Here Is What Recruiting Success Would Look Like

Ben Gooding · July 4, 2017

19 hours ago, KRAM1 said:

My goal would be to have the players we DO recruit win football games, keep their grades up, be involved in no off field legal situations, be role models for other athletes and represent UNT is a positive light.

Not asking much, huh? Please note...nowhere did I mention being seen as a "star rated" athlete before ever playing a down of college football.

But, I understand the point others are trying to make about recruiting. Just don't much care until I see them play. Or, where some of these "higher rated" athletes transfer to after year one or two at their "chosen" places. :-)

You didn't need to mention stars, because you mentioned this here in the bold. Many times, it goes hand in hand. Have we been winning these last 10 years? No, not really. Have we recruited well? No, not really. One has to give in to allow the other to happen, and it's easier to win with better recruits than it is to win without them. We should be subject matter A on this, for the long history of UNT football has proven this to be accurate.

SilverEagle · July 4, 2017

This may not be the ideal place to put this, but here goes. It was brought to my attention that we could have been in the mix for this young man, had we only made the effort.....

http://www.scout.com/college/southern-methodist/story/1783062-will-hopkins-commits-to-smu

Now, assuming that he was a possibility (the story seems to indicate otherwise), then is this one year graduate O-lineman, even from a P-12 school, a better option for us than this young man?.....

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/jevin_pahinui_1037638.html

or this young man?....

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/chad_hickson_1037641.html

or this young man?...

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/riley_mayfield_1046533.html

Some people seem to think that schools like SMU and LaTech are picking up back-up support players (or even possible starters) from Macy's clearance sales, whilst we are getting our back-ups from garage sales.

Is this a grossly exaggerated analogy? Someone please tell me it is.

Ben Gooding · July 5, 2017

10 hours ago, SilverEagle said:

This may not be the ideal place to put this, but here goes. It was brought to my attention that we could have been in the mix for this young man, had we only made the effort.....

http://www.scout.com/college/southern-methodist/story/1783062-will-hopkins-commits-to-smu

Now, assuming that he was a possibility (the story seems to indicate otherwise), then is this one year graduate O-lineman, even from a P-12 school, a better option for us than this young man?.....

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/jevin_pahinui_1037638.html

or this young man?....

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/chad_hickson_1037641.html

or this young man?...

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/riley_mayfield_1046533.html

Some people seem to think that schools like SMU and LaTech are picking up back-up support players (or even possible starters) from Macy's clearance sales, whilst we are getting our back-ups from garage sales.

Is this a grossly exaggerated analogy? Someone please tell me it is.

Role players, no. Difference makers, yes. A handful of play makers sprinkled around an entire team can win games at this level because we're all picking up role/support players from garage sales. Difference is, La Tech and SMU can shop at Macy's with relative success while we get our card declined far more often than not.

MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF · July 5, 2017

13 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

Role players, no. Difference makers, yes. A handful of play makers sprinkled around an entire team can win games at this level because we're all picking up role/support players from garage sales. Difference is, La Tech and SMU can shop at Macy's with relative success while we get our card declined far more often than not.

I'd tap the brakes on SMU until they can string together at least one or two winning seasons like they did under June Jones. Over there, you are talking about a coach who inherited players already familiar with a spread offense, but who have yet to have a winning season or bowl appearance.

SMU Jesus is still more talk than anything else.

MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF · July 5, 2017

On 7/3/2017 at 5:43 PM, techdawg88 said:

Tech pulled their offer to Bean after Aaron Allen committed a few weeks ago

We've already posted that. The point was that Bean was a recruit sought after by legitimate coaching staffs, such as Louisiana Tech's and Colorado State's, not just FCS and Division II schools - which has become a problem for us.

Caw Caw · July 5, 2017

Serious question I still haven't seen answered...

WHY on paper should we be beating x g5 team for recruits when almost all of them having winning records vs us among a ton of other things. Conference Championships, head-to-head, average wins per season, more nfl players over the last two decades, actual drafted players, payouts, local, etc.

