For everyone throwing rocks at our recruiting class

[ponyboy]

Stallion has said consistently to look at offers as your ultimate criteria. It's not perfect, but it beats the star systems out there. Based on what we know about offers, the class doesn't appear strong.

[sbsmith]

Our coach is getting the kids we need for our system.

Why do we have a system that needs so many kids that no one else wants? Why does this system look so inept versus other systems that utilize real talent? Is the goal of this system to attain mediocrity?

[Rebel10]

Our coach is getting the kids we need for our system.

Why do we have a system that needs so many kids that no one else wants? Why does this system look so inept versus other systems that utilize real talent? Is the goal of this system to attain mediocrity?

He is a shill sbsmith.

[sbsmith]

He is a shill sbsmith.

He changes his narrative far too often to be a shill. Shills cozy up to the HC and stay that way until the bitter end, sometimes long after an HCs departure.

[Rebel10]

He is a shill sbsmith.

He changes his narrative far too often to be a shill. Shills cozy up to the HC and stay that way until the bitter end, sometimes long after an HCs departure.

I hear you but he doing it in a more subtle way imo.

[ftworthmustang]

The question is who are trying to compete with? If the goal is Sun Belt then we are succeeding. If the goal is winning the AAC and playing competitively with the big 12 Texas schools, we are failing.

[StallionsModelT]

Schools that will have a better recruiting class than SMU:

UNT
Texas State
UT-San Antonio
Rice
Tulsa
Houston


Those are just schools in our area and leaving out the P5 programs. You tell me if we are doing everything we can to recruit top talent here.

[East Coast Mustang]

JasonB- like your optimism but this class has a lot fewer quality offers than previous classes. How do you explain that away?

[feelthehorsepower]

Our coach is getting the kids we need for our system.

Why do we have a system that needs so many kids that no one else wants? Why does this system look so inept versus other systems that utilize real talent? Is the goal of this system to attain mediocrity?

This is the only year that JJ's team took a slump in wins, but let's look at 2012. We brought in Garrett Gilbert who ended the year with more picks than TDs, and we still had a 7-6 year. This year we came into a new conference playing teams we had never faced before (Cincy, Rutgers) and got beat because of a young Oline and losses on defense. Next year Mason will have a solid squad and the offense with Burcham at the helm will look good. Our recruiting isn't done for the year, and we have been getting a decent amount of kids so far, players that will get us to win. Just look at UCF and tell me if it can't be done with "3 and 2 star" recruits! TCU won a Rose Bowl with 2 and 3 star kids with not many BCS offers. Stars are not an indicator of success.

Johnny Manziel, 3 star QB
Garrett Gilbert, 5 star QB


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rebel10]

Regular season wins.

2011 7 wins
2012 6 wins
2013 5 wins

I think we see the regular season downward trend.

[JasonB]

First, I am not saying Rivals is worthless. Just that I think ESPN spends a little bit more time evaluating their recruits and have a more consistent criteria.

I personally know two people who were asked to be Rivals evaluators and they both told me the same thing - watch a 45 second to three minute video and give them stars.

I am also not denegrating the offers point, because I do believe that is valid.

However, I am going to make a couple of points here:

1) while on Rivals you cannot differentiate our recruiting class from Rice, UNT, etc, our class is clearly much, much better than that from ESPN's perspective. So we shouldn't be going to that extreme.

2) Phillips has brought in more than just Houston Lamar players in the past.

3) The problem with the coaching staff isn't the ability to evaluate the low end 3 star players or borderline players and pick the decent ones. They have shown plenty of times an ability to do that. The problem is the ability to land high end talent. In order to do that we need at least two more recruiters on Phillips' level and have to land two high-end transfers every year.

[sbsmith]

This year we came into a new conference playing teams we had never faced before (Cincy, Rutgers) and got beat because of a young Oline and losses on defense. Next year Mason will have a solid squad and the offense with Burcham at the helm will look good. Our recruiting isn't done for the year, and we have been getting a decent amount of kids so far, players that will get us to win. Just look at UCF and tell me if it can't be done with "3 and 2 star" recruits! TCU won a Rose Bowl with 2 and 3 star kids with not many BCS offers. Stars are not an indicator of success.

Johnny Manziel, 3 star QB
Garrett Gilbert, 5 star QB


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You just went full [deleted]

[Rebel10]

First, I am not saying Rivals is worthless. Just that I think ESPN spends a little bit more time evaluating their recruits and have a more consistent criteria.

