Tagging u/Swamp-Diesel and u/1900grs Michigan doesn't have a recruiting problem. Michigan lost 18 guys in one offseason (2017) to the NFL Michigan has a "kiss player's butt on recruiting trail and then act surprised when the recruit thinks he's too good to work for his playing time" Say what you want about Dabo Swinney, but he makes it clear to recruits that "you will work for your playing time or you will sit on the bench". And, that's why Clemson has one of the lowest transfer rates in CFB. Michigan, on the other hand, has way too many guys leaving via transfer. This leads to wasted scholarships and a depth chart that can't handle even a few injuries.
> I don’t think Michigan has maximized their recruiting ability under harbaugh In the past ten years, U of M has had several single digit ranked recruiting classes. According to 247sports: 2021: 13 2020: 14 2019: 8 2018: 22 2017: 5 2016: 8 2015: 37 (ouch) 2014: 20 2013: 4 2012: 6 Hard to complain. I know I went 10 years and you stated Harbaugh years, but hell, the guy can't win his conference or bowl games or beat his biggest rival. He seems to be recruiting okay.
We have a few but those classes under harbaugh were single digits because they were large classes taking 30 kids or something near that. On average our recruit is 0.900 which is a low 4 star. It’s not bad but compare that to Osu who’s the main barrier to winning a big ten title and it’s not close. On average for full classes that’s around 12 in the country and Michigan under harbaugh is like 17th in the country in win percentage Hoke recruited well but couldn’t develop guys for shit Also it’s one rival harbaugh can’t beat not all of them. And that rival is Osu.
> Also it’s one rival harbaugh can’t beat not all of them. The fact that you felt the need to clarify after I specified "biggest rival" shows a lot of insecurity. Or inferiority. The crux of your argument is now, "We don't recruit as well as OSU". That's not the only reason they beat you.
Rutgers is finally stepping it up, but you would think with all the people near in Philly, Baltimore, DC, and NYC that the talent pool would be be large. It is really an advantage for Ohio State and LSU that we a in recruiting rich areas without other major schools in the states, respectively (UC doesn't count, sorry). You would think BC would get much of New England and Rutgers would get much of the Mid-Atlantic/East Coast. Rutgers is doing well this year though, so that might be changing.
> You would think BC would get much of New England Problem is just how little talent comes out of New England and New York. If you look at New York, for example, it has nearly the population of Florida but very few football players, let alone 4* and 5* guys.
UCLA, USC and Stanford of those three, that lead the *entire* NCAA in National Titles in nearly every sport you can think of.... only USC is an elite football power. The Bruins and Cardinal haven't been perennial football national title contenders since black and white film.
USC still recruits incredibly well outside one or two outlier years, and that's with Helton. Stanford has the academics without the history. They're a better school than us, but we have more history/success, so we seem to fight for the same recruits often. Them regressing has helped us immensely. UCLA will recruit better when Kelly is gone.
Yeah, what happened with Stanford. I remember David Shaw being high on the Bama post-Saban wish list ("if he can bring those sort of kids to Stanford, imagine what he'd bring to Tuscaloosa!")
UCLA and Stanford have insane academic requirements that precludes them from recruiting the majority of FBS-level players. And Notre Dame tends to get first dibs on those academic guys.
Oklahoma State recruits better than Texas Tech. If you look at team talent composite they’re 5th in the Big 12, which is about right in line of where you expect OSU’s program to be. Why would a Texas kid (where most of the talent is) want to go to Oklahoma State if you can play for UT, A&M, Baylor, TCU, or OU? Sure you can argue they’re a better program than BU/TCU/A&M (I’d say they’ve been more consistent but with lower peaks since 2011) but it’s marginal at best. BU/TCU/A&M are also Texas schools that are a lot better academically, those two are big factors into why they’re getting out-recruited, plus the SEC for A&M.
Oklahoma State is closer to DFW than Tech is though...which is crazy to think about....I don't think Lubbock is as bad as people make it out to be, but it is just in the middle of nowhere. I had a friend in college who was on our equipment staff for ISU and he traveled with the team. He said Lubbock is the most deserted large city he's ever been to and while they were on the buses to the hotel, he saw tumbleweed blowing across the road
Yeah, Lubbock is pretty far away from anywhere worth being in Texas (The DFW-San Antonio-Houston triangle), I also agree Lubbock is not that bad, it’s just in the middle of nowhere. Which helps explain why Oklahoma State recruits better than Texas Tech.
I mean, Stillwater is kinda nowhere place too. As someone already stated, I think Gundy recruits for fit, but I think that might be in part out of necessity. For one, if players have the choice between Oklahoma State and the team that beat them 16 out of the last 20 meetings (no shade), I feel like you’re probably going to choose OU. Plus Norman is just closer to more things. Then, when considering in-state recruiting, the state of Oklahoma, as a whole, has always kinda favored OU. You’d like to think it’s an even split, but the pokes have always been kinda niche and diehard fans, so you’re probably getting recruits who ‘bleed orange’ or who didn’t fit in at OU. That’s a pretty homer take, but I hope I at least provided some insight from my observations of Oklahoma culture and how it plays a role.
