What I really like about this class...

[JasonB]

In all the ratings, this class is going to finish somewhere between 3-5 in conference, which is not bad at all coming off of two horrible seasons.

In the past, we have had a few nice recruits sprinkled on top of recruits nobody had ever heard of. Even in conference, this year Houston has a top-heavy class that shades the rankings... if you look at their two stars they don't have a ton of P5 offers like ours have.

What I absolutely love about this class is the depth. When you are building something, you don't need top heavy. You need a foundation. This class is that foundation. There are only two guys, Ward and Carlisle, who none of the serves lauded, but even those guys had offers (Ward had 5)and were not given the lowest ratings possible by any of the services.

When you look at players across the different services, I use 6 criteria: Rivals, Scout, ESPN, 247, 247 Composite, and P5 offers. If you give players a point for each service that rates them a 3 or higher, and a point if they have multiple P5 offers, ideally you want most of your players to have a 3 or higher, meaning that at least half of the criteria regard them as good prospects.

The SMU roster heading into the Spring has 25 such players.
This recruiting class has 13. A pretty telling statistic.

If you just look at the upper tier the roster heading into Spring has 11 players who get a 5 or 6.
This class has 8.

Those numbers don't even take into account the awful job Rivals did this year with handing out stars. It think it is a pretty good indicator of the breadth of quality in the class compared to what is on the roster now.

[Stallion]

I got 21 SMU commits that got a 3 star on one of those services and I think we are adding another tomorrow although maybe not the one everybody is expecting

[Rebel10]

I don't take potshots at the services because for the most part they are accurate but I guess since he writes for Ponyfans he does that that even though he has subscriptions to ESPN and Rivals. He also criticized offer lists saying they were not a good indicator. USF had top ranked AAC recruiting classes back to back by the services and I said they were building a good team. Now they have gone to a bowl game and are headed in the right direction. He said that the June Jones players would serve as the foundation (and that he team would go 6-6 last year) and I said that they would not be the foundation. This is not a top 1 or 2 class but it is better than the previous coach offer wise. This class could possibly give SMU some building blocks that are solid but we will see once they get here in the Fall. The thing we all have to keep in mind here is that the other schools are not going backwards in recruiting either and the other coaches coming into the league are good recruiters as well. This is not conference USA so it is going to be a dogfight every year with coaches like Herman, Taggert, Frost, Norvell, Fritz, Montgomery etc. We have some good players coming in based on offers imo and we are headed in the right direction. With the coaches we have in the AAC now we have to have an even better class next year to keep up and I think we have the coaches to do it. A bowl game next year would really help.

[Ponyneighbor]

I don't take potshots at the services because for the most part they are accurate but I guess since he writes for Ponyfans he does that that even though he has subscriptions to ESPN and Rivals. He also criticized offer lists saying they were not a good indicator. USF had top ranked AAC recruiting classes back to back by the services and I said they were building a good team. Now they have gone to a bowl game and are headed in the right direction. He said that the June Jones players would serve as the foundation (and that he team would go 6-6 last year) and I said that they would not be the foundation. This is not a top 1 or 2 class but it is better than the previous coach offer wise. This class could possibly give SMU some building blocks that are solid but we will see once they get here in the Fall. The thing we all have to keep in mind here is that the other schools are not going backwards in recruiting either and the other coaches coming into the league are good recruiters as well. This is not conference USA so it is going to be a dogfight every year with coaches like Herman, Taggert, Frost, Norvell, Fritz, Montgomery etc. We have some good players coming in based on offers imo and we are headed in the right direction. With the coaches we have in the AAC now we have to have an even better class next year to keep up and I think we have the coaches to do it. A bowl game next year would really help.

To have a recruiting class ranked ~65th in the nation is a major accomplishment given the team's recent terrible performance, lack of fan support, and lack of IPF. Morris deserves a ton of credit. He will have to pull off the same magic next year because this team is not going to a bowl game. The defense will probably be worse than last year, as scary as that sounds.

