GMG_Dallas

Holds on offer from SMU per 247 http://247sports.com/Player/Tyrick-James-90816. I agree, we need to get on him. Looks good. Big body that would be nice to have at WR.

Per 247, there are 104 offensive lineman (guards, tackles, or centers) in their database (database is hyperlinked to 247's page) in the class of 2017 (ESPN shows far less in their database). Out of those 104, 34 are rated 3 star composite or greater. Just some numbers. We might have 1024 high schools football teams in Texas, but the number who produce FBS quality offensive linemen on any given year is apparently quite small and Texas schools aren't the only ones going after these kids.

Per scout, holds an offer from Tulsa: http://www.scout.com/player/207741-davion-ford/recruiting

They've made plenty of changes. If I'm not mistaken, they had found a decent combination for a couple of games but then some of the starters got hurt. Each of the last 3 games, we've had somebody on the OL get hurt during the game or miss the entire game. We have no depth.

Tulsa is on the other side of the state from where he is. Per Google Maps, he is a little over 3 hours from Tulsa but 2 hours and 40 minutes from Denton. We're closer. Win the battle. Edit: 204 miles between Cache and Tulsa. 162 miles between Cache and Denton.

"Neither called me back, but someone who has a pretty good handle on the situation gave me the basics. It sounds like Donovan was not having a particularly good season and was told by UNT to begin looking at other options for schools where he can continue his career." Somebody who apparently has "a good handle on the situation" suggested to Vito this is exactly the case. Whether you "buy" it or not is irrelevant if that's what somebody close to the situation says is the case.

Stockstill out early with a shoulder injury.

Read his tweets and re-tweets. They certainly offer more insight than our speculation. We pulled the offer or stopped showing interested. However it happened we don't know but it wasn't necessarily solely Donovan's choice. You can speculate all you want just like I can. Like I said, read his tweets and re-tweets. While you're at it, click on the article he re-tweeted about his commitment. I'll even post it here so it's easier for you: http://www.recruitingnewsguru.com/2017-oc-josh-donovan-decommits-north-texas/ Also, per Max Preps, his high schools yards per completion and yard per carry have both dipped drastically since last season. Maybe his production at center has slipped and he's a big part of the drop in offensive production? All speculation until we get an answer from him or the coaches.

Why don't you go ask them? Per MaxPreps, they averaged 261 rushing yard per game last year versus 159 passing yard per game. This year is more balanced but still over 220 rushing and around 180 passing per game.

I read on a recruiting site that his high school is run-first so if it really is our staff that pushed him away like many of his tweets indicate, that's probably why. He might not fit the scheme they want to run.

If your goal is to be more competitive than the smallest g5 programs than you need to set your sights a bit higher. I thought you advocated raising expectations? My point is don't fret about commits having no offers versus those with 2 or 3 small program offers. At that point, you really shouldn't assume the guy with the offers is better than the guy without the offers so why judge our coaching staff based off how many of those guys we have?

I don't know, they just pushed away a guy others wanted and their commit list is full of guys nobody else wants. Lets also not talk stars because we aren't getting the high 3 stars low 4 stars regardless of how good our staff is due to our production past years. My point is, what's the point of getting worked up about guys with 2 or 3 other offers if those offers are the smallest of g5 schools. Does it even matter at that point? Unless a guy has 5+ offers or an offer from a p5/high tier g5, it shouldn't matter how many offers they have. Why care about a offers being given out by bad programs. You should view those offers as no offer. Don't want the same talent that has made other programs bad.

About the announcers, they also repeatedly called Ashton Preston, Preton. And pronounced it Pree-tawn. Pretty bad...

Can't really say I agree here but feel free to correct me. Last recruiting cycle was different. They had 2 months to get 25 guys. Hamilton may have been a "free agent" but we made a great signing. He's looking bright. This staff found available players they could sign and many of them are making an impact and are the reason we are 4-4. Regarding winning recruiting battles, we can talk about how important that is later because as of right now we don't really know how good the staff is at evaluating players. We know they found a lot of gems. Several juco guys they offered last cycled ended up blowing up after we offered. Our staff found those guys and thanks to our staff they got the exposure needed to end up with offers at p5s. As of right now it's about finding talent. We have 10 commits, most of which have no other FBS offers which means our staff believes in them. They identified these guys and went after them early. I am just as happy with that as I am with winning "battles" against UTSA and Rice. We also seem to have pushed away our top rated commit which means they aren't preoccupied with ratings and a what others think. They don't think he fits in the plans anymore and that's that. Nothing to bad mad about. They have shown with their first class of "free agents" that they can identify talent. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. As of right now, our top recruits of last cycle and possibly UTSA's top recruit in Tauefa were all guys who nobody else really wanted. I'll take guys like those every class if it means success. Meanwhile, look back at our recruiting classes since 2013 or 2014 and look at all the 3 star recruits who aren't here anymore. It's pretty sad really... It's always nice to win recruiting battles but we shouldn't automatically assume that we aren't getting quality guys just because we didn't battle 4 other schools for him.

