Foundation of This Team - 2016-2018 Recruiting

[BillySee58]

Watching the game last night I couldn’t help but think back to Littrell’s first three recruiting classes. We don’t have many Mccarney recruits left and a lot of the JUCOs we signed early on are gone. In year four we’re at the stage where we are leaning on the early high school signees to be the upperclassmen and leaders of the team.

According to 247, the 2016 class was ranked 8th in CUSA, the 2017 class was ranked 11th, and the 2018 class was ranked 8th. And by my metrics based on offers, these classes were even a little below the last two Mccarney signed. 

The turnaround since then is well documented but those guys from the 2019 and 2020 class are years away from being the upperclassmen of our roster. What also hurts is that we only signed, by my count, 10 high school signees in that first class in 2016. It was always a peculiar decision to go so JUCO/transfer heavy right away in a rebuild. And while some of it definitely paid off early, it definitely would be nice to have another 5-10 seniors and redshirt juniors, especially at some of the positions where we are not looking great.

At this point the roster is what it is. We are recruiting better at most positions, and that took time to turnaround our reputation. We have won the last two years without having great depth, and we’re going to have to do so this year as well. All this to say I don’t need to go into detail on where the team needs to improve, but based on recruiting results this team should be an average to slightly below average CUSA roster with a really good QB and that’s what we’ve looked like this year.

 

[FirefightnRick]

What I’d like to know is how many of the 17 transfers SMU brought in started or played last night?

Seems to me if they got a majority of the snaps then they were the difference from last years team to this one,...negating any reason to ever heavily recruit high school kids again.

I know of one without checking..Buechelle.

 

Rick

Edited September 8, 2019 by FirefightnRick

[TheColonyEagle]

  On 9/8/2019 at 2:40 PM, FirefightnRick said:

What I’d like to know is how many of the 17 transfers SMU brought in started or played last night?

Seems to me if they got a majority of the snaps then they were the difference from last years team to this one,...negating any reason to ever heavily recruit high school kids again.

I know of one without checking..Buechelle.

 

Rick

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And the corner from UCLA that was in Bussey’s jockstrap ALL NIGHT

[FirefightnRick]

  On 9/8/2019 at 2:44 PM, TheColonyEagle said:

And the corner from UCLA that was in Bussey’s jockstrap ALL NIGHT

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Ok that’s two.  Any more?  I’ll have to get on something better than my phone to list them out.

 

Rick

[CMJ]

It seemed like the TV broadcast mentioned at least 5-6 more.  I'm not sure, they loved the topic of how he was building his team from transfers though.

Edited September 8, 2019 by CMJ

[LongJim]

Biggest difference for SMU last night was their QB play.  But some of us warned that would be the case.

[LongJim]

To Billy's point--as long as the QB play stays high, I think the recruiting results of the last couple of years is going to start to pay off.

Edited September 8, 2019 by LongJim

[TheColonyEagle]

There's still a lot of season left...but if this works out for SMU....Dykes will be starting a trend for G5s

Transfers are going to continue to be more prevalent

 

[H-towngreen]

In this day of the transfer portal, I’m a huge advocate of adding pieces thru it.

[American_Patriot]

  On 9/8/2019 at 2:44 PM, TheColonyEagle said:

And the corner from UCLA that was in Bussey’s jockstrap ALL NIGHT

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When a receiver gets two targets you cannot assess a corner had the receiver on lockdown. Bussey only had two targets due to Mason not getting the ball out quick enough.

[MGNation92]

An even more worrisome thought:

Those same 2016-2018 recruits for UTSA are in the same boat, except Frank Wilson recruited much better than Littrell those years, and now they have their QB.

I seriously wouldn't be surprised if we went into Houston at 1-3

[TheColonyEagle]

  On 9/8/2019 at 8:28 PM, American_Patriot said:

When a receiver gets two targets you cannot assess a corner had the receiver on lockdown. Bussey only had two targets due to Mason not getting the ball out quick enough.

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He didn’t get the ball out quick enough because no one was open 

 

[American_Patriot]

I disagree with that premise as he had several attempts, but rolled to his right looking for something to develop. When has one on one coverage prevented a QB not to throw the ball to a top receiver?

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

  On 9/8/2019 at 8:28 PM, American_Patriot said:

When a receiver gets two targets you cannot assess a corner had the receiver on lockdown. Bussey only had two targets due to Mason not getting the ball out quick enough.