I understand why being in 60-80 range, but what have we done to entice someone to play for us since the dickey era? We've been a bottom dwelling g5. That isn't going to change over night. And, to get ahead of the "kids don't know enough about where they go" that might have been true in the 80s, but they can access our history in 10 minutes on their phone.

greenminer · July 5, 2017

3 minutes ago, Caw Caw said:

Serious question I still haven't seen answered...

WHY on paper should we be beating x g5 team for recruits when almost all of them having winning records vs us among a ton of other things. Conference Championships, head-to-head, average wins per season, more nfl players over the last two decades, actual drafted players, payouts, local, etc.

I understand why being in 60-80 range, but what have we done to entice someone to play for us since the dickey era? We've been a bottom dwelling g5. That isn't going to change over night. And, to get ahead of the "kids don't know enough about where they go" that might have been true in the 80s, but they can access our history in 10 minutes on their phone.

If G5 vs. G5 records were a big deal on the recruiting trail, you'd have a point. But here we are, watching other teams with equal or less records, lesser facilities, lesser budgets, haul in much better recruits.

I think there's some weight to what you're saying, but it is down the priority list below other factors like a staff's salesmanship (UTSA), the school's media presence, etc...

One more general rule: these kids don't remember your failings beyond 4 or 5 years (at most). @BillySee58 has explained this "turnover" in memory better, in regards to recruits and our history.

Caw Caw · July 5, 2017

2 hours ago, greenminer said:

One more general rule: these kids don't remember your failings beyond 4 or 5 years (at most). @BillySee58 has explained this "turnover" in memory better, in regards to recruits and our history.

I would buy it a little better were we not in the information age. Even UTSA has a better heads up record than us and better season every year but 2013 when they beat us to knock us out of title contention. Sure he's selling for but be sure he's selling against. If I recruited against us I'd say... "You want to be successful, right? Good North Texas Football and tell me if that's what success looks like to you. If it is, maybe you'd be a better fit there than in our program"

Ever seen kids argue these days, always settled by the iphone quick-google/wiki.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Caw Caw

Ben Gooding · July 5, 2017

3 hours ago, Caw Caw said:

Serious question I still haven't seen answered...

WHY on paper should we be beating x g5 team for recruits when almost all of them having winning records vs us among a ton of other things. Conference Championships, head-to-head, average wins per season, more nfl players over the last two decades, actual drafted players, payouts, local, etc.

I understand why being in 60-80 range, but what have we done to entice someone to play for us since the dickey era? We've been a bottom dwelling g5. That isn't going to change over night. And, to get ahead of the "kids don't know enough about where they go" that might have been true in the 80s, but they can access our history in 10 minutes on their phone.

The same damn way all the other G5's get out of their funks.

6 hours ago, MeanGreenMailbox said:

I'd tap the brakes on SMU until they can string together at least one or two winning seasons like they did under June Jones. Over there, you are talking about a coach who inherited players already familiar with a spread offense, but who have yet to have a winning season or bowl appearance.

SMU Jesus is still more talk than anything else.

I'm just referring to their recruiting success.

And, unfortunately, expect said recruiting to pay dividends for them this year. I just hope it's not at our expense.

BillySee58 · July 6, 2017

2 hours ago, Caw Caw said:

I would buy it a little better were we not in the information age. Even UTSA has a better heads up record than us and better season every year but 2013 when they beat us to knock us out of title contention. Sure he's selling for but be sure he's selling against. If I recruited against us I'd say... "You want to be successful, right? Good North Texas Football and tell me if that's what success looks like to you. If it is, maybe you'd be a better fit there than in our program"

Ever seen kids argue these days, always settled by the iphone quick-google/wiki.

Recruits have had access to google for almost 20 years. The point is, at the beginning of their recruitment what they know of college football is Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, USC, and the other big-time programs and players they have seen on national television over the past 5 years or so.

At the point where we start recruiting them, we can really dictate what their image of UNT is. Sure they can look at our past records on google, but what happened under previous staffs when they were in elementary school or before is not nearly as important to the vast majority of recruits as what is going to happen when they are in college. It is up to coaches as recruiters to sell the recruits on their program and iteration of UNT football.

If the vast majority of recruits we go after are more concerned with how bad our program was before they were even paying attention, and that turns them off from our program then that's on our coaches for not being able to successfully sell the current program to them.

