BillySee58

Random, but this week I listened to the peach basket episode where you guys discussed the then recently broken news of Tony Mitchell enrolling at North Texas. I hope the next hire is good and exciting enough to bring you and @Censored by Laurie out of retirement.

Thanks. I haven't followed the recruiting much but I didn't remember seeing anything when fall signing day came around. Not nearly paying attention the way I used to. And thanks to Cooley for the update on these guys.

I'm only about 70% confident in this statement, but I believe neither signed in the fall. I believe they are just verbal commits.

That argument wasn't made. Just that it's unfortunate the people who get the brunt of the punishment are not going to be the ones most guilty. It's unfortunate because the optimal justice can't realistically be served at this point. Saying something is unfortunate doesn't mean an argument of no punishment for the university was made.

Right, but that's why I said people in those positions that I mentioned (AD, coaches, and President). Not all people in positions of power. And yes, the university shouldn't be immune from punishment because of the turnover. I didn't say anything otherwise. Just that it's unfortunate the right people aren't going to be the ones getting punished. Maybe some, but not all or even most IMO.

Can you tell us what it was like playing intramurals with Tony Mitchell?

The coaches, AD, and President who that occurred under are gone. If the parents thought long and hard about it they would see the people currently in those positions had nothing to do with that situation They'd be punishing the people who had nothing to do with it, unfortunately.

What do you mean? We already have like 5-6 2018 commits in our blueshirts. Kidding (kind've) aside, it's way too early to be worried about 2018. Recent history says guys committed to G5 schools this early usually don't stick anyways.

Different class

Here's the deal: coaches are recruiting kids at younger ages than they ever have. Coaches are pressuring commitments to athletes at younger ages than ever before. Spots and positions in a class are filling up earlier than ever before. I've seen people say things long the lines of "this is the era of the decommitment," or "kids these days don't know what it means to keep their word," etc. These kids are forced to make by far the most important decision of their young lives before most high school students and under much more pressure. It's up to them to find out what the best choice is for them, and it's up to them to not fall victim to the downfalls of modern-day recruiting (i.e. waiting too long and losing your spot in a class). It's not 1980 anymore where the recruiting process exclusively occurs in the 2 month span between a recruit's senior season ending and NSD. I think the best decision for a high school kid given the current state of recruiting is to commit to their best option before their senior year starts. Then if they get a better academic and athletic opportunity presented to them, they would be doing a disservice to them and their families if they didn't look into it. Be upfront with the coaches you originally committed to so you don't screw them over, but you have to make the right choice and not let the circumstances of modern-day recruiting prevent you from choosing the best college for you to attend. And it's tough on coaches too. Win or you lose your job. You have to start recruiting these kids early, but the earlier you recruit those kids, the more time there is for things to change on their end or yours. It has become a vicious cycle and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. It's up to the coaches that if they pull offers, to be upfront and give the kid time to find a new place, and it's up to the recruits to be upfront about looking elsewhere and letting their coaches make contingency plans.

Lewis - 0 other FBS offers Lancaster - 0 other FBS offers Dilonga - 1 other FBS offer Schrapps - 1 other FBS offer DQ Johnson - 1 other FBS offer Busby - 2 other FBS offers Feldt - 2 other FBS offers The vast majority of college coaches who scouted these guys thought they weren't FBS prospects. Unknown guys who not only may not work for those recruiting services, but very possibly aren't even in that line of business anymore rated these guys as three stars.

Exactly. And also, this is yet another reason why I prefer to emphasize offer lists. While we won't know for a few years how these kids will all turn out, we do know at this exact second how we are doing competing for recruits we want with other schools. This is also what separates it from an NFL draft class. We are not at the mercy of who other teams pick. We could, hypothetically, get every single player we want if we are good enough at recruiting them. Obviously that'll never happen, even for Alabama, but the point is we can evaluate ability to recruit and get players we want, today.

The key here is that while at the JUCO he was enrolled in less than 12 hours. 12 hours is the threshold for being a full-time student, and starting one's eligibility (5 years to play 4) counter. Gray shirts delay full-time enrollment a semester later than traditional first-year college students. Ozougwu was a grayshirt, Pearson was just an early enrollee. And blueshirts don't need wait to be put on scholarship until school starts. They are usually put in scholarship as soon as fall camp starts.

Right, but they still offered, and they still believed he had FBS-level ability when they evaluated him. In this case we are the first FBS team to evaluate this kid as having an FBS prospect. I would say his case is more similar to Joseph Ozougwu. And I think that'll be a little more similar blueprint as far as role and development path that he will take.

Fall camp starts before the semester. He was gone by August 15th and classes started August 24th. I don't see how that wouldn't impact any transcripts.

He was gone before the semester started.

This is an interesting aspect of his recruitment, when you factor in that he was a qualifier out of high school. Given that information, the fact that he wasn't a mid-term guy leads me to believe grades were an issue at least at some point, if not still.

Hold on a second; no one ever questioned their ability to get commitments overall. The concern was and still is regarding their ability to win recruiting battles. Anyone could get commits from guys who don't have any other FBS offers. So far, since dead period ended we've received five commitments. Those five commits have a combined four FBS offers from schools not named North Texas. Tibbs, Roberts, and Gieser all have zero other FBS offers. I get that they're likely blueshirting, but that's still seems to be more of the common commit for us, rather than an outlier. We "flipped" Parish from Texas State but they already have six offensive-line commits, including four tackles so it appears the split was mutual as Parish hasn't listed himself as a Texas State commit for some time. His other offer was from New Mexico. Brammer also had offers from New Mexico and Rice but those offers were 7 and 8 months old so it's not likely they were still recruiting him. That's where the concern stems from. We're just getting recruits uncontested. It's a little too similar to the Mccarney era. We supposedly have a fun, young staff to play for, are "on the rise," have good facilities and a nice stadium, and have location in our favor, yet kids aren't picking us over other schools who want them at nearly a high enough rate. Yeah, you can't do this anymore. If a student-athlete is on scholarship and they play more than one sport with football being one of the sports, then the scholarship has to count towards football. Just to be clear, blueshirts don't have to redshirt their first year. They can play right off the bat like any other freshmen, and they are at no disadvantage from a practice standpoint. However, these are typically going to be kids with no other FBS offers or maybe one other offer from a school like ULM who you aren't scared of losing them to. We have that leverage in asking them to blueshirt, since their option is either blueshirt with you or not sign with an FBS school.

I'm concerned with the roster management so far. If the dudes end up being good then it's not as big a deal. If not enough are good then we could run into more depth issues and inability to get close to 85 scholarship guys.

You do a great job of paying attention, which is awesome

A half ride to an FCS school, vs. a full ride to an FCS school shouldn't even be a competition. Then you throw in the fact that ACU's tuition alone is over $30,000, a half scholarship there means he would still be paying about $15,000 a year just in tuition. Not including room and board.

He was 3 for 3. Now he's 2 for 2, so he's going to be a redshirt junior in 2017.

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons. When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

I'm thinking RB here

Thank you very much. It definitely has its flaws, such as kids having varied situations of exposure, but I personally trust the opinions of coaches whose jobs are on the line when it comes to which kids to offer, recruit, and sign, over guys who spend an infinitesimal amount of their time looking at our guys and spend the vast majority on recruits who the P5s are battling for.