Thoughts on UNT's FB Signing Class

[Harry]

Well, we have reached the bitter end.

Signing day is once again in the books.

So how did it go for UNT?

I've got an opinion, but first a disclaimer.

My take is based solely on a few key factors. What other teams offered the players UNT signed? How did those players do in high school as far as production and landing on all-district/all-state teams? And, of course, how are those players ranked among their peers nationally?

I haven't seen these guys play.

You could tell what Dan McCarney's opinion was today when the topic of rankings was broached. It was a long answer, but the gist of it all was that he believes in his evaluations and those of his staff. He does not care one iota what anyone else who ranks players thinks.

I sure as heck hope that's what he thinks. UNT is paying McCarney and his staff in the neighborhood of 2 million bucks a year to know more than everyone else when it comes to evaluating and coaching players.

But back to the point.

In my humble opinion, after having talked to several of the players and their coaches, I think UNT did a solid job. I would give this class a B.

Boone Feldt is one of the best high school linemen UNT has landed in years -- maybe since Nick Zuniga. Fellow offensive lineman Connor Trussell had an offer from New Mexico, and apparently late interest from SMU.

The star power of this batch is in the defensive backfield. Xavier Kelly is a three-star cornerback who had options, Devante Davis is another three-star guy who could have gone to Louisiana Tech, Coppell's David Busby was UNT's only player in the DMN Area Top 100. DQ Johnson is a three-star JUCO defensive back who decommitted from Akron.

Read More: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/archives/2012/02/thoughts-on-unts-class-1.html

[SHOSS]

Read More: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/archives/2012/02/thoughts-on-unts-class-1.html

I think this is a fair assessment. Now, the question is, "Will this coaching staff get more than expected with this young men?"

Yes, if they were rated better, I would be crowing right now. As of now, I am just happy we have this coaching staff. I am pleased that everywhere but DT and DB we have to luxury of redshirting most of these kids...I think.

As DMAC said last night, as the program matures, it will be harder and harder for freshman to crack into playing time, much less the starting lineup.

We'll likely see some early contributors out of this group, but it is nice to think that we aren't going to have to rely on this group for the majority of the playing time...unless they earn it.

Another recruiting season in the books. On to 2013 recruiting...

See you all at some basketball games and the spring game. DMAC says the spring game is Sat, April 28th at 2:00. Can't Wait!

Go Mean Green!

[GrandGreen]

You would have to be grading on a huge curve, to give this class a "b". Let the boos and minuses begin, NT frankly got

it handed to them this year in recruiting. For those who believe ratings are a waste and nothing is known until years down the road, then there is obviously not much to discuss. Spare me all the great player stories who were lowly rated and turned out to be stars and all the highly ranked that were busts. Ratings are about probabilities not absolutes. Ratings are primarily a function of who is recruited who, not some big analysis of players done by the Rivals, Scout, etc. Logic dictates that coaching staffs with their future depending on their recruiting are going to be the best judges of talent.

What do those ranking say about NT. NT had a better recruiting class than just two Belt teams, ULM and MTSU. NT had,, five or six if you count grayshirts of three star athletes. This is not five years ago when a three was much more rare. FIU had 19 and ASU 16 last I looked, so it is hard to argue that the Belt is holding NT back. Newcomer Texas State had 10 threes including 2 with ratings higher than any NT recruit. McCarney states he cares nothing about the rankings and I don't doubt him; but if he had the highest rated class: I got a feeling he would be selling that fact big time.

NT definitely limped in at the finish, losing three of their most touted recruits and lost out on other targets. It is human nature to read bios and watch highlight film and conclude gee this guy can play and frankly any player that gets a ship at any level has potential and probably was a great high school player. This class is loaded with small school recruits, maybe the most I have seen. One of NT staff stated on the recruiting chat that makes no difference. Baloney, the competition is less and therefore it is harder to evaluate their ability and it is a much greater leap to college ball than an average 4 or 5a player is going to have to navigate.