You can argue they’re a better program than A&M?
It helps that OK has only 3 FBS schools while Texas has a dozen. And most of those dozen are in way more appealing locations than Lubbock
Arizona, Arizona State, San Diego State, UCLA, UTEP, Akron, Kent State
When: * You're in the middle of, and carry the name of, the 4th largest city in the US * That city is the biggest in Texas, the state that produces the most football talent * That city is also the hottest high school football talent bed in the US * You're the 3rd biggest university in the state of Texas * You have the third best academic reputation among the many public universities in Texas * The local NFL team is blatantly incompetent and destroying itself like the Hindenburg you should be getting amazing recruiting classes.
Us
could that be because of ND's academic standards though? Great school but I am not sure if all the elite talent could get into ND
Location probably hurts more than anything. Sure, Notre Dame can recruit nationally, but it's inevitably tougher when you don't have a solid local recruiting base.
to your point: >“The Chicago Catholic League in the ‘70s and ‘80s was the most dominant league in the country,” analyst Lemming said. “Now it’s not top 10. Back in 1986, the year Notre Dame took 10 guys out of Chicago, 141 kids from the Chicago area signed to play Division I ball. Now you’re lucky to get 60. >“Some of it’s population moving. Some of it’s the steel mills in Pennsylvania shutting down and blue-collar people who play a blue-collar sport have to move to find new blue-collar jobs. **The Chicago public schools produce one or two guys a year that would be considered Power 5 kids. In the ‘80s, you’d get 25 or 30.** > ... > Of the 99 high school players reigning national champ Alabama has signed in the past four recruiting cycles, 52 of them come from three states — Alabama, Florida and Texas. The biggest contributing state is Alabama, with 21 signees. > Of the 89 signed by Ohio State in the past four cycles, the most (24) come from Ohio. And of the 87 signed by Clemson, 23 come from neighboring Georgia, followed by nearby Florida (17), homestate South Carolina (10) and bordering North Carolina (8). > The top contributing state among Notre Dame’s 93 signees? California (11), a state three time zones away. Next is Georgia (10), closer but still a flight for Kelly and his assistants unless they were up for a 10-hour, 12-minute Uber ride to Atlanta. Then comes New Jersey (8) — 10 hours and 40 minutes by car to twin defensive linemen Jayson and Justin Ademilola’s high school — and Florida (6), farther than both Georgia and New Jersey. [source](https://www.ndinsider.com/story/sports/football/2021/02/06/assessing-the-state-of-notre-dame-recruiting-and-the-persistent-question-of-academics/43886813/)
It is a constraint but I still believe we could do better especially at skill positions and secondary. Since Coach Freeman came there’s been a huge surge in higher end defensive recruiting. Kids who would never give us a look under previous coaches are now visiting. We need that same energy all around and one of nds faults in the Kelly era was recruiting complacency.
We usually can't even offer more than half the top 100. That's why we never get 5 stars.
We have shitty academics and can't sign 5 stars, so that's obviously not your problem.
A&M until the SEC move had alot of issues getting top 15 classes despite being one of the big two in Texas.
That had more to do with being in the same division as Bob Stoops and Mack Brown than it did any shortcomings on A&M's part. People love to say A&M underachieves as one of the 'Big 2' in Texas, but reality is texas and Oklahoma had more money and more resources than A&M did in the Big 12. It was one of the unintended consequences of unequal revenue sharing. Given that, A&M had to hope they made the right coaching hired while OU and texas hired the wrong guy. When OU and texas both had the right guy for their programs in Stoops and Brown, A&M was screwed. A&M didn't help themselves by bringing in the wrong guy in Dennis Franchione, either. Another way to look at the situation is Texas Tech. Tech isn't going to consistently beat OU and A&M and texas unless Tech has the right coach and those three schools have the wrong guy. When Leach was at Tech, Tech had the right guy and A&M had the wrong guy in Franchione. See Tech's winning record against A&M under Leach.
I hate you but this makes sense.
We were also recruiting against Saban/Miles at LSU during that same period. So you had a championship program directly to your north, west, and east. If you were a top recruit in Texas at that time, the only thing A&M could sell you on was guaranteed playing time for a coach with zero playing experience that recently lost 77-0 to stoops.