[LA_Mustang]

The defense will probably be worse than last year, as scary as that sounds.

Not sure how that is possible.

[Rebel10]

I don't take potshots at the services because for the most part they are accurate but I guess since he writes for Ponyfans he does that that even though he has subscriptions to ESPN and Rivals. He also criticized offer lists saying they were not a good indicator. USF had top ranked AAC recruiting classes back to back by the services and I said they were building a good team. Now they have gone to a bowl game and are headed in the right direction. He said that the June Jones players would serve as the foundation (and that he team would go 6-6 last year) and I said that they would not be the foundation. This is not a top 1 or 2 class but it is better than the previous coach offer wise. This class could possibly give SMU some building blocks that are solid but we will see once they get here in the Fall. The thing we all have to keep in mind here is that the other schools are not going backwards in recruiting either and the other coaches coming into the league are good recruiters as well. This is not conference USA so it is going to be a dogfight every year with coaches like Herman, Taggert, Frost, Norvell, Fritz, Montgomery etc. We have some good players coming in based on offers imo and we are headed in the right direction. With the coaches we have in the AAC now we have to have an even better class next year to keep up and I think we have the coaches to do it. A bowl game next year would really help.

To have a recruiting class ranked ~65th in the nation is a major accomplishment given the team's recent terrible performance, lack of fan support, and lack of IPF. Morris deserves a ton of credit. He will have to pull off the same magic next year because this team is not going to a bowl game. The defense will probably be worse than last year, as scary as that sounds.

You might be right about that.

[Digetydog]

The defense will probably be worse than last year, as scary as that sounds.

Not sure how that is possible.

We had a lot of experienced seniors last year. Next year, we are going to be relying on Juniors/Seniors (June's Recruits) who don't have much experience and Sophomores/Freshman (Morris' Recruits) who basically don't have any experience.

Because Morris had to "over-recruit" at offense, we only had 9 (if I counted correctly) defensive recruits in our 2015 class.
- Corbett got injured and Kaufman got moved to TE yielding a class size of 7.
- All three of our DL needed to put on a LOT of weight.

1 Rodney Clemons DB Katy, TX 6'0" 185
2 Kevin Johnson DB Waskom, TX 5'10" 170
3 Jordon Williams DB Houston, TX 6'1" 195
4 Chris Biggurs DE Coppell, TX 6'3" 245
5 Matt McNew LB Robinson, TX 6'3" 220
6 Delontae Scott LB Irving, TX 6'5" 200
7 Michael Scott LB Irving, TX 6'4" 220

The good news - the 2016 defensive class is larger and includes players who can contribute a bit in the Fall. JT Williams (the JUCO) was a great addition.

[JasonB]

I'm not sure how my post could be interpreted as taking pot shots at the recruiting services other than the fact that Rivals is way off this year?

Looking at the current roster and where players in the current class sit in comparison:
DE: Badejo, McLaurin, and Gary are all more highly regarded than any DE on the roster
LB: Carmouche and Spears are more highly regarded than any LB on the roster.
OL: Becker, Todora, Smith, and Webb are more highly regarded than any OL on the roster.
RB: Thomas is more highly regarded than any RB on the roster
WR: Third in a great corp.... Proche, Thomas, BENSON, Sutton
CB: #2 and #3 (Sutton and Davis just behind Montes)
S: Surprisingly number 4, 5, 6, 7 (Clark, Duke, Onu, Rock)
TE: Rau is behind Gaines and Herndon

Most of what I have read suggests that these DEs should redshirt. But then again, the services expected them to go into a P5 school.

You can certainly see, however, the upgrades in the roster this class provides....

[Stallion]

you do realize that the 247.sports composite rating is a formula calculating the collective ratings of all the recruiting services?

[JasonB]

Yep, but it also uses sites that I don't include. So I figured it is another good information point.