Lettter to the editor in DC

[ponyte]

Folks don't return at Homecoming to see the old Organic lab. track doesn't inspire much discussion around the water cooler at work. Al the women's swimming titles don't['t cause too many male alumni to push out their chest with pride. That is the market we live in. It may not be fair but then again it wasn't fair when some foo' ,made fortune off of pet rocks.

We need football and basketball to succeed. Not to be so-so, mediocre or has beens. We need strong players with speed, aggressiveness, motivation and a sense of how to win. Win in football and basketball, and all sports will benefit from success.

[Nacho]

Rivals ranking of recruiting for the last 3 years. This is available free of charge. I don't have a subscription so I wasn't able to do further research beyond 02. I found this interesting:

02-
SMU --69
TCU--79
Rice-NR

03-
SMU--62
TCU--69
Rice--79

04 (preliminary as of 11/03)-
SMU--55
TCU--57
Rice-NR

As we can see SMU has outrecruited not only Rice but TCU over ther last 3 years.

[abezontar]

So that would be our Freshmen, Redshirt Freshmen, Sophmores, and kids who haven't even made it to campus yet.

[Dooby]

From what I understand, Rivals doesn't include transfers and junior college recruits. Also, over that time, we have had more scholarships to give than TCU, and quantity does have some factor in the rivals rankings.

The ranking is something, but it isn't everything, unfortunately. It would be interesting to see what the average recruit's rating is.

[Stallion]

Nacho that's some extremely misleading info you put out especially re the 2002 recruiting class. Yes SMU had more total points than TCU but the quality simply wasn't there. The reason SMU beat TCU is because we signed 25 and TCU signed 17. TCU destroyed us in avg per recruit which I think is more telling of quality where they were the 58th best class with a 2.41 rating and SMU had the 87th best class with a 2.04 rating. As anybody who follows Rivals will tell you if you can walk and chew gum and get a Division 1A offer then you get 2 stars. SMU had only 1 out of 25 players above a 2 star which is incredibly poor. In comparison last year we had 10-BIG DIFFERENCE-What's worse is that prior years were worse. In 2003 again TCU signed less players 23 to 21 so the average per recruit was an almost dead heat-SMU 2.48 in 60th place and TCU at 2.38 in 62nd place. Also, the ratings stop a couple of weeks after signing date so they are not accurate sometimes in reflecting late qualifiers, non-qualifiers that walk onand partial qualifiers. Further, Rivals is natorious for underrating JUCO players-whereas the Insiders covers the JUCO scene much more thoroughly. They have different philosophies on how to grade JUCOs. Other posters have already correctly stated why it wouldn't really show up on the field yet anyway.

<small>[ 11-12-2003, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: Stallion ]</small>

[Nacho]

TCU has 3 juco players on their entire roster. They aren't doing it with jucos.

Back to recruiting.

Average rating per year:

02-
SMU--2.04
TCU--2.41

03-
SMU--2.43
TCU--2.38
Rice--2.13

I'm glad we have beaten TCU and Rice for 2, going on 3 years in a row in recruiting.

[PonySnob]

When will we win as many games as either Rice or TCU?

[abezontar]

So that would be our Freshmen, Redshirt Freshmen, Sophmores, and kids who haven't even made it to campus yet. Plus according to what you just posted we didn't beat TCU in 02, so we have only beat them in one year meaning our freshmen are better than their freshmen. IF we can keep up that kind of recruiting well then maybe in two years we will be beating them.

<small>[ 11-12-2003, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: abezontar ]</small>

[Stallion]

by .10 percent-a statistical dead heat. Not sure we beat Rice either in 2002. OK I checked-Rice only signed 9 players and each was a 2 star(read warm body) and SMU signed 1 out 25(read 24 warm bodies and a stud) that was better than a 2 star-so I guess we can claim victory by .04 in 2002-but really all this is showing is that both programs suck and were simply uncompetitive in recruiting.

<small>[ 11-12-2003, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Stallion ]</small>

[Nacho]

Rice was 2.00 in 2002 (the very definition of warm body--your word, not mine). So far this year UCF is 1.00 and Northwestern. is 1.50 with a very limited number of recruits.

We should be competitive with Rice from a personnel standpoint but I think Rice will win. We are averaging 10 ppg this year. Hard to win with offensive production like that.

I do think there is some validity to ranking recruits but it is not an exact science by any means. Some pan out, some don't. Some can't misses do miss. Teams are really a mixture of players and coaches. I don't know of a formula that separates those out.

[Stallion]

Be careful assuming-I've posted at least 5 times that they have changed their rating system this year and that the 2 star=warm body rating doesn't seem to be applying this year. But you are right it is inexact science athough they have consistently rated the vast majority of SMU classes last or next to last in Texas recruiting and have therefore been uncannily accurate in picking the debacle that is SMU football.