Every NT signee made the right decision and has an opportunity to be a great contributor to the team. Hopefully, McCarney and staff are great evaluators and are much more adept at finding those players that have been relatively lightly recruited by others and can play at this level. There are a handful of players that a lot of teams would covet, but overall there are too many so called "sleepers" or "hidden gems" in this class. Some of these guys, are going to turn out to be great; the question is "are there enough to grow this program".

[unt_rocket09]

I tend to agree for the most part talent is in the 4a and 5a ranks but there are plenty of small school stars. Stephen McGee, Jordan Shipley, Colt McCoy, Jeremy Kerley, DE from TCU a few years back, Case Keenum, Pat Edwards. I could on and on. 3a and 2a players have talent too. Just have to find them.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Yeah, small school guys never work out.

Patrick Cobbs, Tecumseh, OK

Brandon Kennedy, Terrell, TX

Craig Jones, Sinton, TX

Jamario Thomas, Longview, TX

Andy Blout, Bandera, TX

Evan Cardwell, Hutto, TX

Jason May, Graham, TX

Jeremy Pearl, Parkville, MO

Jeremiah Chapman, China Spring, TX

Brandon Monroe, Elektra, TX

Brock Stickler, Lampasas, TX

Derek Mendoza, Hereford, TX

Sky Pruitt, Hayden Lake, ID (pop. 574 as of 2010)

Michael Pruitt, El Reno, OK

Casey Fitzgerald, Red Oak, TX

Are we really this unwise to think guys from small places can't be great football players? Come on guys. We built four consecutive bowl teams with many, if not most, contributors coming from smaller schools.

Coaching. Don't take your focus off of the coaching. Once you take your focus off of football, you start believing that you don't need a college football plan or a high school football plan, but just a football plan.

Coach McCarney knows what he's doing. He won as many games in his first season here as Darrell Dickey and Todd Dodge did their their first seasons combined.

What did you think the guy was going to do? Walk into the homes of five star recruits pledged months and years in advance to OU and Texas and waste his time?

The guy is building this thing, and he's getting the players he needs to do it. Running around acting like city kids are automatically better than kids "in the sticks" is preposterous.

Give the man his due.

Edited February 2, 2012 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

Remember Bily Sims and Bob Lilly .... from very small towns..Hooks and Throckmorton.. Considering the size of those schools they may produce a higher percent of their graduating classes to the NCAA. The upper cutoff for AAA is now 1005.... AAA contains a lot of fairly large high schools.

[UNTLifer]

Jack Pardee: 6 Man Christoval, TX

Who did you want us to sign GrandGreen? Once again, these rating services spend all of their time on the "big-time" recruits

Rivals Top 100 2002

Rivals Top 100 2003

Rivals Top 100 2004

Rivals Top 100 2005

Interesting that in the above lists there are quite a few that have been extremely successful, but more often than not, they didn't live up to the ratings applied by the website.

[GrayEagle]

Of course there are exceptional players from smaller schools. There always have been and there always will be. But check the signings of the FBS teams and see how many are from 5A and 4A schools and how many are from the smaller schools. Not every favorite wins a horse race but those with the lowest odds usually have the best finishes. Mostly, if you can excel against tougher competition you have a better chance to move to the next level.

Fellows, we got our hats handed to us this recruiting season unless the recruiting staff knows something that others don't. Given their experience they probably did uncover some hidden jewels but mostly I think that they are going to have to "coach up" what they have. Unlike their predecessors I believe that the McCarney staff can do it.

Regardless, the talent in this recruiting does not rate a 'B'.

Edited February 2, 2012 by GrayEagle

[VideoEagle]

Years ago someone did the analysis that showed a clear bias in reciting rankings put out by the various "services." All of them are overrate schools with lots of alumni who subscribe to their services while under ranking school with lower subscription rates. I see no reason to believe accuracy has suddenly become more important than keeping the subscription rates up!

This is like predicting a schools record without any knowledge of whom they are going to be playing - since we DON'T know who we are going to be playing in five years.

[Mean Green 93-98]

What did you think the guy was going to do? Walk into the homes of five star recruits pledged months and years in advance to OU and Texas and waste his time?

Uhh, that's pretty much what he was doing last spring. Some of us were wondering why he was targeting all these 4-star players with offers from USC, Florida, Texas, and Bama when he could have been recruiting more realistic targets.