I personally know two people who were asked to be Rivals evaluators and they both told me the same thing - watch a 45 second to three minute video and give them stars.

I am also not denegrating the offers point, because I do believe that is valid.

However, I am going to make a couple of points here:

1) while on Rivals you cannot differentiate our recruiting class from Rice, UNT, etc, our class is clearly much, much better than that from ESPN's perspective. So we shouldn't be going to that extreme.

2) Phillips has brought in more than just Houston Lamar players in the past.

3) The problem with the coaching staff isn't the ability to evaluate the low end 3 star players or borderline players and pick the decent ones. They have shown plenty of times an ability to do that. The problem is the ability to land high end talent. In order to do that we need at least two more recruiters on Phillips' level and have to land two high-end transfers every year.

I know people from Rivals as well and they have regional camps that kids go to starting from when they are underclassmen. So the people you know that do not work there gave you an incomplete picture of the Rivals process. Stallion is correct on ESPN over inflation. Seems like ESPN must be mostly watching tapes (LOL). We did not land mid tier 3 star players either nor do we evaluate them well. We have only one 3 star player in this class. Seems like Phillips isn't landing anything other than Zelt Minor. They staff did a real good job in evaluating Cramer and Miller didn't they. They need a new head coach who can lead the way in recruiting. I have spoken with coaches and they always say that SMU can't land recruits with good BCS offers and they got that from June.

[JasonB]

The downturn in offers is obviously a big concern.

I am in no way saying that this recruiting class is full of world beaters. I am just saying it isn't down at the level of a Rice or UNT either. It is a lower level BCS class.

According to ESPN, our class right now is better than Memphis, Temple, UConn, Wake, Washington at the BCS level.

At the non-BCS level on ESPN, we are ahead of every single team in CUSA, MAC, Mountain West, and from an independant perspective we are way behind ND, but just barely behind BYU.

Objectively, when you look at our class's overall placement on ESPN, it really isn't that much different than past years - we beat out the "non-BCS" conferences and are a lower tier BCS level recruiting class. In fact, a couple of years ago, we would have looked at that valuation and thought wow, we are actually a top ten non-BCS recruiting class (if conference alignment was the same as it was then).

Not all two star players are created equally. With the drop in the number of three star players in Rivals, the players who used to be "low end" three star players are now two star players. If you are still recruiting and landing that caliber of athlete, then on Rivals it is going to look like you are only recruiting two star players and have the same rating as Rice and UNT. So, when you evaluate classes like ours, ESPN is a little more useful because it gives more detailed analysis of the lower end recruits that straddle the line between BCS and non-BCS talent.

When you look at the AAC next year and 2014, we lose Rutgers and Louisville, two of the better recruiting classes in the conference, and gain a bunch of teams with way worse recruiting classes than we have. We really have the 5th best class in our modified conference.

In summary, this class from an overall ranking and quality perspective is about where we always are. It isn't where we want to be. It isn't competitive with the major BCS conferernces, but then again, our recruiting classes never were by the ranking.

What really sucks about all of this is that when we move to the playoff system next year and become a non-BCS conference again, the AAC is going to be by far and away the best conference outside of the power 5 from a recruiting and talent perspective. But because there are several schools that recruit way above the level of any of the other conferences outside of the power 5, they are going to beat each other up in conference play and one of the loser conferences is going to end up sending a team to a big bowl game. Every single team in the AAC should be dropping BCS teams from their non-conference schedule and instead schedule teams from the MAC, Mountain West, and CUSA in order to knock those teams off and establish their dominance in talent so that they will be voted into the game.

[Rebel10]

ESPN just gives a bunch of rhetoric which I have found to be off base at times. In fact they are a joke with us having 15 three star players. Like Stallion said that ESPN over inflates 3 stars. I see why you like ESPN because it make Jones look better than the others. Again ESPN just gives a bunch of rhetoric. But since you tend to like rhetoric and write a lot of verbiage then I can see why you like that. Our class is bad when it comes to offers no matter how you spin it. And a 5 win season shows it. Next year if we do not beat UNT handily it will be embarrassing since they lose 13 players. If Jones has recruited properly we destroy them. But you were the one who was a giddy as a little girl over Seals so you have no credibility in anything but writing of bunch of verbiage. The class is pretty bad and not lower tier BCS.

247 has us ranked 9th in the conference.
http://247sports.com/Season/2014-Footba ... erence=AAC

9 of SMU's 17 commits do not have any FBS offers other than SMU.