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Well if the O line would give him more time, he could actually hit Bussey

[Mean Green Matt]

  On 9/8/2019 at 8:57 PM, TheColonyEagle said:

He didn’t get the ball out quick enough because no one was open 

 

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A lot of things were bad for us last night INCLUDING Mason’s play. SMU played good defense but he missed a lot of throws you just can’t miss in a game like that. 

[American_Patriot]

Seems like the aggregate of folks do not want to critique the Heisman candidate. In order to grow and become a high power team it is paramount to address all issues.

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

  On 9/8/2019 at 9:46 PM, Mean Green Matt said:

A lot of things were bad for us last night INCLUDING Mason’s play. SMU played good defense but he missed a lot of throws you just can’t miss in a game like that. 

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It's not easy to get a good throw when SMU defenders are in your face

[TheColonyEagle]

To a few points above. Mason fine certainly did not look like Mason Fine last night. The whole team played badly.

 

Including Mason Fine. 

I’m gonna say he would agree with that. 

Edited September 9, 2019 by TheColonyEagle

[Mean Green Matt]

  On 9/8/2019 at 11:10 PM, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

It's not easy to get a good throw when SMU defenders are in your face

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We can either be realistic about his performance or not. I love mason. But his play was a big part of why we lost so badly. I would not be shocked at all if he comes back and has an all conference season. 

[Big Z]

  On 9/8/2019 at 9:31 PM, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

Well if the O line would give him more time, he could actually hit Bussey

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This comment lol 

[MeanMag]

  On 9/8/2019 at 10:05 PM, American_Patriot said:

Seems like the aggregate of folks do not want to critique the Heisman candidate. In order to grow and become a high power team it is paramount to address all issues.

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Luckily, we fans don't have to address the issues. We have coaches to do that job.

We just get to eat food, drink beer, donate and arm chair critique the best QB in school history.

Don't know that the growing into a higher power team is as much on us as it is the coaches and players. This is their team. They are the ones that will make it whatever it is.

[American_Patriot]

Negative or positive dialogue matters. This forum is here for this purpose to express thoughts and opinions. The ”Best QB in School history” can be critiqued and it can be negative despite the masses who disagree. 

[greenminer]

  On 9/8/2019 at 3:09 PM, LongJim said:

To Billy's point--as long as the QB play stays high, I think the recruiting results of the last couple of years is going to start to pay off.

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we have 4 years of Seth and now a new OC that came with promises of TE use. Yet here we are, making questionable calls on 3rd and short and just...overall.  I think maybe we have seen Seth max out on philosophy and culture.  The only factor left to help us get over this hump is the up-tick in Jimmy-Joe’s.

this has been my one optimistic thought the last 24 hours.

Edited September 9, 2019 by greenminer

[untjim1995]

Last year's recruiting class was the first one since Dickey's great recruiting class in 2000ish that had TX HS recruits choosing us over legitimate G5 programs and being ranked fairly high in CUSA. It will pay off dividends later, but only if we have both a solid QB and a solid HFC. Otherwise, we will look like some combo of Dodge's teams (good QBs with no head coach) or Mac's teams (worst collection of QBs once DT left)...

[ntmeangreen11]

I wanted to make this exact topic Saturday I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I have been pointing this out all year amongst the kool-aid posts. We have missed in evaluating offensive and defensive linemen as well as linebackers, that much is easy to see but I can't get over how few DL players we have signed out of high school. 2016-1 2017-2(one gone) 2018- 2 (one gone) 2019- 3 (finally!) 2020- 2 commits. Trying to cover up those misses with JUCO players who don't have good offer sheets but have FBS ready bodies has not worked. They are getting pushed in to our young linebackers who are going to need a season to figure things out. I am not trashing the Davis boys I love that we are putting an emphasis on fast linebackers but we signed zero high school linebackers in Seth's first class (2016) and signed two in the second.. Thornton who has never seen the field and Fulp who left the program. That's hard to overcome.

This defense lost 4 (four!) guys who made it to NFL camps and we are now paying for missing so badly in 2016 and 2017 on front seven players. I still think we can have a good season against CUSA teams and possibly finish with 8 wins. I just hope we don't shit the bed and get stomped in a bowl game again.