And by the way, your definition of "small town" and "small school" is pretty broad . . . I doubt anyone here thinks the 4A and 5A schools you mentioned are too small.

[GrandGreen]

Please show me were I stated a small town player couldn't be great. The point again, they are harder to evaluate and may take longer to adjust to competition at the college level. Obviously, there are a great number of small town even 6 man football players that turn out to be outstanding. If you think the same competition exist at Tyler Chapel Hill as Allen, then there is no use trying to make a point. Texas, LSU, OU, etc. all have small school recruits, but there is a reason that they don't have almost half their class from that geographic.

I wonder why when I stated very strongly that there were endless examples of low rated players being great and the opposite that someone would not consider the same thing applies to small versus big school athletes. I can assure you I can make a long list of NT recruits from small schools that didn't have a lot of success at NT. I can think of 4 wrs from one of Dodge's classes for example.

I am extremely confident that all NT recruits were well scouted and deserving at a chance to play college ball. The fact that NT took so many from smaller schools indicates to me that NT had to really hustle for talent that they could sign. Look at the write ups and see how few of NT recruits actually had other fb offers. I know NT creamed ULM and Akron but compare recruits with other Texas and Belt programs and you have to have really thick green glasses to conclude that NT excelled in recruiting this year.

I couldn't be happier that if in three to four years, we are all talking about how good this class turned out to be and was the foundation of great things happening at NT. I have some confidence in McCarney and crew and believe that is very possible. If you find this contradictory, it isn't entirely. NT out recruited few schools this year when it came to head to head offers. The unknown at this time is can this staff evaluate to the extent that can build a team with under the radar type recruits. Boise and TCU for example built their programs without winning a lot of early recruiting battles but built their team with sound evaluations and good player development.

Edited February 2, 2012 by GrandGreen

[UNTLifer]

I honestly don't see the point in rating these kids at this point. As I stated, Mac Brown has won many recruiting championships, but how many National Championships? Stating that we got it handed to us in recruiting is premature at best. I will always stand by my statement that says you will never know how good a player is until he has been in the program for a couple of years.

Too bad these young men that just committed to our university have to read this crap before even setting foot on campus.

Edited February 2, 2012 by UNTLifer

[bleedgreen4ever]

I don't know if anyone remembers, but how low and disregarded was ULL's team before the season started last year??? They were picked to be among the last teams in the belt! And go figure...they were the ONLY team from the belt that WON in a bowl game and against a good SDSU team! So please, spare your comments and predictions and leave it up to the coaching staff to get this team prepared.

[UNT90]

Why do I get the feeling that if TD had signed the exact same players, BV would be ripping this class apart.

Oh, thats right, because he would.

Not a shot at the class at all, just a shot at the thought process presented by BV in his blog on a constant basis.

[Harry]

Years ago someone did the analysis that showed a clear bias in reciting rankings put out by the various "services." All of them are overrate schools with lots of alumni who subscribe to their services while under ranking school with lower subscription rates. I see no reason to believe accuracy has suddenly become more important than keeping the subscription rates up!

This is like predicting a schools record without any knowledge of whom they are going to be playing - since we DON'T know who we are going to be playing in five years.

Bingo!

[GrandGreen]

I honestly don't see the point in rating these kids at this point. As I stated, Mac Brown has won many recruiting championships, but how many National Championships? Stating that we got it handed to us in recruiting is premature at best. I will always stand by my statement that says you will never know how good a player is until he has been in the program for a couple of years.

Too bad these young men that just committed to our university have to read this crap before even setting foot on campus.

I think the young men who committed to NT understand a lot more about were they stand in college football than you or I. Do you want to debate the 2008 recruiting class now that we have history to look at. My guess you thought they were an excellent class also.

