Caw Caw

UTSA Lost to Texas Tech worse than us: 87-50 http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/college-sports/collegesports/2016/12/07/texas-tech-vs-utsa-basketball-live-updates And that concludes the good news.

Would you mind telling us what you have liked and disliked from the staff and the recruiting experience so far? Thanks for all the feedback, I really hope the best for your son regardless of where he lands.

I worded that poorly. I meant to say that McCarney said his GOAL was to have mostly large high school classes. My disappointment was that he failed to do so. Which you've outlined very well. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

One of the major disappointments of the Mac regime was that he insisted he would have more high school recruits to build the program instead of relying on JuCo players. He never achieved that goal, or even came close, but maybe our reliance is decreasing. There are some obvious needs I wouldn't mind finding guys who are ready to go from JuCo. But the qualifying issues hurt us some this year.

I can buy this, but wouldn't that also mean that the kids we're recruiting are somewhat off the radar? Wouldn't that also worry them about the commitment level of the kid(s) in question? We also have other commitments, why didn't we do the same with them? We're going to have to want to compete for some of the kids in order to take the next step as a program, but that's just my two sense. I don't doubt they are working hard at all. Just a couple of signs of it would be a nice start.

@Wag Tag As Harry mentioned, we've made progress but these coaches get lost in practice, during the season, etc. They update on major events but not constant communication, which like it or not is important. LeBlanc is the only recruiter I've seen get a photo with a recruit since recruiting season began. Social Media is not longer an extra tool, it's a requirement to relevance. If you're Alabama, your traditional media coverage and fan social media presence can make up for a lack of effort. Plus your already at the pinnacle. At our level every little thing helps you elevate yourself next to the competition. @Harry It's part of the conversation, you're not hijacking it at all. I absolutely think four weeks of practice is great for development, and we need that, but adding more talent to this team may be more important than the bowl itself. I don't think having beaten this team already it's a great recruiting opportunity, not that any local Dallas exposure ever hurts, but it is drawing focus from the recruiting season. I only say that because as it's been mentioned in other posts it doesn't appear we've hit full speed like some other competing schools. AND even if we are, it's not being broadcast. This comes back to the social media thing, but perception is probably more important than the reality. I've seen pictures of Frank Wilson be tweeted out at recruits houses as quickly as the day recruiting season opened. There needs to be the same, not just from LeBlanc and Perry but our OC, DC and Head Coach. A fundamental truth of both recruiting and human psychology is that people want to be wanted, included and pursued. Just reflect on the women you've dated. The customer, recruit or woman you're pursuing always will want you to go the extra mile and show them. They want to be showed off not checked up on in a text or call.

So made a bowl ahead of schedule. There were missed opportunities for us to do better mid-season, but we overachieved. I've been thinking long and hard about where we sit in recruiting. I've spent a ton of free time looking through our lists of offers, checking social media, etc. I'm currently in sales so this part of the game is really interesting to me. Let me start with something we don't look at and isn't really utilized for out school. Below are some (read: all that have more than two recruits) of our coaches recruiting pages. Ekeler's and Litrell's show their last schools, but that's really it. I did like looking at this to see the type of talent they have brought in, in the past, at P5 programs. I think we as a fan base, and them as an Athletics Department, should be doing more to get these recruiter profiles updated and put on the right schools. Also we should be updating who's recruiting who, I think for parents/kids doing there homework it's a good way to check someone's reputation and build it. Personally I think it adds to the recruiters "skill" or at least the perception of. Our Coaches (All former team pages): http://247sports.com/Coach/Mike-Ekeler-354/AllTimeRecruits http://247sports.com/Coach/Seth-Littrell-161/AllTimeRecruits http://247sports.com/Coach/Troy-Reffett-1106 For Reference: http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/CompositeCoachRankings?Conference=C-USA (C-USA recruiter rankings) http://247sports.com/Coach/Ryan-Silverfield-3832 (Highest Rated G5 Recruiter from 24 this year) Look, I'm not going to fully judge the class until closer to signing day, I'm hoping there are some bigger pieces in the pipeline slowing down the rest of the class. I know that's wishful thinking, and probably unlikely but this staff has surprised us with early results so far, so i'm at least going to give them their first full recruiting cycle to prove them wrong. I will say that coaches twitters and some of what i'm considering our uncommitted offers have been way too quiet for me to be comfortable. We really need to step up the social media game. It is a HUGE piece to today's puzzle. Kids are asking for picture edits, etc. They want to be able to see themselves playing for their schools ahead of time. Honestly one of my favorite recruiting tools ever released was the quotes from Trice talking about becoming Miami for the DFW. It starts with one great class who decides to stay home and represent the DFW. We should be bombarding social media with that kind of message. These coaches are young, and I realize that they don't have a lot of time, but if they aren't going to do social media directly it needs to be outsourced (I'd probably do it for free to a point). As a lot of people have pointed out, facilities, coach and staff, cost of living subsidy, academics, campus life, etc. All being improved over the last decade or so, we're running out of reasons we aren't succeeding. At a certain point, once we've done our best to competitively equip our staff it comes down to selling and effort. I know there have been mentions of having the least amount of spending for recruiting, but we also don't need to travel any further than down the road in order to recruit. Obviously we'll fill some needs with JuCo and transfer players, but you get the point. Here's some important pages: http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/school/_/id/249/class/2017 (Commitments) http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/school/_/id/249/class/2017/page/offers (Under reported offers list) - http://northtexas.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Commits (Commmitments) http://northtexas.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Offers (Best Offers List) http://northtexas.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Targets (Target List) - Rivals is down I will update later. I post all this to say, I'm nervous still that our recruiting trend will stay the same regardless of the trend. I am optimistic that we'll have a better class than our expectation at the moment, but that's just my instinct. I'm going to try and be way more active in helping the actual experts around the board target and update so they can spend there time giving us the insights I can't (yet) provide. Hopefully this staff finds a way to get it done, just like they found a way to overachieve on the field this year. GMG.