BTG_Fan1 · July 6, 2017

16 hours ago, MeanGreenMailbox said:

We've already posted that. The point was that Bean was a recruit sought after by legitimate coaching staffs, such as Louisiana Tech's and Colorado State's, not just FCS and Division II schools - which has become a problem for us.

GH and SL have been in this scheme and offense nearly their entire playing and coaching careers. They know how to find and indentify kids with traits to play in this scheme. Adding a kid like Martin with 0 other offers isn't the fault of UNT.

QBs are almost always one of the earlier commits to a class with schools going off Sophmore and Jr tape. Martin only had JR tape, leading to schools not having him on there radar for them not to offer. Yes this is one case of the many cases, but again. This staff is finding kids that are right for the scheme and right for the program. We can try selling to kids that are highly rated but at the end of the day those kids don't want to come to UNT right now because of what we lack in terms of production, degrees that they are interested in, facilities, track-record, etc.

13 hours ago, greenminer said:

If G5 vs. G5 records were a big deal on the recruiting trail, you'd have a point. But here we are, watching other teams with equal or less records, lesser facilities, lesser budgets, haul in much better recruits.

I think there's some weight to what you're saying, but it is down the priority list below other factors like a staff's salesmanship (UTSA), the school's media presence, etc...

One more general rule: these kids don't remember your failings beyond 4 or 5 years (at most). @BillySee58 has explained this "turnover" in memory better, in regards to recruits and our history.

While the records are not a big deal its one of many factors that add up.

UNT getting wrecked by Portland State hurt us. I've said it before but local HS have better facilities than we do which can hurt us. The lack of new shiny bells and whistles as well. The lack of on field production in terms of stats and NFL Draft success hurts. We can talk about budgets but under RV the AD Office didn't have a suitable budget, when players are having to buy cleats or you can't even water practice fields its bad. Kids don't want to go places that are on the decline or just staying where they are, they wanna go to up and coming places and UNT can be that but it needs to improve its image.

We also can talk about the staff's salesmanship, and yes it can be improved but SL has last 4 coaches to P5 jobs in KP, Leblanc, Davis and Ek (2 to the SEC, 1 to Big 12, and 1 to ACC, with KP going from Big12 to ACC this upcoming year.) and Perry to Nevada. But we don't know what this current staff can do, they are still getting settled into their jobs and trying to find a messages that do work. GH and Biagi landed us Martin, Mainford got us Bean. Brown has brought in quality kids. Koonz as well seems to be a solid recruiter with Langston having ties to the state before and Yellock coming from the NFL (while it was a minor job, it still says NFL).

Football is a team game which is helped by having talent, not having the group of super talented kids that can't play as a team. If it was based off talent you wouldn't see schools like TCU upset WISC, or UH beat FSU. Its about a team game and SL and this staff proved they could play a team game enough last year to get us to a bowl.

7 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

Recruits have had access to google for almost 20 years. The point is, at the beginning of their recruitment what they know of college football is Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, USC, and the other big-time programs and players they have seen on national television over the past 5 years or so.

At the point where we start recruiting them, we can really dictate what their image of UNT is. Sure they can look at our past records on google, but what happened under previous staffs when they were in elementary school or before is not nearly as important to the vast majority of recruits as what is going to happen when they are in college. It is up to coaches as recruiters to sell the recruits on their program and iteration of UNT football.

If the vast majority of recruits we go after are more concerned with how bad our program was before they were even paying attention, and that turns them off from our program then that's on our coaches for not being able to successfully sell the current program to them.

I understand the whole buil the image and that, and it has worked with us getting kids to commit even ever before they show up to visit the campus. But we need to do more here on campus for them once they get here. UNT is really bad at marketing the program and the school to some degree. Adding/upgrading the facilities are important because its more bells and whistles and the shiny things that kids can see and brag about. UNT should already have up statues of Joe Greene and Haynes and King, but we don't and these guys are major assets that the program and school could be using. Things like this will leave something with a recruit after they visit, just like how we have seen kids be impressed and talk about other schools locker rooms, when it has no outcome on the production on the field.

