espn.com recruiting class rankings

[JesseMartin]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/scorecard

As of this posting this year's recruiting class is #103, a bit higher than our CFN preseason overall ranking. So...hooray?

[trussbussdad]

#97 this morning.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/scorecard

[PlummMeanGreen]

I am not understanding ESPN's ranking system at all.

A school with more 3 star recruits (and no stars above that) is ranked lower than a school with no "ESPN" 3 stars at all?

Ricky Ricardo: Esplain?

Edited February 5, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[trussbussdad]

Personally..I think this ranking is as bogus as the "star" ranking system....not worth the paper it is written on. but thats just me.

[UNTLifer]

You mean Air Force isn't #1 and WKU is not #6!? But, but that is the almighty ESPN you are not in agreement with.

Edited February 5, 2013 by UNTLifer

[Greenrex]

The referenced sport is not scored on the pages of a magazine.

[emmitt01]

Here's what DMN has to say about our class,

"9. North Texas: Like Texas, the Mean Green currently have only 14 players committed to play for them next season. Unlike the Longhorns, none of them are nearly as highly-touted as those that have pledged to play for Mack Brown and Co. North Texas is set to fail to sign a three-star prospect, according to rivals.com, for the first time since 2006."

That's #9, behind the Texas Big XII schools, OU, OSU, and TCU and SMU. Not a real shock there as they've all had either a BCS conference to recruit to or more recent success. The telling portion is that somehow, some way, this is the first year that Rivals has been cruel enough to reduce all of our recruits to 2* status just because we're North Texas.

[untjim1995]

Here's what DMN has to say about our class,

"9. North Texas: Like Texas, the Mean Green currently have only 14 players committed to play for them next season. Unlike the Longhorns, none of them are nearly as highly-touted as those that have pledged to play for Mack Brown and Co. North Texas is set to fail to sign a three-star prospect, according to rivals.com, for the first time since 2006."

That's #9, behind the Texas Big XII schools, OU, OSU, and TCU and SMU. Not a real shock there as they've all had either a BCS conference to recruit to or more recent success. The telling portion is that somehow, some way, this is the first year that Rivals has been cruel enough to reduce all of our recruits to 2* status just because we're North Texas.

It is a bitter pill for all of us to swallow when we see rivals (and others) reduce our recruits to 2* or worse, but its easy for them to do because they see our records from the past 8 years and they don't have any subscription demand from UNT fans to change this, unlike all of the others, so it makes their job very easy to downgrade without much trouble.

Edited February 5, 2013 by untjim1995

[emmitt01]

It is a bitter pill for all of us to swallow when we see rivals (and others) reduce our recruits to 2* or worse, but its easy for them to do because they see our records from the past 8 years and they don't have any subscription demand from UNT fans to change this, unlike all of the others, so it makes their job very easy to dwongrade without much trouble.

I agree with the theory. I have to question, though, why for the five years prior our lack of subscriptions didn't cause them to downgrade our players. And are there really that many subscribers for teams like Tulane, FIU, ULM, ASU, Texas State and the like? Their three star guys seem to maintain that third star.

[10Eagle10]

we still have Chad Davis, right? he's an espn 3*..

[NT03]

Don't worry, Emfinger has us with the best class in Texas !!

[UNT90]

I agree with the theory. I have to question, though, why for the five years prior our lack of subscriptions didn't cause them to downgrade our players. And are there really that many subscribers for teams like Tulane, FIU, ULM, ASU, Texas State and the like? Their three star guys seem to maintain that third star.

No! It's a Rivals conspiracy!!!!1!!11!

Because rivals cares so much about UNT, because of everyone that isn't subscribed to their site, that they go out of their way to screw UNT commits.

Fact is this is an underwhelming class. This program needs better to compete in CUSA.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Don't worry, Emfinger has us with the best class in Texas !!

Now that's one I put absolutely no stock in. I have come around to 24/7, though. It seems like they really do their homework. They currently have us ranked #17 out of 20 in C-USA: http://247sports.com/Season/2013-Football/TeamRankings?Conference=C-USA

[UNT90]

Now that's one I put absolutely no stock in. I have come around to 24/7, though. It seems like they really do their homework. They currently have us ranked #17 out of 20 in C-USA: http://247sports.com/Season/2013-Football/TeamRankings?Conference=C-USA

Uh, since 1 of those team doesn't play football yet and another is still a FCS team, that would put us ahead of only UTEP in the 14 team CUSA (I don't count ECU, SMU, Tulane, or Houston as they are adios).

Behind UTSA.

Edited February 5, 2013 by UNT90

[untjim1995]

I agree with the theory. I have to question, though, why for the five years prior our lack of subscriptions didn't cause them to downgrade our players. And are there really that many subscribers for teams like Tulane, FIU, ULM, ASU, Texas State and the like? Their three star guys seem to maintain that third star.

Maybe the problem is just as simple as we haven't been able to get any recruits that are not able to be downgraded below the 3* level under their rankings, unlike the few that FIU, ULM, ASU, or TSSM have gotten. I really don't have a clue, nor care to know how they grade this stuff, but the fact remains that we just don't have any credibility with these recruiting agencies, nor does it appear that we have any pull still with Texas HS coaches and their players. We are still the ultimate place for HS players to settle, not to choose. I would've guessed that Apogee alone would have changed this just because the previous place was such a dump and the university is still located close to the Metroplex. I thought CUSA would help us. I thought Coach McCarney's reputation and energy would've helped us. In the end, playing games at Fouts, in the Sun Belt or Big West, with Simon/Dickey/Dodge as head coach produced recruits from HS that were just as unremarkable as this class is turning out to be.

I'll go back to this, but this needs to be a year where we see improvement (bare minimum of 5 wins still makes Coach Mac's seat warm for 2014), because anything else below 5 wins is just proof that we still haven't figured out how to win at this level. And I think we will see that turnaround this upcoming season. But I'll also say this: We've tried to barely fund a program at the FBS level with non-experienced college assistants (Simon and DIckey) while playing at easily the worst stadium in college football. We've tried hiring a Texas HS guru to see if his huge success could translate here while playing in the same dump. Finally, we build a great new stadium and pay for a recognizable head coach with some solid years of experience under his belt. What has it brought us, though, the fans? In the end, all we've seen since 1995 is failure, with the exception of the 2002-2004 seasons. Imagine if a company produced inferior products and service for the better part of 18 years since going public? Here at UNT, we just accept it--the apathy to the product is so overwhelming that nothing ever seems to be able to work to get the company going in the right direction, even though the location of the company is supposedly in a hotbed for its product's materials and there is supposedly a huge clientele that is just looking for a reason to buy it. After all these years, I'm really starting to believe that the product might just be incurably defective to the consumer and that the supposed potential clients have decided long ago to never buy anything from the company again. YEt here we are again, we all get sucked into believeing that we are ridiculously close to turning this operation into the next Apple or Google. In reality, we very well might just be the next Dell, having to lower our company back down from the competition because we just can't, or choose not, to compete at a higher level. And we aren't even talking about the highest level to compete at, just a middle space where profitability and a good reputation can still be created.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Uh, since 1 of those team doesn't play football yet and another is still a FCS team, that would put us ahead of only UTEP in the 14 team CUSA (I don't count ECU, SMU, Tulane, or Houston as they are adios).

Behind UTSA.

Since I thought all the above was fairly obvious, I didn't bother mentioning it. Thanks for the narrative, though.