FAU, Whaaaat?!?!?

Ben Gooding · April 25, 2014

I was skimming through the ESPN300 top recruits and FAU has landed 2 ESPN300 recruits?!?!? There are several P5 schools that have 0, FAU has 2 in April? And we haven't even landed a guy yet! North Texas better step it's recruiting game up.

This should have went on recruiting forum, but already typed all this on my phone.

NorthTexan95 · April 25, 2014

Let's see if they can keep them.

akriesman · April 25, 2014

As much as I hate to say it, whats good for CUSA is good for UNT. The conference prestige holds a lot of water.

Edited April 25, 2014 by akriesman

pastorgrant · April 25, 2014

That's awesome! Go FAU (until we meet)

UNT90 · April 25, 2014

FAU is making some noise.

Anyone else concerned that just about everyone else in CUSA has landed recruits while we still sit at 0 commits?

After a bowl winning season?

H-towngreen · April 25, 2014

They will not stick

H-towngreen · April 25, 2014

FAU is making some noise.
Anyone else concerned that just about everyone else in CUSA has landed recruits while we still sit at 0 commits?
After a bowl winning season?

Should be any day now.

GrayEagle · April 25, 2014

I am sometimes critical of our recruiting but not yet this year. So far, most of our offerings have been to those who have multiple offers. Even with the offer upgrade we have only lost four or five thus far. Many of the open offers we don't stand a snowball's chance of getting but there are some really good athletes that are giving us strong consideration even while holding P5 offerings.

I'll admit that I am amazed that FAU was able to get early commitments from two highly-rated players. Even if they're not able to hold them they still send a message. It would be great if we had such a prospect but at least our first commitment is not some guy named Joe that no one's heard of.

I truly believe that this recruiting season will be better than the last which wasn't bad, especially for receivers.

BillySee58 · April 25, 2014

Here's my thread from when Scarlett committed. They hired one of his HS coaches, so his commitment likely would not have happened if not for that, a la Mitch Mustain and Gus Mahlzahn at Arkansas in 06. Scarlett has been visiting other schools but he has stuck around so far. Still early.

Here's a little rundown (first comment) of all the other schools in our conference and their early commits. We are one of only 4 schools in our conference without a commit this far. 10 out of 14 schools, including Charlotte (2015 will be their first year in CUSA for football) all have at least one commit so far.

GOMG2013 · April 25, 2014

There's 12 Divison 1 football programs in the state and other D1 programs in close proximity to the State of Texas that pose a threat.

Counting Louisiana and Oklahoma schools. It's about 20 close schools UNT is in competition with. Comparing UNT to other CUSA schools may not be a fair comparison. With that being said, Rice and UTSA still have some commits...

Seems like we are being real selective this year. It started somewhat last year. There's a few guys we could have had at the end that we passed on. Especially D Line and LB. JUCO and High School. We did not panic, so that leads me to believe we like the depth and ones that we need to develop. Now they are looking for upgrades and impact recruits.

In this state, we have to play the waiting game. Even the early commits can get a recuit stolen if a Big 12 schools comes.

In Texas, we have about 5 Tiers of schools that recruits want to see. This is how I would most likely rate them for recruits in Texas.

Of Course thing vary like distance, position, Conference, etc so save the few examples of x recruit, choosing x school. This is just a summary.

Tier One: Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, LSU

Tier Two: Baylor, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU

Tier Three: Houston, SMU, Tulsa, Tulane

Tier Four: Rice, UTSA, La Tech, UNT,

Tier Five: ULL, ULM, UTEP, Texas State

Without recent success and conference affiliation, UTSA and UNT are probably in Tier 5.

Charlie NT 73 · April 25, 2014

Consider this. North Texas has what, 6 or 7, D1 transfers for the 2014 season. Coach Mac and his staff awarded

scholarships to 2 to 4 walk on's after the spring game.

North Texas already has 8 to 10, D1 players "committed" to North Texas.

As far as High School and JUCO prospects, I would say there are solid commitments

right now for North Texas (I would not call this stealth recruiting prospects).

