BillySee58

I think my points can be true AND it can be true that we are improving our recruiting in the area. My points are more about the clear shift in focus away from the DFW area. We aren’t prioritizing it to the degree we have in the past, which is why we ended up with just 3 HS signees from DFW last class. Or maybe a better way to put it is we aren’t relying on the DFW metroplex to produce a large chunk of our signees. We have expanded our footprint and shifted more of our focus towards Houston and Oklahoma than we have traditionally (i.e. Dodge era, Mccarney era, early Littrell era).

It’s probably just a mistake, since his actual graphic from when he committed says DL. But weird to see OL on one from our coaches.

Glad to see he’s back. Also noticed this graphic from the coaches says “OL” under his name. Wonder if there is any chance that he is an offensive line commit.

We’ve had this happen to us before. And it’s usually a situation where the parents/family talk the recruit out of the commitment. Usually because they want the recruit to go somewhere with higher program profile or somewhere closer to home. Maybe that’s not exactly the case here but he said he went over it with his family and ends up decommitting so there was some measure of him being talked out of it. Hopefully we have the chance to bring him and his family on an official visit and get everyone on the same page. Because it seems pretty clear we have been successful in selling him on the program.

Yeah that has been the case for a while so it makes sense how ingrained it is in the minds of DFW area coaches, many of whom grew up here and know that totem pole well. I also wonder what the Todd Dodge fiasco did for our reputation among high school coaches. Is the prevailing sentiment “Todd Dodge was a great coach but he had no chance of being successful at that school” or something along those lines? And how many coaches’ opinions soured on our program because of that, because maybe they were watching more closely then because of Dodge? Would love to hear @GMG24 chime in and share his thoughts on his experience with the perception of the UNT Football program among the DFW coaching community.

In Brett Vito’s recent article about the Ragsdale and Vailea commitments, he made a statement that interested me. ”UNT rarely ventures far from the talent-rich Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Texas in general, when it comes to football recruiting.” This is certainly something that had been established as a generally true statement for a while, but we are seeing a shift under Littrell. In the 2020 class we signed just 3 players from the DFW Metroplex (Kortlin Rausaw, Garnett Burke, and Tavorice Weaver). Meanwhile we signed 6 high school players from out of state, and have 4 HS commits in our 2021 class already from out of state. In Mccarney’s 5 recruiting classes we had just 11 out of state high school signees. In state, Mccarney really hit East Texas hard especially a few years in, while Littrell has actually favored Houston over DFW in recent years. What these trends seem to show to me is that these guys, both non-Native Texans, took the job and looked at the DFW metroplex early on and figured that made the most sense to focus our recruiting efforts. This obviously makes a lot of sense at the surface level, but I think both learned the hard way that UNT does not exactly have a great reputation in the area and in many ways that makes it more of an uphill battle recruiting local kids as opposed to kids out of the metroplex. We see this especially in Denton ISD and Argyle. It’s an unfortunate reality that we face in recruiting but the goal is to put together the best team, not the team with the most local recruits. It is going to take periods of prolonged winning to offset the reputation we have throughout most of the metroplex but lining our depth chart with high caliber recruits is a great start.

Those leagues have all been NFL castoffs. The version being discussed in this thread would feature the caliber of players who the NFL would be looking to spend high draft picks on.

Because this would be a profitable minor league

Very true. Also, this is coming off of the 2020 class in which we signed 3 defensive linemen who each had multiple P5 offers.

Woah! Huge

We did not make his top 8

Good catch

P5 players have the leverage because of how much they generate. G5 players don’t have anywhere near that leverage. P5 players could, in a free-market system, go to another P5 school and make the money they are worth, or choose to band together and play hardball and threaten to boycott playing which would financially screw over the universities. With G5 players, they don’t have the potential free-market demand of a P5 player and the leverage that creates like, save for a select group of players. They could boycott as a group but in the end they’d probably be screwing themselves more by not taking the scholarship. Although even G5 players are worth more than those scholarships on average.

They don’t have to afford it. Just offer only scholarships if that’s all you can afford. If players don’t have P5 offers or their P5 offers dried up and they can’t get those P5 salaries plus scholarship, then a D1/FBS/G5/whatever it’s called at that point scholarships will still be appealing. You know, like it works now.

Why would they no longer be around?

At these P5 programs college players are worth much more than $15/hr, because they generate much more revenue than Starbucks baristas. If they were paid for 60 hours a week, every week of the year, at $15/hr, and still had their scholarships and housing paid for, their compensation would still be a fraction of what their market would be at a P5 in a free-market system. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/college-football-player-value-2017-11%3famp

https://247sports.com/Player/Joe-Maytubby-46103222/

Wow, even one from one of our insiders. Would be big for them. edit: looks like Collin is probably just piggybacking off the Illinois insider’s prediction of ULM. But still seems to be trending that way regardless.

No one said anyone can’t have an opinion. You absolutely can have one and people can disagree with it. Nearly every FBS signee in the country is not offered by a majority of FBS programs. Certainly true for everyone we sign. Doesn’t change the fact that the consensus among FBS coaches who scouted him is that he is FBS caliber as an o-line prospect but not a d-line prospect. You can disagree with that evaluation, but I don’t see how projecting a 6’5” 250 lb junior as an o-lineman is being cute when you watch the film. Regarding his speed, the 40 time isn’t verified but the pursuit speed, or lack thereof, is evident in his film. He had just 5.5 sacks in 16 games. There are plenty of plays in his film where an FBS DE prospect gets to the QB on time but Barr doesn’t. That’s the lack of pursuit speed I’m mentioning. And as for Siggers, we recruited him to play RB and have had him there for 2 of his 3 seasons. Reffett wanted him at safety where he was at for just one year. Wasn’t a situation where the coaching staff thought he was a better safety than RB, although you’re right that it was a poor decision.

2 days out from his commitment and still no crystal balls on 247 or forecasts on Rivals anywhere for him. Could just mean he isn’t opening up much to insiders but I was half expecting crystal balls to Illinois to start rolling in by now.

Guess every other FBS school who offered him is being too cute too. They all offered him to play offensive line as well. No official verification on that 40 time and looks pretty clear he doesn’t have legit FBS defensive end pursuit speed in his film. This dude’s an o-line prospect all the way.

He definitely seems to like the recruiting game. He has been tweeting the love he’s getting from Houston and from us. Can’t fault him for that. I don’t expect him to commit anywhere anytime soon.

Also picked up a crystal ball to us from Collin Kennedy, one of our 247 insiders, about an hour and a half ago. And he liked the tweet from Walerius announcing the commitment. Just waiting on the official annoucement from Ward himself at this point.

Alma mater is Collins High School in Klein, so my guess is Trent Ward

Ward is from the same HS as Bloesch