Non-auto Bid Recruiting Averages

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

I have averaged the Rivals Ratings for the 54 "Mid-Major" football teams from the latest signing period with these results, ranked in desciending order:

5.511 Southern Miss

5.473 Utah

5.404 Brigham Young

5.400 Central Florida

5.360 TCU

5.339 Tulsa

5.338 Marshall

5.335 North Texas

5.335 Fresno State

5.313 Middle Tennessee

5.311 Houston

5.276 San Diego St

5.274 Western Michigan

5.268 Colorado St

5.258 Boise St

5.256 Louisiana Tech

5.248 Toledo

5.246 SMU

5.230 New Mexico

5.224 Troy

5.223 Kent St

5.222 Wyoming

5.221 Memphis

5.218 Nevada

5.214 UL-Monroe

5.212 Temple

5.200 Akron

5.192 UAB

5.179 East Carolina

5.178 Miami OH

5.177 Ohio

5.173 Central Michigan

5.171 Rice

5.168 Tulane

5.165 Air Force

5.163 FIU

5.157 Navy

5.154 UTEP

5.141 New Mexico St

5.135 Florida Atlantic

5.126 UNLV

5.119 UL-Lafayette

5.100 Army

5.100 Western Kentucky

5.088 Bowling Green

5.088 San Jose St

5.081 Ball St

5.081 Idaho

5.081 Utah St

5.077 Northern Illinois

5.058 Arkansas St

5.048 Eastern Michigan

5.035 Buffalo

4.959 Hawaii

We tied for 8th with Fresno which is pretty heady since the schools around us all had winning records. TCU finished in 5th place. They had some quality recruits but only took 13, which is why they didn't show up well on other polls. SMU came on strong at the end. They didn't do quite as well as we did but considering their late start, they might pose some problems next year. However, a number of their higher rated players were from out-of-state.

The Sun Belt ended up third of the five conferences, pretty solid. Here is a list of the conference averages:

Mountain West 5.280

Conference USA 5.269

Sun Belt 5.195

Western Athletic 5.157

Mid-American 5.155

Even if Western Kentucky's 5.100 had been included in our conference figures we would still have finished third. ULM did weel considering their circumstances as did FIU. Howie can blame it on early signings but the fact is he just didn't do very well; especially coming off of a bowl win.