Committed players make their own announcements on their school of choice.

The announcements will become public at the proper time for these players.

I do not worry about which school has the early commitments or the star power rankings.

My view of star power is the star ranking is just a popularity contest.

The college football rag mags will start showing up soon. We will have many

new topics to discuss from the sports talking heads experts.

I believe Coach Mac and his staff can evaluate players they want to recruit, regardless of "star" rankings.

I do trust in Coach Mac! GMG!

Ben Gooding · April 25, 2014

Star rankings hold more weight than you think. P5 schools land the most stars, and in hand most P5 schools would beat most G5 schools. Coincidence? No. Landing highly touted recruits is a good thing and they are highly touted for a reason. Just because North Texas isn't getting the top tier recruits let's not bash the recruiting research done by a couple credible sites. UNT will need to start landing at least one of these guys a year if UNT wants to become somebody. If not we will be playing 2nd class football in about 10 years.

Greendylan · April 25, 2014

If a P5 school wants one of these two badly enough, a "bag man" will make an offer he can't refuse.

GrandGreen · April 26, 2014

IMHO NT in the past as been too quick to sign marginal recruits early. Some have turned out to be excellent, but in general NT could have probably done much better with those ships late in the recruiting process. Mac to this point has not won a lot of recruiting battles, he has done well developing the talent that he gets. Hopefully the 9-4 season and more favorable buzz will start to show up on this year's recruiting class.

NT won last year primarily with Dodge recruits, it will be very interesting to see how NT fares not only with just Mac recruits, but with a much less experienced team.

GrandGreen · April 26, 2014

Star rankings hold more weight than you think. P5 schools land the most stars, and in hand most P5 schools would beat most G5 schools. Coincidence? No. Landing highly touted recruits is a good thing and they are highly touted for a reason. Just because North Texas isn't getting the top tier recruits let's not bash the recruiting research done by a couple credible sites. UNT will need to start landing at least one of these guys a year if UNT wants to become somebody. If not we will be playing 2nd class football in about 10 years.

Being the ratings are primarily based on who recruits the player, the P5 schools with few exceptions are always going to have higher rated players. That being said, the recruiting ratings as you stated are basically valid. It is comparable to a neighborhood game, were team A gets to chose their team first and team b gets the leftovers. The team b (G5) might have a few players that can develop and maybe a newcomer that his ability was unknown, but most of the better players are gong to be on team A (P5).

The very best of the G5's might be able to recruit with the very worst of the P5's, but in general that isn't going to happen. For NT to be successfully, they are going to have to recruit well against their G5 peers. The only way that NT is gong to be able to effectively recruit against the P5's is to be a P5.

Ben Gooding · April 26, 2014

Absolutely. But if BYU and Boise can snag an All-American from time to time, why not North Texas? Those 2 schools dip into Cali and take recruits away from Cal, UCLA, USC, and even Or, Or St and Wash. From a geographical standpoint their recruiting grounds are putrid and they have little to offer in their backyard. So if BYU and Boise can snag up All-Americans every few years North Texas should be able to as well. I understand coming off a decade of losing taints those chances, but the future should be bright. Master plan has the enrollment climbing to 50k by 2016? I believe. Expand the Business and engineering departments and get some people at this school that give a shit about athletics. That would be a good start. Without legitimate pressure from a large alum base and student body we will just tread water forever.

NT03 · April 26, 2014

FAU is making some noise.
Anyone else concerned that just about everyone else in CUSA has landed recruits while we still sit at 0 commits?
After a bowl winning season?

We seem to be the only school who can never get commits after visits , spring games

UTSA is having their spring game today , I bet they land a verbal or two by end of the weekend

emmitt01 · April 26, 2014

Our dance team got a commit today.

Rudy · April 26, 2014

Only watch that video if you are prepared to bleach your eyes. Still can't believe you posted that, E.

Ben Gooding · April 28, 2014

Well, just looked again when I was explaining this to my brother. Realized they are high school teammates. It makes a little more sense now, but their offer list consists of every power program, ever.