Don't choke on the Rivals Kool-Aid

[tmustangp]

lets remember what Rivals is.. props to whomever called it the Rivals Kool-Aid..

Rivals is based upon "ANY" information they can get.. yes it is pretty accurate when it comes down who is thinking about going where, but as far as how good the players are.. its full of (bleep).. No one knows how good these kids will be and if they did, Rivals would be a Fortune 500 company and making millions not gossiping about player talent..

u cannot and should not base a players ability on their shuttle, forty, bench, vertical.. yes its all fine and dandy to have high numbers.. but i am sure most of yall who read this didn't have 4star adn 5star SAT scores and you are somehow able to be productive in your chosen profession.

My point is, do not let people like Stallion (although made several good points but still gave us a D+) and Rivals be the basis to how good our recruiting class is. Again if Rivals was the "high and almight to recruiting" they would be winning national championships as college coaches, not gossiping about who is better b/c they run a "low 40" and get the ball 35x's a game.. Let our coaches worry about how good the class is and how much better they will make them.

Thats all that matters anyways, is how much better will they be in a couple of years.

:ps i am working the over night shift at the ticket, so at the present time this makes perfect sense to me.. if it doesn't to you(the reader) let me know

[McClown27]

I think we are catching up. I am from Minnesota and still follow their program. They get about 5-6 "three-star" players every year (due to their offense, they can get stud backs to come there). Otherwise, they take 15-20 flyers on guys every year (Fast players, big players, etc.) Wisconsin is in a similar situation. The fact is that SMU is in a state with several hundred D1 prospects (Minnesota--I think--had 19 receive football scholarships last year, counting D2). The fact is that if the program continues to improve on the field we will recruit as well as the non-dominant programs in big conferences. We are not that behind.

[westexSMU]

[quote="tmustangp"]lets remember what Rivals is.. props to whomever called it the Rivals Kool-Aid..

Rivals is based upon "ANY" information they can get.. yes it is pretty accurate when it comes down who is thinking about going where, but as far as how good the players are.. its full of (bleep).. No one knows how good these kids will be and if they did, Rivals would be a Fortune 500 company and making millions not gossiping about player talent..

u cannot and should not base a players ability on their shuttle, forty, bench, vertical.. yes its all fine and dandy to have high numbers.. but i am sure most of yall who read this didn't have 4star adn 5star SAT scores and you are somehow able to be productive in your chosen profession.

My point is, do not let people like Stallion (although made several good points but still gave us a D+) and Rivals be the basis to how good our recruiting class is. Again if Rivals was the "high and almight to recruiting" they would be winning national championships as college coaches, not gossiping about who is better b/c they run a "low 40" and get the ball 35x's a game.. Let our coaches worry about how good the class is and how much better they will make them.

Thats all that matters anyways, is how much better will they be in a couple of years.

:ps i am working the over night shift at the ticket, so at the present time this makes perfect sense to me.. if it doesn't to you(the reader) let me know[/quote] As a loyal SMU supporter for many years, I appreciate your positive attitude. However, if you go to Rivals team rankings you will see pretty much the TEXAS's, the USC's at the top and generally as recruiting goes is pretty much reflective of the quality of a teams record. We can all be postive and hopeful about our future. Hopeful that more of these Sleepers, we continue to have to recruit, will turn out good Div. 1 prospects.Obviously, some will be good players. In reality though, continued recruiting in the bottom 20% of Div. 1 will not allow our program to win on a consistant basis which our AD and Coach claim is our objective.

[PerunaPunch]

westexSMU,

I don't think anyone is arguing the point that there are a bunch of 5-star, blue chip athletes that sign with the UTs, OUs, USCs and LSUs around the country every year. Nor the fact that we're not competing on that level for recruits yet.

The guys at Rivals are big-time sports enthusiasts like you, me and most on this board. They're not idiots, just in the main, they don't have the experience, knowledge and first hand observation of these kids playing in game situations like recruiting coaches do. Remember too that the recruiting services have an immense territory to cover, whereas coaches focus on their specific recruiting territories. So just by nature, the information reported by the recruiting services is broad and comparitively superficial. Presumably, the PonyFans recruiting roundup is so in-depth because they only have to report on a few dozen players each year... not thousands.

You didn't have to look at much high school game film to see that a kid like Adrian Peterson was probably going light it up on the collegiate level. But it takes more evaluation decernment to determine how good a kid like Phillip Burley will be coming from an obscure, small school, with fewer and less skilled coaching, who has been playing against suspect competition, etc. And that's where the Rivals coverage breaks down.

Again, the perfect example is the one you cited under the "Is this Bennett's Best Class?" thread. Accoring to Rivals, our '04 class was by far the best. But of that group, only 1 3-star kid is starting (Sturdivant), whereas a bunch of 2-star kids from that class are starting or contributing significantly. Another example: the "stars" of the '03 and '04 classes and the closest recruit to 4 starts in recent years (Massey and Vincent Chase) have so far been eclipsed by their less heralded bretheren (Martin and Bobby Chase) both of which were mere 2-star recruits..

[Stallion]

BTW I didn't give SMU a D+. What I said is that SMU deserves a D+ rating at its two biggest target areas for 2006 QB and LB. They are a collection of SLEEPERS almost all of which received no significant offers. I'm not denying SOMETIMES sleepers work out but say a little prayer that Bennett indeed has found some diamonds in the rough.

[Mickey]

I got caught up in the SMU spin for 19 out of the last 20 years. No longer. I rate this class D+.

You had better believe that I would rather have a class rated higher by Rivals. The top rated Rivals recruiting classes fare pretty well when you put 2or 3 of those classes toghether.

Our formula for recruiting sleepers certainly hasn't paid off with wins. Give me a good Rivals rated class anythime.

[tmustangp]

I got caught up in the SMU spin for 19 out of the last 20 years. No longer. I rate this class D+.

You had better believe that I would rather have a class rated higher by Rivals. The top rated Rivals recruiting classes fare pretty well when you put 2or 3 of those classes toghether.

Our formula for recruiting sleepers certainly hasn't paid off with wins. Give me a good Rivals rated class anythime.

refer to don't choke on rivals kool aide part 2

[Stallion]

Refer to SMU's 25% winning percentage, zero Bowls, zero Championships and 1 winning season in 16 years after 15 out 17 poorly rated recruiting classes. Open your eyes.

[Pony Fan]

Why would you talk about what happened over 16 years of poor recruting classes? Why don't we see where we are next year and the following year to see if PB has had good recruiting classes. Can't really worry now about what happened when Gregg, Rossley and Cavan were the coaches, can we? We all know we sucked on the field with wins and losses, and at recruiting during those regimes, especially under Gregg and Rossley. That was when the "model" you talk about, really was broken.