Should we start worrying yet?

TheReal_jayD · June 25, 2016

Seth and Co. have killed it with jucos and blue shirts so far. And did a great job piecing together a 2016 class together that was completely bare when they got hire on. But are off to a slow start compared to our other Texas competition.

2017 Committed Recruits as of Today

Houston 17

Texas State 15

Rice 12

SMU 12

UTSA 9

North Texas 3

UNTLifer · June 25, 2016

Patience. After the dumpster fire they inherited from the previous staff, they will be fine. They need to show we are moving in the right direction this fall.

DeepGreen · June 25, 2016

Texas State has a new coach but seems to be doing alright.

ADLER · June 25, 2016

Not saying in all cases, but it is easy to get early commitments from players that the power programs have little to no interest in. In our case it may be better to continue pursuing and have scholarships available later to entice potentially higher caliber players that those programs may be waffling on.

Edited June 25, 2016 by ADLER

baberuthbomber8 · June 25, 2016

I think our staff is picking the right guys for the right fits... They have only had a few practices with this team and could be waiting to identify points they want freshman at, along with what holes need to be plug ASAP with JUCOs.. While it is disappointing at the 3 compared to other colleges, you have to remember UNT is having to start all over.

GrandGreen · June 26, 2016

Numbers of commits means absolutely nothing at this point. Any team in the country could commit their whole class in a day if that was an objective.

I actually thinks it shows confidence. NT is coming off one of the worst seasons in the history of D1 football matched with an abysmal decade of football. Eliminating non-football factors, all NT has to sell at this point is hope. I believe the staff may believe that they are going to have a lot more to sell once the football season starts. Definite signs of improvement and the display of an explosive offense may give NT a shot at a better group of recruits than they can hope to sign at this point.

UNTLifer · June 26, 2016

7 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

Texas State has a new coach but seems to be doing alright.

Of their commits, who would you want us to flip?

DeepGreen · June 26, 2016

9 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Of their commits, who would you want us to flip?

Have no idea who their commits are. Sometimes it's all about perception. And for the record, I think SL and staff are doing it right.

ADLER · June 26, 2016

11 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Have no idea who their commits are. Sometimes it's all about perception. And for the record, I think SL and staff are doing it right.

http://texasstate.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Commits

DeepGreen · June 26, 2016

54 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Of their commits, who would you want us to flip?

Oh, a couple of those 3-star guys, and maybe a couple of those linemen.

GMG24 · June 26, 2016

11 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Of their commits, who would you want us to flip?

Jaylin Nelson, and Kishawn Kelley. I haven't seen Nelson play, but he's local and a fine athlete. He would not play QB here and maybe thats what they told him he could do there. Kelley on the other hand is a FREAK athlete. I've watched that kid play since he was a sophomore on Varsity making big time plays. He plays QB for his team, is more of a runner than a passer, but I think with Harrell and Company he'd be worth a shot for his redshirt freshman year to see if he has what it takes. If he did not pan out that first year then move him to outside WR and watch him tear teams up.

Withers940 · June 26, 2016

A long time from signing day and not all these kids will stick with their committed schools

GMG_Dallas · June 26, 2016

You left off texas with 7, tcu with 8, a&m I think has 13. Point is, it's great for all of the mentioned schools to be doing great on the recruiting trail but it's too early to look at class size as an indication of recruiting success. Other than UH, most will not make a bowl. We've been adding really good late 2016 recruits so it's not like the staff is doing nothing. They just want to win now to attract better hs recruits. I'm not worried.

Edited June 26, 2016 by GMG_Dallas

TheReal_jayD · June 26, 2016

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

You left off texas with 7, tcu with 8, a&m I think has 13. Point is, it's great for all of the mentioned schools to be doing great on the recruiting trail but it's too early to look at class size as an indication of recruiting success. Other than UH, most will not make a bowl. We've been adding really good late 2016 recruits so it's not like the staff is doing nothing. They just want to win now to attract better hs recruits. I'm not worried.

I just put the G5 schools.

And to clarify. I am not worried I believe Seth and Co. are very looking for a their type of players not just throwing out schollys to get numbers. With leach type systems and almost every where Seth has been his teams have competed for conferance championships but not lead recruiting rankings for conference. Tech, Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina. So I have faith in them and by the time NSD rolls around I think we will be excited. Especailly if they can get to 6 wins this year and a bowl.

GMG_Dallas · June 26, 2016

9 minutes ago, TheReal_jayD said:

I just put the G5 schools.

