17 commits - 2.18 avg stars

[Lebanese4Life]

People are raving about this class but it sure looks pretty JJ-like. Our class is rated much lower than Houston's, Cincy's, USF's, UConn's, UCF's, and ECU's. https://rivals.yahoo.com/smu/football/r ... 16/AAC/all

Love CM and staff and their enthusiasm but where are the blue-chippers? 3 3-stars and 14 2-stars is pretty awful.

[CoxMustangFan]

3-2-1...

[Pony Boss]

The 2 stars are 5.4 (high 2 star) which would be considered 3 stars in the old rating system. You have to look at the offers too, June's classes would have more than half of the kids with no FBS offers. All of these kids have multiple offers, a good amount have Power offers and the ones that don't are very fast and have a good frame to build on, see Josh Shelmire. Some of these kids are being rated at another position than what they will play (Collin Rock as a QB when he will play S, Myles Duke, Blake Carlisle etc) so there's that.

[CoxMustangFan]

I hear you Leb, but I think most of our resident recruiting experts will make a couple arguments. One, the offer lists are MUCH better. Two, there are significantly less three stars (on Rivals) than several years ago.

I don't know squat about recruiting, but one thing I find interesting is the numeric scores given on 247sports (link below). If you compare the numeric scores (not just stars), the 2016 class has nearly every kid above a 78, with many over an 80. Compare that to 2014 where we had MANY below a 75. Again, I'm not an expert, but where I think they've made the biggest impact so far is not improving our top half, but our bottom half. Not to mention, the team just came off of a 1-11 season. Things are greatly improving even if it doesn't yet reflect it in the stars. Just my two cents.

http://smu.247sports.com/Season/2016-Football/Commits

[Pony Boss]

Houston's class avg rating is inflated by Elliott and Oliver. The others are 5.4 like our class.

[vielsiehorsepower]

Yes the dmn is ranting and raving about hccm and his recruiting because it's exactly like jj XD

[mrydel]

Also, you recruit to your system and I have more faith in CM's system than I did in JJs.

And 1-11 does not pique a lot of interest in your program.

Time will tell. Just have to wait and see.

[Stallion]

SMU recruits have 105 offers 7months before signing date

9 SMU recruits have P5 offers

10 SMU recruits have been rated 3 stars by one of the 3 major services

SMU has 14 recruits rated 5.4 or higher on Rivals and as mentioned above MOST of those would in fact be 3 stars under the Rivals system in effect during the early June Jones era. I mentioned at the time that Rivals inflated their grades so that 2/3rds of the class were 3 stars-278 3 stars or above in those years. Presently there are only 143 recruits rated 3 star or above. They haven't even gone through their inevitable upgrading process. Quit bitchin. You don't understand what you are looking at

[Rebel10]

SMU recruits have 105 offers 7 months before signing date

9 SMU recruits have P5 offers

This ^.

[vielsiehorsepower]

Also, you recruit to your system and I have more faith in CM's system than I did in JJs.

And 1-11 does not pique a lot of interest in your program.

Time will tell. Just have to wait and see.

Not just that but a lot of these guys are projects that are going to grow into their frames or just general athletes that going to be a specific fit in the scheme. Boise state and tcu thrived off this for years

[Lebanese4Life]

maybe i shouldnt have said this class looks like one of JJ's but it is still average or worse compared to our conference mates' classes. their commits have more offers/commit. based on all the enthusiasm and the positive pub about our class i was at least expecting us to have a one that was ranked top 3 in conference. we need out-recruit the AAC if we wanna have a shot at P5

[vielsiehorsepower]

maybe i shouldnt have said this class looks like one of JJ's but it is still average or worse compared to our conference mates' classes. their commits have more offers/commit. based on all the enthusiasm and the positive pub about our class i was at least expecting us to have a one that was ranked top 3 in conference. we need out-recruit the AAC if we wanna have a shot at P5

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/r ... 16/all/all


#40 in the country and comfortably ahead of Houston, cincy, ecu, Memphis, etc.

[jpe747]

maybe i shouldnt have said this class looks like one of JJ's but it is still average or worse compared to our conference mates' classes. their commits have more offers/commit. based on all the enthusiasm and the positive pub about our class i was at least expecting us to have a one that was ranked top 3 in conference. we need out-recruit the AAC if we wanna have a shot at P5

Your original question is a good one that should be addressed. Don't let statements above detract from your question. And, it has been answered well by members. Quite frankly I am amazed at the commitments SMU has picked up. I respect Stallion and some of the others on this board because they are on top of the numbers end of recruiting and I don't have the time to even try to do such. Nonetheless, I have been on the coaches side and know how hard colleges must work to move up in the recruiting wars. A primary ingredient is winning games. There's SMU 1-11 last year with a new coaching staff being laughed at by many players and fans. Yet, they have totally changed the mood and are picking up good players faster than anyone else. That is awesome!
Now I have a few other points. First, just looking at the raw numbers you were using no other team has near the number of recruits that we have. Thus you cannot read much into these figures. Ex: East Carolina has a higher average then SMU. However, SMU has 3 three stars and EC only has 2 (and no 4 or 5 stars). Those 2 raised their average higher than ours even though we have more 3 stars.
Second, many times coaches want a certain type of player and recruit a player another team might not want as much. Usually these kids are project recruits (however all recruits are projects to one extent or another). Have you noticed how much speed is being recruited. Stallion has done a great service pointing out the track stars on the list. Speed kills (on the football field too).
Finally, recruiting a player before he has his senior year is a bit like playing poker. You don't really know how the cards will fall and you really don't know how these kids will mature. Its a lot about how good the coaches are at choosing the winners. The good coaches make good choices and win games.

[Stallion]

two of the overlooked kids are off the charts in the SPARQ ratings too-so there is little concern about their physical athleticism. I'm referring specifically to Myles Duke (who ranked No. 139 nationally out of multiple thousands who have been tested for SPARQ) and Patrick Jones who is very high on the DLine scale. I think he had the highest vertical jump of any DLM in the Country-so his only drawback his verified 6-1 height isn't too much of a problem. 6-1-277 4.92 Forty with an off the charts vertical is exciting

[Planter's Punch]

#40 in the country and comfortably ahead of Houston, cincy, ecu, Memphis, etc.

SMU is #40 due to the amount of players signed.

Not just that but a lot of these guys are projects that are going to grow into their frames or just general athletes that going to be a specific fit in the scheme. Boise state and tcu thrived off this for years

The speed from this class and HCCM's class is probably one of the best signs. HCCM is laying strong ground work to grab higher rated players in future classes. Right now recruits are buying into just the promise of a turn around, future classes will hopefully see that turnaround starting as more motivation along with building even stronger connections to the coaches and a perception that SMU is a place players can succeed. The way recruits are talking on twitter about SMU is already miles away from the perception pre HCCM. It reminds me of the change LB implemented in BB.

Some more interesting metrics for comparison of JJ classes to HCCM would be, % of players with 1+ P5 offers, average number of offers per recruit, % of recruits with only SMU as their sole non-FCS offer.