UNT is a fall back because its unknown or only known because of a student knowing an alumni. Yes we need the coaches to get better at selling UNT, but UNT can help them by improving and increasing the knowledge of how well known UNT is. What really hurts us, is being viewed as the fall back, and then some combination of no new/cutting edge/ lack of facilities (we can talk about Apogee but after that we haven't done much else to concern Football recruits), HS staff viewing UNT negatively because of lack of outreach by previous staffs, lack of production on the field/ off the field as well, and some kids lacking/not finding degrees that they want as well.

Yes the coaches can build a nice narrative about the program and we can tell the parents and the player about the great education, but the bells and whistles while they aren't huge factors they do add up. Just getting some facilities and improving some things will get us on par with other schools.We have seen them show off images of the IPF (at camps), and this staff reaching out to HS Staffs (Beans Coaches) that hadn't been reached out to before. Turning this around yes is a slow process, and its worrisome because it could be moving faster but we don't know why they are delaying things but the signs are there. We have to trust in SL, he got us to a bowl game and has lost 4 coaches from this past season and 5 in total during his time at UNT.

UNTLifer · July 6, 2017

Reading the article on Martin's commitment tells me a lot. He mentioned how the campus was nice and he was shocked at the size of the school. He had no idea. Many kids that have not been on campus, or do not live close to Denton have no idea and just lump us in with the likes of Sam Houston, SFA, etc... because of our history with them. Getting kid to visit is huge.

Add that to the coaches developing relationships with the schools, comments of the head coach in Mansfield from the Bean commitment article, will do wonders to help our recruiting.

That and winning.

Cerebus · July 6, 2017

2 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Reading the article on Martin's commitment tells me a lot. He mentioned how the campus was nice and he was shocked at the size of the school. He had no idea. Many kids that have not been on campus, or do not live close to Denton have no idea

A lot of alumni are not understanding this. Yes, NT has been a big factor in their lives. If you grew up in DFW you at least know of it. However in other areas of the state no on has that exposure.

When I came here in the 90s no one in West Texas knew where the hell i was going. It might as well have been Lamar. Around the Dickey Bowl years more people out there heard of us, but those years are long gone now. When I tell HS kids in West Texas to take a look at NT, they have no idea who we are for the most part. They don't even know it exists to be googled.

Success in sports is a powerful marketing tool, and we have been overall awful in the major sports for a long time.

MeanGreenTexan · July 6, 2017

15 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

Recruits have had access to google for almost 20 years. The point is, at the beginning of their recruitment what they know of college football is Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, USC, and the other big-time programs and players they have seen on national television over the past 5 years or so.

At the point where we start recruiting them, we can really dictate what their image of UNT is. Sure they can look at our past records on google, but what happened under previous staffs when they were in elementary school or before is not nearly as important to the vast majority of recruits as what is going to happen when they are in college. It is up to coaches as recruiters to sell the recruits on their program and iteration of UNT football.

If the vast majority of recruits we go after are more concerned with how bad our program was before they were even paying attention, and that turns them off from our program then that's on our coaches for not being able to successfully sell the current program to them.

Yep. And most guys who are good enough to get D1 offers, have likely been dominating their level of play since pee-wee. So naturally, by their Jr year of H.S. they think the offers from those P5 schools will come rolling in, and when they don't, they have to start researching the G5 schools that DO offer. And they're not going to look back at Dickey's bowl run, just like they won't look back a Dodge's horrific run. It's all about what have you done lately, and what are you going to do in the next 4-5 yrs?

MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF · July 6, 2017

11 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

A lot of alumni are not understanding this. Yes, NT has been a big factor in their lives. If you grew up in DFW you at least know of it. However in other areas of the state no on has that exposure.

When I came here in the 90s no one in West Texas knew where the hell i was going. It might as well have been Lamar. Around the Dickey Bowl years more people out there heard of us, but those years are long gone now. When I tell HS kids in West Texas to take a look at NT, they have no idea who we are for the most part. They don't even know it exists to be googled.

Success in sports is a powerful marketing tool, and we have been overall awful in the major sports for a long time.

Not just awful on the field, but in terms of "seizing the momentum" when things did go right - Dickey's bowl streak, Johnny Jones' winning season streak - it all went nowhere.