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SMU quietly has put together a decent 2013 class of 26 commitments. On Thursday, the Mustangs scored their first commitment of the 2014 class -- a player who many feel could shape the direction of the Mustangs in the future.
http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/ncfrecr ... st?id=8890

Alright. This teaser makes no sense. All I have read is how our recruiting and recruits suck. And this teaser intro to an article indicates that might not be entirely correct. So which is it, we suck or we are decent this year in recruiting?

ESPN Insider, Rivals and Scout are in business to make money from their sites hungry alumni. They always spin positively. Pull back the curtain-compare to your opponents and you get a better feel. Have you ever read a Texas Football preseason article that was critical of the chances of the profiled team. No generally you conclude the profiled team is sure to competitor for a championship "if everything works out as planned". To the extent this class is acceptable, it probably has more to do with some recruits well below the radar having decent seasons ("evaluation") not because of committing recruits that other schools want("recruiting") -there is very little of that. This school is relying almost exclusively on evaluation over recruiting-that's the complaint. In fact in recruiting parlance-that'sd exactly what they are referring to in the article by the use of the term "quietly"

I like the distinction of evaluation versus recruiting. A good program can't succeed without both.

Stallion wrote:ESPN Insider, Rivals and Scout are in business to make money from their sites hungry alumni. They always spin positively. Pull back the curtain-compare to your opponents and you get a better feel. Have you ever read a Texas Football preseason article that was critical of the chances of the profiled team. No generally you conclude the profiled team is sure to competitor for a championship "if everything works out as planned". To the extent this class is acceptable, it probably has more to do with some recruits well below the radar having decent seasons ("evaluation") not because of committing recruits that other schools want("recruiting") -there is very little of that. This school is relying almost exclusively on evaluation over recruiting-that's the complaint. In fact in recruiting parlance-that'sd exactly what they are referring to in the article by the use of the term "quietly"

If I recall correctly, you were never a fan of the recruiting service's star and rating systems. You indicated that the most important indicator was offers and particularly BCS offers as they affirmed that others were also evaluating a kid as high quality thereby affirming the evaluation. As you know, this class of 2013 has roughly 9 kids with no interest other offers from any college at any level. To me that is the issue that remains in great question regarding this class. If no one else sees the quality it means to me that there are simply too many projects and real, real long shots in the class. We are short of depth as it is so this bodes disaster in my opinion.

By rhe way I am I think the only critic of SMu's past recruiting that has pointed out on about 5 occassions on various boards that I do see some signs of optimism on the more aggressive effort on the 2014 Class. Looks like it has resulted in at least one commit that probably will be well regarded. I want to see that carried over into January and by late February and early March when SMU needs to get more offers out like their competitors. My bigger concern is which coaches close on highly recruited players

I will agree. I have seen improvement for 2014.