Solid Recruiting Class

[ricepatty]

Disagree.

Who would you rather have? Nico and Telander, or Leacock and Smith? Each group averages out to ~92.5 on On3, but I’d take the first group every single day.

Averaging ratings fails to account for the fact that those top tier guys are more separated from the pack than the ratings indicate, where player start to level off fast past the .87-.88 range.

The one downside of the overall ranking is the propping up of classes with a ton of players (like Butch’s classes) but the on3 class ranking does a nice job handling that.

I understand your point. I can rephrase what I mean. I think we undervalue average rating and overvalue overall ranking but that doesn't mean that one is better than another. The 2015 class is an excellent example of what you brought up.

For fun you can replace Telander with Nate Spillman and I'd still choose that all day.

 

[esarmstrong]

But what is the average of the guys in our class with "5 star hearts"? I think our recruiting still has a drag on it due to the unsettled nature of the NCAA violations. I think most recruits realize that the sanctions UT faces are not likely to be harsh and not as likely to impact their futures, but there are still some we might not be reaching due to this issue. Thankfully, this should be behind us this upcoming year.

 

[Volfan39]

You should go be a fan of someone else. Bashing this class before any of the players arrive on campus is just plain stupid. You have zero clue how this class will turn out. Tons of five star players bust every single year, trust the staff to fill the needs of the team.....I guarantee they know more than you!

It was sarcasm my man. He was making fun of the post he quoted

 

[unfrozencvmanvol]

I think NIL cuts down on the waffling.

 

[a vol n tears]

College football is changing. Transfer portal changes recruiting significantly, and NIL will have an effect on highly rated high school recruits. Recruiting HS players has become a “little less” important. You can now recruit more mature, college coached, players that fit the positions of need. Also only requires a few days to a few weeks of recruiting compared to a 2-3 yr relationship with HS players.

 

[SaguaroVols]

We actually have a few OL commits in this class so I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

 

[Woodlawn VOL]

I actually disagree with this. Based off 247's Rankings of our 3 star commits,
6 of those 3 * guys are 4* on one of the other recruiting sites. This is a very good class! On on3 our player average is 92.21..

This is a class full of good ball players. A very good class that will compliment our returning players very well. We addressed our needs very well. This is a very good class that will help us continue to get better. Facts! GBO!

 

[youcancallmeAl]

None of this means anything until they hit the field.

 

[LittleVol]

No.

I have hesitated to mention this but this class is more average than many might want to admit UNLESS they have 3* that are underrated. According to 247, UT has the 4th best class in the SEC. However if you rank by the average score the Vols have a 90.93. That moves them down to 6th. It moves them from 9th to 14th nationally.

That's still very good but unless some of those 3* turn out to be stars... it isn't as good as some seem to feel.

Huh lol?

Did someone hack your account??

How many times have you mentioned how the star system is not reliable?

 

[LouderVol]

I really like this recruiting class. Seems to fill holes as much as one could want. Lots of good promising guys in pretty much every spot.

I would still like to see us pick up a good OT, and CB to supplement this class from the portal. Sounds like we are hosting some OTs already.

Only other thing would be a DT, we have some good ones but not great.

 

[Rocky Top T]

Great class! What Heupel has done in this class considering where we were 2 yrs ago is amazing!

 

[DarthVol1]

You should go be a fan of someone else. Bashing this class before any of the players arrive on campus is just plain stupid. You have zero clue how this class will turn out. Tons of five star players bust every single year, trust the staff to fill the needs of the team.....I guarantee they know more than you!

Uh, he was making fun of what the other goofball said.

 

[sjt18]

Huh lol?

Did someone hack your account??

How many times have you mentioned how the star system is not reliable?

Did you not see the great big bold and underlined words?

I don't. I have long said that the coach that turned UT around would be really good at finding underrated 3* guys... they would be much better on game day than NSD as opposed to guys like Butch Jones.

To be plain, my point was that if guys like BigOrangeTrain are right and the recruiting rankings are infallible gospel... then this is a pretty average class. You have some highly rated guys and then you have a bunch of 3* guys.


Personally, I think some of those 3* guys might be significantly underrated. But who am I to argue with such "accurate" predictors of success?

 

[LouderVol]

No.

I have hesitated to mention this but this class is more average than many might want to admit UNLESS they have 3* that are underrated. According to 247, UT has the 4th best class in the SEC. However if you rank by the average score the Vols have a 90.93. That moves them down to 6th. It moves them from 9th to 14th nationally.

