Assessing the recruiting class

[JasonB]

1) I think having all of the players in this year's class get into TCU is a "big IF". However, if any one of those players make it in, they are a higher rated player than we have in our class. I am not really concerned about what other schools do, though, just what we do.

2) This year's SMU class does not have as many players with big 12 offers as Bennett's last two classes. So the high end isn't as high.

3) That said, this year we didn't really have a lot of "stragglers" at the end to fill in the class. We were set with our ships before the final two weekends, which hasn't happened in quite a while. The class was also more balanced, where we didn't have to load up on any one area. And the "average" player in this class is better than the low end player in the past classes. For example, Sanders and Givens aren't widely known, and didn't receive a ton of offers or anything, but both come with higher accolades than any other WR that we have recruited in the Bennett era. So, while they aren't huge recruits, they are still better than what we got in the past.

What does that all mean? I think we did a good job of filling our needs, for the most part. A couple of pretty good OL, a couple of pretty good QBs, a couple of pretty good DT, etc. I thought we did a good job at filling some needs at safety. I also like that the smaller school players we brought in this time 1) we had seen in camp against bigger competition, and marked them as players we liked at that time and 2) got intrest from bigger schools when their teams made the playoffs, but they had already committed by that time.

The two big holes in our recruiting class, in my opinion, were that we didn't get a stud DE and we didn't get a stud OLB who can come in and redshirt as a frosh this year. Both players at TE are a little bit of a reach, but then again we don't need much help there with Chase having 4 years left. We took an experimental JUCO at corner, but we can afford to do that as well because of the youth and number of players we have there.

Because of that, whereas the last two classes were probably in the B range, this class is probably around a B-/C+ - solid, but not spectacular. A C class I would consider to be competitive in CUSA, and I think we did better than that. We filled our needs with solid recruits, and the recruits we got are better than the low end recruits on the roster. And that is what I want to see - improvement of the roster to help us become more competitive.

[GrapevineMustang]

I agree - the high end might be a bit lower, but the low end seems to be a bit higher than in years past.
Let's agree to re-convene and re-assess in 2007 or 2008.