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Can someone tell me out of all our recruits which few are the most highly rated and which ones can help us on the field next year??

Thanks

http://rivals100.rivals.com/commitlist.asp?School=182

we have some very top 3a talent, but that is always "Who knows..."

Man you gotta love this quote:

"I'm an agreessvie downhill tackler. I had a great season. I had more than 150 tackles. I'm a headhunter that will kill the running back" -Fork Union linebacker Curtiss Powell

As a casual observer of everything that has been said and linked on this board, it seems to me that Adrian Haywood and David Allison were the most highly sought after guys. Haywood by Texas Tech and Allison by Colorado and Syracuse. Sounds like Mario Walker had legit interest and Mitch Enright committed very early. Most of the others appear to be complete mysteries on paper. Someone said McKinde was a hot prospect, but who were his other offers? Clearly, I subsribe to the notion that the other offers a guy has tells you more than anything else. There are too many players out there for the Rivals ratings to mean much after the 4 and 5 star guys being pursued by the Top 15 power schools.

I don't think anyone out there would argue with the idea that this recruiting season has been a resounding success. It's tough to climb over that post honeymoon hump without more W's. That just goes to show how bare the cupboard was. Things are looking up in both revenue sports.

Let me be the first then to state unequivocably that this year's recruiting class is MOST CERTAINLY not a resounding success. I've seen no proof that 2/3rds of our recruits received any Division 1A offers above the Sun Belt/MAC Level. We lost most every recruiting battle we were in this year.

Amen, Stallion. This year's recruiting effort may go down as Bennett's worst to date. We failed to get a highly sought after QB which alone hurts the recruting class. I also am not impressed in that we were not able to make a bigger impact with more local guys, i.e., DISD players. There are so many impact players in the DISD school district, yet we miss on almost all of them. Until SMU changes its ways, i.e., implement athlete friendly courses, easier admission requirements, etc. we will always be playing for last. I also believe Tubbs has also missed on all of the DISD players he has recruited so far as well.

To be fair.. no one really knows if this or any recruiting class will be a success until they're on the field. On paper.. this class could be worse or better than they've shown in camps or their high school careers.. we'll have to wait and see.

I always find it so hard to believe that so-called experts can tell us what a "superstar" or "slug" of a football player we have in a certain recruit. How do they know??? There are things like a redshirt year, adjusting to college, training, growth (physcially/mentally), injury, and other variables that are never thrown into this prophetic equation. Am I missing something here??

Everyone has their opinions, star ratings etc... but let's all keep in mind that we're not the only ones looking at this board. Recruits love to read about themselves too.

National Signing Day is still down the Road a bit.. so don't start your own prophetic grades about our success or lack there of too soon. In the meantime.. welcome to the kids that have given your OC to the Mustangs and good luck to the ones who chose otherwise.. we wish you success, just not against SMU.

Much of this class is focused on the Big Uglies. The guys in the trenches are much different breeds than the skill players. Linemen need to mature, finish growing, get some strength, and learn the system. These are not the best linemen available, but will they be good enough to protect the quarterback and stop the run two years from now? We don't know that. We got some JUCO and Prep help which should give us some better depth next year so that an injury or two will not have the effect of leaving us with a true freshman playing safety or linebacker. Bennett seems committed to using red-shirts and to letting players mature in practice. That is the right way to rebuild a program. We'll see if it pays dividends in '05. The youngest team excuse cannot be used next year. We are in a division of CUSA that is great for us. UH, UTEP, Rice, Tulane and Tulsa all have weaknesses. I don't expect to win our division, but I think we should expect to place or tie in the top three in our division at 4-4.

Thanks for all the comments. Hoop fan your comments were exactly what I was looking for...

Stein

Stallion wrote:Let me be the first then to state unequivocably that this year's recruiting class is MOST CERTAINLY not a resounding success. I've seen no proof that 2/3rds of our recruits received any Division 1A offers above the Sun Belt/MAC Level. We lost most every recruiting battle we were in this year.

Agreed. In the past couple of years, most of the recruits we had were offered by better schools.

That said, in the past few years, we have gone after more skill position players, and this year we have more linemen, whcih aren't covered as heavily by the recruiting organizations. We also have significantly more JUCOs on board, which makes our class as hard to judge as some of the other schools we compete against (Fresno, TCU, etc).

I would have to give Bennett a mixed grade. While I think he is targeting the right positions, and you have to applaud the fact that he is getting more experience in with the JUCOs, the HS recruits aren't as highly regarded as in the past.

For ME, the key to this class, besides the big lineman, is Eric Johnson. My sources tell me that he is a terrific quarterback! This is the key position, in MY opinion. If we don't get performance from this position, we won't have a chance of winning. Because Johnson only started one year for Plano West, it is quite likely, that the recruiting rags missed him. He will redshirt next year, which is great, and then have a chance to show his stuff after that. Hopefully, he will make this class look terrific in a couple of years!

Why is it he only started one year?

He played JV as a Junior to get all the snaps in the previous year. The idea of a late bloomer, who surprises in college, may be the ticket here.

Good luck, Eric.

Nice going - you think recruits don't read this board?

On behalf of those of us who believe in - and support - the SMU coaches, let me be the first to point out that Coach Bennett's recruiting record speaks for itself. If you're being recruited by SMU, there's a reason. This will prove to be a solid class. Whether it proves better than that will not be determined for several years. But from the sound of things, there are some very talented players in this class, and I, for one, am excited to welcome you guys to SMU. I'll be there for the Red/Blue game, and I can't wait to see the new guys suit up in August.