Those ranking are heavily reliant and influenced on the other teams around them recruiting success or failures. We could have brought in much more talented and higher ranked kids but finished the same in rankings because we took 5 or so less commits than the year before. We landed 2 5* kids in the same class for the 1st time since the 2010 class including a franchise type player in Lagway. McCray #1 5* DL. Also Brought in 2 other player via portal that were #1 at their position in 5* #1 cb Cormani and #1 IOL Zandamela. I would say last class was as good or better than the previous 4 or 5 classes. Our '23 class was a good one too. Gave us talent and depth which doesn't always reflect in the class ratings. CBN's classes tend to recruit heavy in areas of need. For example , WR and DL heavy one class, oline, RB, and DB heavy another class, etc. I would say the fairest way to compare would be avg player rating compared to the previous years. And remove any player that never qualified or showed up to campus. Or transfered before 1st season ever started ( ie: Chris Steele)
All that even including the bye weeks for our opponents - all that doesn’t happen by accident. Not buying that
I agree - with Lagway I think all bets are off. We are a different team. Now, if we don't look good this Saturday - schizophrenia time.
I didn’t even think about that every major opposition was getting bye weeks. The SEC office really was trying to force us into yet another coaching change.
So our most talented rosters over the last decade were built by a guy that disliked recruiting? That paints a different picture.
Now look at OU’s and you’ll see why they’re pissed. The Sooners got baptized while the Horns chuckled. We always get the schedule shaft. We got every preseason elite sans Bama and half of those got a bye week before playing us. I swear the league office was trying to force us into another coaching change.
Ole miss schedule isn't much better. Their 1st 4 games were : Furman Middle Tenn Wake Forest Georgia southern Imagine getting 4 cupcakes to start the season to pad your stats and get the kinks worked out?
No his best years ranked recruiting were when there was a pandemic and the country was on lock down. Which affected other teams recruiting, especially teams that strive from out of state recruiting. Also aside from Dexter who was the highest rated player he signed that actually stuck around to play. Who else? 5* Chris Steele left before he stepped foot on the field, aside from getting shorter and grimes from the portal his WR recruiting was mid. His oline recruiting was mid, surprisingly the "QB guru" couldn't recruit a QB. Don't go feeding some non existent narrative.
I was looking at that the other day in disbelief. But then they lost to Kentucky in game 5 so overconfident? We definitely needed a cupcake or 2 this year as we had no confidence, especially on D. Next year's opener we should be in a better place. Still, a cupcake or 2 for openers makes a lot of sense even though playing Miami is exciting, it takes a veteran team to be ready for a top 10 opener.
I wonder what their offensive stats per game look like compared to ours when the cupcakes are removed? In SEC play they’re averaging 31 ppg, but that has a lot to do with the RUS on Ark. in the other 5 league games they’re averaging 25 ppg, which is fairly pedestrian. Their loses are to LSU and UK. If anything, the win over UGa was the anomaly. With DJL, we likely would have done the same. Conversely across seven league games with two easy opponents and two difficult with a walk on QB (kind of a statistical wash), we’re averaging 28.5 ppg. This game should be interesting.