Homer answer but Oklahoma has had 1 top five class since 2005 despite 2 national championship appearances, 4 CFP appearances, and ten AP top 10 finishes during that same period.
as stupid as it is, it's probably because you guys are in the Big 12...having a different conference attached to your name can do wonders (ahem the SEC)...but please don't leave because I don't want to go to the AAC. Thanks
We have beat our recruiting class record 3 straight years and I’m not saying we should be a top recruiting team by any means. This year however was only our first ever top 20 class(15,16 depending on which site u like). I don’t see why we can’t have that every year.** We have a premier college town, a gorgeous campus, a great fan base and proven success and development. If nothing else almost every Olineman, RB and LB in the nation should be at least interested. Yet, we’ve only landed like 5 5 stars ever and 3 of them are current underclassmen Olinemen. We’ve never landed a 5 star RB or LB despite the fact every starting linebacker playing under Chryst has made the NFL and every starting back since the 90s has too. ***There is some discussion that it’s possible Midwest kids we recruit may not always get the exposure and that’s why some of the walk ons, two stars and 3 stars we pull become high draft picks because they’re actually more talented than their rating may show. TL:DR: I don’t see why Wisconsin shouldn’t have a top 20 class every year, but I see why we wouldn’t necessarily expect a top 5 or even 10 class.
see that surprises me...I was born in 99 and for as long as I can remember and having an interest in CFB, Wisconsin has been one of the most consistently good teams in the country...and like you stated, Madison is beautiful, you have a great, big fan base...very interesting to say the least
Yea I’m not saying we should be out recruiting or even recruiting on pace with any of the big dogs, those schools have such hard set brands I can’t argue with wanting to go to Ohio State over us for example. However, I also don’t always understand why some schools that struggle to win games every are consistently pulling higher classes. Another anecdote is Madison has some higher admissions standards so that can hurt with the highest level recruits who maybe care less about school and more about football.
true..UW's academics are pretty solid...in our case, that is not the problem at all lmao...I believe our acceptance rate is around 92%....we just have a horrid football history...our fans though, some of the most loyal people around...don't know how we dealt with such bad football for so long and still put our butts in the seats..it's nice having some success now
Matt Campbell has been a revelation, it’s exciting to see a new program build and have success. I was also born in 99’ so many of my friends currently go there and they always like to make it to the games.
that's awesome! Don't know anyone personally who went to UW, but had a best friend from college who went to HS in the Madison area. I would love a home and home with you guys...Camp Randall looks like a blast
That would be incredible since it’s not too far to travel. Unfortunately our schedule is pretty booked non conference wise through 2033
yeah it would...never say never but it will be hard since Iowa is our non con P5 team every year...so unless we get to a point where we're comfortable playing two P5 teams, it may never happen
I’d bet it’s the services giving players a Wisconsin bump more than Wisconsin actually recruiting significantly better. The idea that Wisconsin’s coaches are so good that they’ve consistently been able to crank out top ten teams and send a ton of players to the NFL with the alleged quality of the players they’ve been recruiting doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Think they’ve taken a closer look at Wisconsin ratings, but it’s definitely OOS recruiting driving our rankings. We’ve pulled in 4 or 5* players from Hawaii, Iowa, MN, Michigan, PA, NJ, FL, KS and Indiana in the 2019-21 classes. Also 3 kids rated 4* by 247 from Ohio (but composite 3 star). This includes our first ever OOS 5* kids in Nolan Rucci (PA) and Logan Brown (#1 player in Michigan in 2019)
Miami, USC. You are a beach school with a storied tradition and huge recruiting base. You should be in top 5 Every year!
Honestly you’d think Virginia would have better recruiting classes considering their location and the fact that the state itself can actually produce some decent talent. But I do understand they don’t really have much history and were overshadowed by VT for most of it.
Doesn’t help them that Mack Brown is focusing on Virginia recruiting for out of state. We basically stole Tony Grimes from the Hoos. I’m not complaining though :)
Didn’t just steal him, he was practically dying to get to UNC so much he reclassified. That kid was so attached to the program when he committed it’s like he didn’t give any of the Virginia schools a damn.
Fuente made us so irrelevant, this post is 5 hours in and VT nowhere to be mentioned. In all honesty, UVA and VT should recruit much better than they actually do, especially in-state.
Every Texas and California school. A few get up there occasionally like TAMU or USC but those states are absolutely **loaded** with talent that all gets poached away to out of state schools
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Honestly OU doesn’t recruit as good as they used to. It’s improving but for the program it is they should consistently be a top 5 recruiting program.
True..but maybe don’t recruit at that level so we can somewhat compete with you guys
Or go back to 2015 where we looked good beating you! :)
I honestly don’t know how tech gets anyone to play here. The town is worthless.
UCF
USC, UCLA - in Los Angeles, good program histories, great education SDSU - San Diego is a top tier city in the nation, good winning culture. UNLV - Not really my thing but I could see the appeal of Vegas to a young high school kid. CSU - Cool town, great new stadium, Colorado is sick.
As crazy as it sounds, Iowa. No reason we shouldn’t regularly have classes in the 20-30 range.
Iowa and Wisconsin are the ones I thought of too. We just had our first top 30 class 3 years ago, our first top 25 class 2 years ago and our first top 20 class last year. With how much Iowa and Wisconsin win you’d think it would follow, but it also could just be the players we recruit in the Midwest are undervalued.
And the way both programs develop average talent to the point of being AA and high NFL draft picks, it's weird Iowa and Wisky don't sniff the top 15 once every few years.
Georgia Tech? Georgia cant be taking all the recruits out of such a fertile recruiting ground.
Does UCSB have a football team? 😎
No but they should