Obviously, you disagree with my point of view: why not give me some valid rationale why I and all the recruiting services are wrong. Dismissing something as "crap" is not exactly strong debate. I have followed NT recruiting for a very long time, and know no matter who is signed; the majority is going to think the class is a step toward greatness. Don't give me a hundred examples of individual players who have busted or excelled counter to their rankings. Give me an example of a class that has excelled at NT, the only one I can think of since returning to the fb division; is the 2001 class I think, that contained 6 state one hundred picks. This year class contained one area 100 signee. You might want to actually look at other school's recruiting lists and see how they compare to NT. Take the emotion out and look at who they have signed versus NT. I have not looked lately but the only Texas schools in the same tier as NT are UTEP and UTSA. In the Belt which I don't think is as good a comparison because of the geographically differences; NT is a head of woeful ULM and perhaps the Muts. What are your opinions who else in Texas or the Belt do you think NT out recruited?

By the way I think you will have a very difficult time finding any posts of my that demean any athlete at NT. If you think collectively the team is not open to criticism than you might want to restrict your reading to the official site.

[Rudy]

As much as I'd love to have 4 and 5 star recruits, let's not forget that we have seen players rated at 3 stars only to magically be rated at 2 stars once they signed or even showed interest in us.

[foutsrouts]

Another factor to consider is that a lot of these small school kids don't benefit from the quality coaching, facilities, motivational big city adoration, and big-time publicity that many of the big school kids receive. Give those kids a year or two to mature in a quality D-1 system, and walla, some of those 2 and 3 stars suddenly turn into 3 and 4 stars.

The trick is obviously to find the guys with the right God-given talents, and the positive coachable attitudes who have only scratched the surface of their potential. At least with some of these "not so highly starred" recruits, I'm betting that Mac's evaluation skills will turn out to be right on the money.

[forevereagle]

Hey recruits, welcome to UNT.

[GrayEagle]

As much as I'd love to have 4 and 5 star recruits, let's not forget that we have seen players rated at 3 stars only to magically be rated at 2 stars once they signed or even showed interest in us.

Rudy, I must tell you bud, that I've seen a lot of ratings and I don't ever recall that happening. Now the opposite may be true. I certainly have seen their ratings raised because of who they committed to. Sometimes I feel though that they go back and review their data/film because they respect the coach (not necessarily the team) that offered. Rivals is especially bad about that. It seems that they give a rating before they have all of the facts. Other times I believe the ratings are raised because of the number and quality of the offers.

A main reason why we rated rather low this year was due to losing some pretty good quality in LaFrance, Tucker, and McDormin. The latter two may enroll in the spring of 2013 but don't take that to the bank.

As this staff's recruiting becomes a little more mainstream and respected, our ratings should improve.

[mean_green15]

I think it is safe to say the staff wanted to hang on to a few of the guys we lost at the end of the process. That said, compared to the Dodge classes, these guys have better frames and appear to be pretty athletic. None of it really matters until they buckle it up. Try and trust the guys we are paying.

Lets enjoy the some publicity that is fairly positive, before you go back to self loathing.

[Rudy]

Rudy, I must tell you bud, that I've seen a lot of ratings and I don't ever recall that happening.

It has. I've seen it numerous times.

[Daddy Dumpsalot]

I honestly don't see the point in rating these kids at this point. As I stated, Mac Brown has won many recruiting championships, but how many National Championships? Stating that we got it handed to us in recruiting is premature at best. I will always stand by my statement that says you will never know how good a player is until he has been in the program for a couple of years.

Too bad these young men that just committed to our university have to read this crap before even setting foot on campus.

We clearly need size and have needed size for the past x number of seasons. What was the largest player we signed this year? 6'3"? A good or bad signing day shouldn't be based on stars alone but how we filled in the gaps in our team. Based on this I would say that it was another less than stellar signing day.

[glick1980]

We clearly need size and have needed size for the past x number of seasons. What was the largest player we signed this year? 6'3"? A good or bad signing day shouldn't be based on stars alone but how we filled in the gaps in our team. Based on this I would say that it was another less than stellar signing day.

6'6" is the biggest guy, which is pretty big.

[foutsrouts]

We clearly need size and have needed size for the past x number of seasons. What was the largest player we signed this year? 6'3"? A good or bad signing day shouldn't be based on stars alone but how we filled in the gaps in our team. Based on this I would say that it was another less than stellar signing day.

We signed 5 guys 6'4" to 6'6'. Regardless, I thought yesterday was signing day for FB not BB.