Great read!
Interesting take on midmajor recruiting:
The top teams: Boise State, BYU, Marshall, Cincinnati, East Carolina, San Diego State, Houston, UConn, UCF, and USF.
Mid-majors rarely sign elite recruits. If we counted all the teams in all five non-power conferences (the American, Conference USA, the MAC, the Mountain West, and the Sun Belt, plus independents besides Notre Dame), that 1.6 percent blue-chip rate would shrink to near zero. In the 2014 class, only three teams in those five conferences signed four-stars, and only one each (Boise State, Marshall, and UCF).
Fans of these teams sometimes say that recruiting services ignore their players and that they are as good as any. One could point to counter-examples like Utah and TCU, which dominated the second circuit for years before joining BCS conferences and tanking.
Our short term goal should be to be part of those schools in that list of midmajors.