At 5"11 165 and holding that many offers, the kid must be lightning.

What separates the success then if it isn't winning? Is it pure salesmanship ?

Thank you so much for the primer. I really do appreciate it. We all appreciate your expertise here. GMG

Playing Army again is my least favorite possible bowl outcome. I'd rather pay to travel than play a game we gain very little from. It's all risk and almost no reward. Give me anyone else anywhere.

As an O-Coordinator for the best team in the country, a lot of his play calling is baffling. He will be running the ball down an opponents throat and all of the sudden call two pass plays with his true frosh QB and put them in a third and long. There are just so many times he wants to make that Alabama offense more like the system he ran at USC and it's not what it's recruited and managed to do. And yes, I do understand varying your plays and the element of surprise etc. His situational awareness seems lackluster. A lot of Alabama fans have strong negative opinions and think he's only kept in check by Saban or else he would look even worse. I think he's a so-so recruiter and most of that success comes from name and school recognition. He hung Tennessee out to dry after one year. There are all sorts of crazy stories about his antics in recruiting, like telling Alshon Jefferey if he went to South Carlolina instead of Tenn. he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like the rest of SC. He threatened to expose Urban Meyer for recruiting violations at Florida, contacted players while they were on officials to other campuses. He's willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus like at SC when his seat got a little warm he just fired most of the staff including his own father to try and save his own skin. 28-15 at one of the easiest to recruit programs in the country. Attempted a 70+ yard field goal in the NFL as a head coach. All that being said, maybe he learned something from Nick and it would change how he runs his next program into the ground.

I sincerely hope you don't get Kiffin. I'm not trolling you when I saw I think he's a terrible coordinator and an ever worse head coach. Alabama is my second favorite team, (I was coached by George Teague in High School). Kiffin tries to do too much and usually hurts the team for it. Would be cool to see Les go there. Good luck in ya'lls search. Anyone you're really interested in as a fan?

I understand what you're saying for sure and I agree. Although, I think that without any association, if we were isolated, we're still unwanted. We competed in leagues with these bad teams and still didn't do well. Why would anyone want to elevate us, we haven't elevated ourselves. Yet.

It's not up on Youtube yet I take it?

I'm really not trying to be that guy, but you know this is how we're perceived for the most part, right? You think anyone is looking at our last twenty years and going, woah, I want them to help elevate my conference? Academics is secondary to money and success in CFB just the way it is. The success of those commercials isn't because they advertise academics, it's because they have established reputations on and off the field. Oh, and because they run in front millions of viewers. Academics is a front for the money making college football machine.

Following recruiting is one of my favorite parts of college sports. How do I learn what i'm looking for out of footwork, throwing motions, etc. I know sometimes at the next level it's mechanics that really get people in trouble and I want to be able to evaluate beyond: "oooh nice throw". Any pointers?

http://www.hammerandrails.com/2016/12/2/13817108/report-jeff-brohm-purdue-rumors-pj-fleck Would be interesting to see who would inherit the program if this were true.

It's a player safety issue. He was forcing practice for players with concussion symptoms etc. Not about wins and losses. Good on the University for prioritizing player safety. http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/12/1/13809438/kevin-wilson-fired-indiana-head-coach

No need to sell it. He's followed the season. If he's the type of competitor he needs to be to compete at this level, he watched it and said, I can do better.

I would be excited to have a boost to the return game as well.

I do also think college talent is more available for Basketball with a much smaller roster size. AND, the one and done rule allows for the exceptional to move on and get paid after only one year. I am sure it happens, but systemically I think it's set up to prevent this a little bit better.

I found this and was curious about his involvement. All up and down his timeline is UNT tweets and retweets, commits etc. This is awesome, I wonder if it's part of our UNT-Cowboys marketing deal.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2677700-cheat-or-go-home-inside-the-dysfunctional-hell-of-becoming-a-cfb-coach Really good read from bleacher report. I wanted to see what everyone's thoughts are. Would you be willing to muddle through more hard pack recruiting years to have ethical success? Would you suffer through a consistent 6-6 or worse if you knew we were doing it right? If this is really what we compete against, is it really any wonder why we struggle to recruit?

NAME CMP ATT YDS CMP% YDS/A TD INT RAT Will Worth 71 115 1363 61.7 11.85 8 3 179.0 Is Navy's starting QB in the air. NAME CMP ATT YDS CMP% YDS/A TD INT RAT Ahmad Bradshaw 36 84 622 42.9 7.41 4 8 101.7 Is Army's Starting QB the air. NAME CAR YDS AVG LONG TD Will Worth 258 1181 4.6 60 25 Navy's QB on the ground Ahmad Bradshaw 158 646 4.1 60 (TD) 6 Army's QB on the ground. (Sorry for the bad formatting, harder to copy paste as Bradshaw is the second leading rusher on his team. Worth is the first. Their ground game is really, really good as it has been noted. But I think Worth can beat you deep if you over commit to the run. That really wasn't an issue at Army.