That's still very good but unless some of those 3* turn out to be stars... it isn't as good as some seem to feel.

Yeah it's not the tops of the SEC but it does improve us,which is exciting, and makes it a GOOD class for us.

We have to take steps. Heupel is taking bigger steps than I thought he would, but we still have a ways to go. One class was never going to fix it. Even if we pulled a 2022 TAMU class that doesnt guarentee wins. Build a solid foundation with tons of upside, and that way we can sustain.

Our composite talent is 19th, just above South Carolina. 9th is a big step up. As others have pointed out 1-5 are on one tier of talent. 6-15 are the next, and both is a pretty tight bunch. And we beat 2 teams in the top 5 of talent, LSU and Bama. So even a top 10 class, versus a top 5 or 1, closes the gap.

They better watch out if we ever figure out our defense. Even a top 50 pass defense paired with this run D and offense would be scary good.

 

[sjt18]

I actually disagree with this. Based off 247's Rankings of our 3 star commits,
6 of those 3 * guys are 4* on one of the other recruiting sites. This is a very good class! On on3 our player average is 92.21..

Even worse on On3. If you look at the average player rating it is actually 89.88 and 16th nationally and 7th in the SEC.

I'm not arguing that we should be concerned about it. But according to the recruiting sites... this is a pretty average class.

 

[SweetasSoda]

Sorry, but if you don’t like the players in this class and realize what CJH did with a group of misfits, all you’re actually doing is looking at stars of recruiting sites and comparing to GAand AL without taking into account that the recruits they go after get a substantial bump. We’re close enough to them to compete. Another thing is to look at the defensive players…recruiting to meet needs. And another thing is intelligence and work ethic. Great class

 

[sjt18]

Yeah it's not the tops of the SEC but it does improve us,which is exciting, and makes it a GOOD class for us.

We have to take steps. Heupel is taking bigger steps than I thought he would, but we still have a ways to go. One class was never going to fix it. Even if we pulled a 2022 TAMU class that doesnt guarentee wins. Build a solid foundation with tons of upside, and that way we can sustain.

Our composite talent is 19th, just above South Carolina. 9th is a big step up. As others have pointed out 1-5 are on one tier of talent. 6-15 are the next, and both is a pretty tight bunch. And we beat 2 teams in the top 5 of talent, LSU and Bama. So even a top 10 class, versus a top 5 or 1, closes the gap.

They better watch out if we ever figure out our defense. Even a top 50 pass defense paired with this run D and offense would be scary good.

Somehow a lot of you misconstrued my post as if I think the rankings are more certain than they are.

When Clemson won the NC, I believe their composite talent ranking on 247 was 11th. After that, the recruiting sites started respecting Dabo's opinion on borderline prospects.

Heupel just took the 19th most talented roster in the country which was about 6th or 7th in the SEC iirc and created the 2nd best team in the SEC. He did that I believe about 5 scholarship players short of full.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Velus Jones rated a 3* transfer? A guy who wasn't likely to be drafted went in the 3rd round after one year playing for Heupel. Hyatt without a coaching change would have probably been called a bust. Very unlikely he has any shot at the NFL. He's now projected 1st round and was the nation's best WR.

Heupel knows talent. Better yet, he knows how to develop talent.


My only point is that according to the recruiting sites this is NOT an elite class. It is an average SEC class.

 

[sjt18]

Sorry, but if you don’t like the players in this class and realize what CJH did with a group of misfits, all you’re actually doing is looking at stars of recruiting sites and comparing to GAand AL without taking into account that the recruits they go after get a substantial bump. We’re close enough to them to compete. Another thing is to look at the defensive players…recruiting to meet needs. And another thing is intelligence and work ethic. Great class

Agree. If you were talking to me then you missed my point about 180 degrees.

 

[Carp]

No.

I have hesitated to mention this but this class is more average than many might want to admit UNLESS they have 3* that are underrated. According to 247, UT has the 4th best class in the SEC. However if you rank by the average score the Vols have a 90.93. That moves them down to 6th. It moves them from 9th to 14th nationally.

That's still very good but unless some of those 3* turn out to be stars... it isn't as good as some seem to feel.

We keep having this argument every year seems like. Using average star rating is mostly useless when you're comparing different size recruiting classes. We have 27 recruits and UF has 22. Of course their average is gonna be higher.