From what is sounds like, Donovan didn't de-commit on his own. The staff might have lost interest in him and pulled his offer. Several tweets from him and somebody close to him in the past day implying that this was the staff's doing and not his. As far as I'm concerned, like you said, we still have a long way to go. We still have 10 commits right now which isn't where we should be but also not horrible. There will be last second gems and guys flipping left and right. If the staff is more concerned with trying to get bowl eligible, I'm fine with that. It will make us more desirable. Simply put, I think this staff is trying to go a different approach that most by getting results first and recruiting after. Hopefully it doesn't backfire. we'll see! With the amount of blue shirts we had last year, how many spots do we have available anyways?

Also tweeted a day ago: Really wonder what happened...

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I know you didn't specifically call for a QB sneak here but I've seen it mentioned several times, don't you lose any element of surprise of a QB sneak if you throw Alec in there, a QB we haven't played since week 2? Wouldn't his presence behind center in that situation give the opposing defense an idea of the play call? If he has to check out of the play, what does he check out to? Do we really want him going to a passing play? With Mason's speed, we should be able to run a bootleg and get him to the edge before the defense has time to figure out the play and get to Mason. If we're going to put somebody under center from the 1 and have them try to go through the line, I would almost rather have Rutherford take the direct snap (not under center) with Mason lined up at WR to throw off the defense a bit and have Rutherford try to leap over the line. At 6 foot 5 from the one yard line, he should be able to make it à la Matt Stafford (start from the three minute since it won't play here):

If Hoston is already enrolled and paying to be at UNT, is there any reason why Littrell wouldn't at least let him on the team as a walk-on for his final year? He wouldn't have to dedicate a scholarship to him and it really could benefit both parties. Hoston gets a chance to live out his dreams of playing D1 football while we get who some thought would be a top notch pass rusher for a year. No different than a graduate transfer who's never really played much.

A Syracuse fan board has several posts saying he had 4 years to play 3 and the posts are from this past recruiting cycle. Don't know how that's possible. An article linked to Nebraska football says he graduated high school in 2013. The same article linked to Nebraska's football program says he was in his second year at LA Valley and would have 2 years left so unless he went somewhere before LA Valley, he would have 3 to play 2.

The beauty of sports is there's always next year. You can talk trash all you want after one game but be ready to face the same if your team loses the next time around. Being a UTSA football fan will not be the same as rooting for the Spurs (admittedly a great franchise) so be ready to face a lot more downs than ups in your fandom and don't let your tears fill your KFC buckets.

I looked at his twitter recently and he has a tweet saying not being able to help a team is one of the worst feelings and he has retweeted plenty of UNT posts as well as tweeted about UNT games. He also still has it listed in his bio that he is a DE with UNT. I think he'll be here in the spring. What will his eligibility look like if he does become eligible and joins the team next year? Does he lose a year of eligibility this year?

It's not just about being over saturated with the game itself. If you're a married man, in a commited relationship or have kids, you just can't justify allocating that much time to watching games you don't care about. Add that in with early Sunday London games (lose the church crowd or partiers) and Monday and Thursday games (again tough for those with kids who you're trying to take care of after school, homework, get ready for bed) it's just a lot of obstacles to watch a game you don't care about unless you have zero responsibilities. Like you said, if the matchup is bad, it doesn't help any.

Don't understand saying we put Alec in for a qb sneak. Goal line. Offense subs out their qb for a bigger qb that they haven't played since the second game of the season. He's not in there to throw the ball. Kind of limits of the playbook to a running play of some sort. Seems like an easy read if the opposing staff has done all of their homework. Our offensive line just isn't good enough pound it at will. We just need to get creative but I don't think qb sneak with Alec is the answer. Both QBs bring things to the table the other doesn't. You roll with Fine so you have to get creative in those situations.

What do you know about this "other teammate"?

Something we need to remember is being a head coach is also managing people. Not just your players but your staff. At the end of the day, You need a whole staff to succeed as they colectively probably do more recruiting than the 1 HC and collectively probably deal more with the Xs and Os. Considering where both programs were last year, I think Seth immediately has shown he knows how to assemble a good staff. Wilson as well. What will be interesting to see is how they replace current staff members who might end up leaving for bigger jobs elsewhere.