"at this point" are the key words. "this point" is irrelevant in terms of what people think they know. 10 highly rated recruits may be convinced they want to go to a school without anyone outside their brains knowing about it. And the reason they could be thinking that way may be they just love the school, the coach, or a number of factors, including the way they were recruited by a Billy Napier. If you stopped at that point and only counted "committed" players, we may be slightly above or below Pee Wee Herman or Nick Saban. But the work at a high level has already been accomplished. So my point is how in the world can anyone write an article with any credibility "at this point"? The problem with that type of article is it is premature and suggests an inaccurate projection of how things may end up. In fact, if there has been any mistakes made with how people have perceived our recruiting, it is premature enunciation. But that's how sports writers seem to be these days. "At this point" the Buffalo Bills have no shot at the AFC Championship Game bc they lost last week and Josh Allen all of a sudden sucks. In two weeks and 6 TD's later , they'll be SB contenders and he'll be a contender for MVP. These dudes are bored and have to meet a deadline every 15 minutes. Speed kills quality. More accidents happen when you are driving too fast.
Was just looking at the 247 rankings for 2022, and comparing our class to our competition ahead of us: LSU, Georgia, and Alabama. #4 LSU has three more recruits than we do, and has an average ranking of 92.16. We have 92.06. There is not too much that separates us from the LSU class, and LSU is going to finish in the top 5 recruiting. Now, there's still a few disclaimers, we're not touching Bama or Georgia (nobody is) and we're trailing Oklahoma and Texas who will be joining the conference soon, but I'd call this significant progress from what we've seen in the past. If we were to add the two big fish that committed to Miami, and all other classes stayed the same, we'd be #2 only behind Bama if my calculations are correct. We'd be outrecruiting Kirby if we just landed two guys we were in the running for. Sometimes recruiting, like football, is a game of inches.
If the standard is championships, recruiting will have to continue to improve. We just cannot afford to have consistent and significant talent deficits against two direct in-conference obstacles to championships plus an at-best talent wash against another in LSU. That said, it looks like we're getting there. Napier just has an uphill battle. History has shown the first full cycle is the easiest cycle for coaches to recruit.
If ESD/NSD was tomorrow, I would be content with this class outside of a top end OT and 2 more LB’s, and 1 maybe 2 more DT’s. The rest of the class is exactly what it needed to be. Still think we’re dropping the ball not bringing in a TE this cycle
Definitely need more LBs, and I'm with you on the OTs. I think we have a lot of DL in this class, but if you're looking for a nose tackle, I'm with you, it's just that those don't grow on trees, which is all the more reason why 4-3 schemes are preferable to 3-4 at this level.
I think the greater need at a couple of those spots is for a quality portal guy....may need conribution next year
I know we are focused on TE productivity in part because Mullen and Trask made TEs look like the atomic weapon. But is TE really important in Napier's scheme? Our TEs catch barely 20% of our passes. Are we close to losing our best TE receivers to graduation/NFL? Really hope we hold this class as is and add the OT, LBs, and a big DL.
Nape wants to run two TEs, one blocker type and one H-Back type. We just don’t have very good ones right now on the team.