BillySee58

While the first class had good players, we got so many jucos that it’s hurting us now, because of the 25 player per class limit. If we had focused on more high school signees we may have not been as good in year one or year two, but we’d have deeper, more experienced senior and junior classes.

That’s not true at all. Players generally get rated higher because they have more offers. And we are getting higher rated players because we are beating out a lot of quality programs for these kids (2019 and 2020 classes). Harry, some others, and I have been pointing out that if you’re just looking at star ratings as black and white, you’re doing it wrong. Just saying 2-Star or 3-Star doesn’t give any detail. 3-Star has become so easy to attain under the composite system because ESPN gives them out to basically anyone committed. There is such a wide range of prospects that all fit within the three star range (80-89). An 80 will likely have one or two FBS offers while an 88 will usually have 10+ P5 offers. Both are technically 3-stars. You have to delineate between an 80-82 type player and an 82+ type recruit, for example.

Our recruiting is fine. We’re about to sign two straight classes that are elite by CUSA standards. The problem is that those players are true freshmen and high school seniors right now. I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but this is an issue from poor recruiting in the first few classes of the Littrell era. Also, I’m not super confident that o-line recruiting has improved. It has a little, but still has me nervous considering the time it takes to develop those guys.

This is true to a good degree. But another problem with what Harry mentioned is people often stop at 3-stars when seeing how a player is rated. 247 has greatly expanded the delineation between 3-stars by classifying everyone between 80 and 90 a 3-star. An 89 will almost assuredly have 5+ P5 offers, while an 80 could have just one. But for people who stop at 3-Star, it seems the same. Which leads to Harry’s point that we can’t use 3-Star as the bar for a quality UNT recruit anymore. Maybe more like 82.5 or some arbitrary number. Or offer lists.

I did the math. Of the 141 CUSA commits, 132 have 3-Star composite ratings. 94%. So yeah, 3-Star ratings basically hold almost no weight. https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/?Conference=C-USA

Bye week is huge for recruiting. Hopefully we can get ourselves in good position with some of these JUCO guys we’re after

ESPN has had a lot to do with the dilution of the 3-Star rating. Look back at a lot of CUSA classes and ESPN would basically give a 3-Star rating to anyone who committed before the season started. It was like their way of saying “see, we pay attention to recruits outside the top 300 in the country,” when it’s obvious to anyone who pays attention that they don’t. It was lazy and greatly reduced the weight behind a 3-Star composite rating on 247, which has become the industry standard. A lot of people on this board have gotten excited about 3-stars who were only rated as such because of ESPN doing what I mentioned. But yeah, always look at the offer lists.

I’ve brought this up before, but looking back at this class is really interesting to me. The 2016 class, Littrell’s first, was ranked 8th in CUSA. I get that he had little time to put it together, but even still new coaches usually see a bump in recruiting right away by being able to pitch a new program and early playing time. There were definitely some big hits in this class, and a lot of transfers. This class should be making up the foundation of this roster as Seniors and Redshirt Juniors, but there are only 10 of them left (which includes Bryce English). We’re definitely feeling the effects of going so JUCO/transfer heavy right off the bat, as well as not recruiting that well in general. There just isn’t enough there for us to take that big step forward we were hoping for, but there may be enough there for us to win the division, which is where the focus needs to be. https://247sports.com/college/north-texas/Season/2016-Football/Commits/

We are recruiting at a higher level. The problem is they’re freshmen and high school seniors. We needed to recruit at a higher level when SL took over

You’re right. It’s dangerously close to starting down that slippery slope. Just like in 2017, conference play presents a huge opportunity. Except this time there is much more at stake

Here’s what it would take for me to be worried about the future of Littrell here and consider moving on: - Finish 7-5 or worse with no West Division Title and another bowl loss - Lose the momentum on this 2020 class and have guys decommit - Lose momentum with the 2021 class and get back to middle/back middle of CUSA - Fail to adequately replace Fine and take another step back in the 2020 season While it seems like that would take a lot, it’s also dangerously close if things actually spiral. I think we finish the season strong and are in the hunt, if not still front runners for that West Division title. But that happening is also imperative for the future of this program and recruiting. We really need to finish this class strong and keep the recruiting momentum going for the 2021 class this offseason. Putting together 3 straight strong classes will give us a chance to reach the heights we mistakingly thought this group had a shot at.

I want to see some Keaton Jackson and Khatib Lyles this year. Don’t have to burn their redshirts, but let them play some. Talent wise I think they’re better than a lot of the guys we’re trotting out there

Given our projected o-line, don’t think that’d be in his best interest

It’s CBS. It’s similar quality (I’d argue better), same accessibility, and if you have a smart TV you can just download the Facebook app and search it and it’s there, without even needing to create an account or pay a subscription. CBS Sports network is what channel a lot of CUSA games were on back when cable was King. It’s the same thing, just the modern situation.

Still didn’t answer my question. I don’t think it’s a matter of whether or not it’s acceptable. It’s logical. Traditional cable stations are on their way out, and casual fans across the country don’t tune in en masse to watch Conference USA games. Streaming makes a lot more sense in 2019. And by the way, you didn’t need to create a Facebook account to watch the game.

And what do you suppose they do about it?

Commits to George Mason

It’ll be an exhibition game for them but not for us. One of those weird things where the NCAA lets the D2 school count the game as an exhibition but let’s the D1 school count the (presumed) win on their record.

I’m very excited about him, even though the offer list isn’t great. He is the first high school recruit Littrell has signed that actually has left tackle written all over him. Problem is he is going to at least need a redshirt year.

I know technically we returned him, but don’t forget Woodworth. His loss, along with Murray and Mayfield (2 Mccarney signees and a grad transfer), has really exposed our inability to sign and develop quality high school offensive linemen. Which is something I’ve been saying still hasn’t improved much in quality despite our recent uptick in overall recruiting.

Committed to Wofford. Not sure if he’s still visiting, but hopefully the staff feels confident they will get either Houston or Henry.

Watching the game last night I couldn’t help but think back to Littrell’s first three recruiting classes. We don’t have many Mccarney recruits left and a lot of the JUCOs we signed early on are gone. In year four we’re at the stage where we are leaning on the early high school signees to be the upperclassmen and leaders of the team. According to 247, the 2016 class was ranked 8th in CUSA, the 2017 class was ranked 11th, and the 2018 class was ranked 8th. And by my metrics based on offers, these classes were even a little below the last two Mccarney signed. The turnaround since then is well documented but those guys from the 2019 and 2020 class are years away from being the upperclassmen of our roster. What also hurts is that we only signed, by my count, 10 high school signees in that first class in 2016. It was always a peculiar decision to go so JUCO/transfer heavy right away in a rebuild. And while some of it definitely paid off early, it definitely would be nice to have another 5-10 seniors and redshirt juniors, especially at some of the positions where we are not looking great. At this point the roster is what it is. We are recruiting better at most positions, and that took time to turnaround our reputation. We have won the last two years without having great depth, and we’re going to have to do so this year as well. All this to say I don’t need to go into detail on where the team needs to improve, but based on recruiting results this team should be an average to slightly below average CUSA roster with a really good QB and that’s what we’ve looked like this year.

Football CUSA Championship game is that day

Looks like we will also be hosting North Carolina A&T on 11/19 as part of this tournament. http://www.ncataggies.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=24500&SPID=74518&SPSID=593455