Remove our 5 lowest rated recruits to make our total # of recruits the same as UF. Our projected class would still be worth 277.51 points and would still be ranked 9th overall.

Same with A&M and OM who only have 13 commits.

 

[LouderVol]

Somehow a lot of you misconstrued my post as if I think the rankings are more certain than they are.

When Clemson won the NC, I believe their composite talent ranking on 247 was 11th. After that, the recruiting sites started respecting Dabo's opinion on borderline prospects.

Heupel just took the 19th most talented roster in the country which was about 6th or 7th in the SEC iirc and created the 2nd best team in the SEC. He did that I believe about 5 scholarship players short of full.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Velus Jones rated a 3* transfer? A guy who wasn't likely to be drafted went in the 3rd round after one year playing for Heupel. Hyatt without a coaching change would have probably been called a bust. Very unlikely he has any shot at the NFL. He's now projected 1st round and was the nation's best WR.

Heupel knows talent. Better yet, he knows how to develop talent.


My only point is that according to the recruiting sites this is NOT an elite class. It is an average SEC class.

Yeah it didnt come across like you were ragging on the recruiting sites evaluations.

 

[sjt18]

We keep having this argument every year seems like. Using average star rating is mostly useless when you're comparing different size recruiting classes. We have 27 recruits and UF has 22. Of course their average is gonna be higher.

That's not true. Their average is higher because they have a bunch of 4* and very few 3*. Come on. That's simple math.

Using the average is really the only relevant thing if you put that much faith in the recruiting sites. I actually think the 247 talent composite is more credible than any single class rating or ranking. You factor out some of the error by looking at 85 players rather than 25. But they have UT 19th when the Vols were actually the 2nd best team in the SEC this year.

Remove our 5 lowest rated recruits to make our total # of recruits the same as UF. Our projected class would still be worth 277.51 points and would still be ranked 9th overall.

That's like saying you should remove a hitter's 10 strikeouts before calculating his average.

Those 5 lowest players are still getting a scholarship and taking up one of your 85 slots.

PS- I don't buy some of these ratings. JUST based on highlights, I've seen 5* players with less impressive video than Keith. He's a 230 lb guy who finds seams, runs behind his pads, and routinely outruns opposing secondaries and guys with angles. Just doesn't look like a 3* RB to me. I never really understood how Sampson could post the numbers he did in LA and end up a 3* either. His play suggests... he should have been higher.

Jalen Smith is posting great numbers in a highly competitive GA HSFB division. Better than guys who have gotten 5* and certainly 4*. I'm OK with his ranking... but believe he will be an early contributor. Similar for Lutrell except his composite says he's the #84 player in GA. According to the recruiting sites, he's a G-5 or FCS level player. Watching his highlights and a few extended video clips... I think he's going to be better than that.

 

[LouderVol]

We keep having this argument every year seems like. Using average star rating is mostly useless when you're comparing different size recruiting classes. We have 27 recruits and UF has 22. Of course their average is gonna be higher.

Remove our 5 lowest rated recruits to make our total # of recruits the same as UF. Our projected class would still be worth 277.51 points and would still be ranked 9th overall.

Same with A&M and OM who only have 13 commits.

Why our bottom 5? You a cherry picking the stats to make the class look better. It's an average of the full recruitment class, not the average our top 10 vs their top 10.

If you wanted to truly equal out the numbers you would need to randomly select 5 guys. And by random I mean the average of those 5 guys would need to be close to our teams overall average.

 

[sjt18]

Yeah it didnt come across like you were ragging on the recruiting sites evaluations.

Not necessarily "ragging" on them. I just understand that they aren't the be all/end all that others think. I also understand that their business is NOT "accuracy". Their business is subscriptions and "hits". They're in it to stoke interest.

If their mission was to accurately rank the best players in the country... they'd fail by any reasonable measure. They are "accurate enough" to keep people buying and clicking.

 

[barrylee]

I’m very happy with this class! We’ve had higher rated class I guess but this class zeroes in on our needs and weaknesses from this past year!

Butch used to go after high rated kids just to boost his ratings without much thought to our needs.

We always felt good during his post recruiting show but too many times it didn’t translate to the field.

Just a long winded way to say I really like what Heup has done this class..

 

[volroadwarrior]

We are 10-2 and almost in the playoffs with all of the 3 stars on the team. We don't deserve the record and results this year with all of the 3 stars on the roster. What an idiotic argument from the star gazers.