And to clarify. I am not worried I believe Seth and Co. are very looking for a their type of players not just throwing out schollys to get numbers. With leach type systems and almost every where Seth has been his teams have competed for conferance championships but not lead recruiting rankings for conference. Tech, Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina. So I have faith in them and by the time NSD rolls around I think we will be excited. Especailly if they can get to 6 wins this year and a bowl.

I see. Understood and I agrre!

GangGreen · June 28, 2016

Just a guess, but it seems like they have really been putting more effort into shoring up next year's team first. Maybe now that they have pretty much closed up the 16 class with all of the JUCO players they will begin to focus on the 17 class.

untcampbell · June 28, 2016

You probably know this but Coach mentioned that he has 68 players on scholarship. Real shock to me. Depth will be a huge issue. Shoring up with blue shirts since NSD.

GMG

TreeFiddy · June 28, 2016

^^^

Does this number jive with the scholarship spreadsheet on this board? I am pretty sure that SL mentioned the number was 68 after counting the incoming 2016 class. That would mean we were down to about 45-50 players after last year. Hard to believe it was that bad but just more evidence that Mac had quit if true.

MeanGreenTexan · June 28, 2016

On 6/26/2016 at 2:29 PM, TheReal_jayD said:

I just put the G5 schools.

And to clarify. I am not worried I believe Seth and Co. are very looking for a their type of players not just throwing out schollys to get numbers. With leach type systems and almost every where Seth has been his teams have competed for conferance championships but not lead recruiting rankings for conference. Tech, Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina. So I have faith in them and by the time NSD rolls around I think we will be excited. Especailly if they can get to 6 wins this year and a bowl.

If Littrell does that in 1 season, he likely wont be here next year.

baberuthbomber8 · June 28, 2016

doubt Littrell gets bigger offers then UNT after 1 year, even if we only win 6 games and bowl.. bc of the buyout that the other school would have to pay would be sizable, and if that happened i could possibly see SL getting a slight rise or maybe he has stuff that will kick in as a bonus already in his contract.

Edited June 28, 2016 by baberuthbomber8

MeanGreenTexan · June 28, 2016

11 minutes ago, baberuthbomber8 said:

doubt Littrell gets bigger offers then UNT after 1 year, even if we only win 6 games and bowl.. bc of the buyout that the other school would have to pay would be sizable, and if that happened i could possibly see SL getting a slight rise or maybe he has stuff that will kick in as a bonus already in his contract.

I don't think his buyout is very big.

If a guy that is already perceived as "up-and-coming" turns a 1-win team into a 6-win team in 1 season, you'd better believe some well-off teams that don't need to worry about a $500k buyout clause will kick the tires.

Wag Tag · June 28, 2016

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I don't think his buyout is very big.

If a guy that is already perceived as "up-and-coming" turns a 1-win team into a 6-win team in 1 season, you'd better believe some well-off teams that don't need to worry about a $500k buyout clause will kick the tires.

Not on 1 year! Now the assistants are a different story! Have success hold onto Eckler and Graham because if Seth is gone these 2 guys could be potential replacements. From what I have seen up to this point!

MeanGreenTexan · June 28, 2016

5 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

Not on 1 year! Now the assistants are a different story! Have success hold onto Eckler and Graham because if Seth is gone these 2 guys could be potential replacements. From what I have seen up to this point!

Hugh Freeze was only HC at Arkansas State for 1 season before Ole Miss scooped him up.

baberuthbomber8 · June 29, 2016

I think SL is very happy here at UNT.. And I would think we have a larger amount then 500K as a buyout.

But I do agree, if the defense does well, and the offense as well. I beat we could see Harrell and Ekler leave possibly.. :/

TreeFiddy · June 29, 2016

The low number of HS commits so far could be due to the number of jucos/transfers the staff plans on targeting. We already know the numbers of scholarship players is low (68) and the depth is very thin. To compound this, we have roughly 25 seniors on the roster (not all scholarship) that will likely be moving on after the semester. Many of these players are contributors that will need to be replaced. We may have bought a little bit of time with the jucos that we brought in this year, but remember that we have already borrowed numbers from next year's class as well.

Let's say that we sign 6 blue shirts that count against the 2017 class (not sure the are all blue shirts, but: Jenkins, Hoston, Thomas, Wyche, Jackson, O'Hara). That leaves us with 19 spots. If we go heavy on jucos again (we signed 7 this past mid term/spring), that leaves us with roughly 12 spots for HS players. We already have 3 committed, which could be about 25% of our class.

With such a large number of seniors set to graduate and many holes to fill, the staff may have no choice but to keep riding the juco/transfer hamster wheel. However, if we hit on several of the incoming jucos/transfers it might allow the staff to add a few more HS players.