Right now, we are 11/14…and 7/7 in the West…that suggests NO. Current SEC recruiting rankings per 247.
2 Alabama
3 Texas A&M
4 LSU
5 Auburn
6 Tennessee
7 South Carolina
8 Ole Miss
9 Florida
10 Mississippi State
11 Arkansas
12 Kentucky
13 Vanderbilt
14 Missouri
In 1992, Arkansas lost to two mid-majors. Three seasons later, they played in the SEC Championship game.
OH, now I feel much better…
Coach Morris has no other choice than to recruit his way out of this, but he knew that coming in. If he holds this class together as we near signing day, that will be a good first step.
Rivals:
Arkansas 17th overall, 9th in SEC rankings
24/7
Arkansas 22nd overall, 11th in SEC
ESPN
Arkansas 24th overall, 11th in SEC
You obviously think the rankings tell the whole story. Again, I’ve said you can make an argument for and against the rankings.
I remember the 2013 class was reranked based on production after the four years were up and it was ranked quite bit higher. If the rankings told the whole story, Arkansas would be getting better production out of some of the guys on the team that were ranked high coming out of high school.
Arkansas recruited well enough in the early 90’s to turn things around and there’s no reason why they can’t now.
If you didn’t want Richard or anybody else to present another side of the debate, you should have indicated that. 
I’m on record as NOT being a “Star gazer” . . . but I have always understood the value of recruiting (it’s just that I don’t think the star ratings do a very good job of ranking talent - but that’s another post).
But, for the moment, let’s consider that those rankings are valid and reflect the relative strength of the various SEC classes. The thing to remember is that one of the main ways your class becomes, say, #7 in the country vs. #17 is that your players AFTER your top dozen players are significantly higher rated than the lower ranked class. And there is validity to that - depth matters.
However, there is a point of diminishing returns. That is to say, in games that matter, your last 30 or 40 players are going to play very little, if at all. So the main difference, in games, usually comes from your top 40 or 50 players.
So if the top 30 classes were re-ranked only on the top 8 or 10 players each year, it might look a lot different. In our case, if we can get 10-12 really good players each year and then a couple of serviceable players among the rest, we will have the talent to line up and play against top-tier SEC schools.
That is what Bobby Petrino did. If his better teams had a game between our bottom 30 players and LSU, Bama, Georgia, Florida, etc. we’d have gotten slaughtered. But, as it was, our top players matched up pretty good in the SEC and the country.
That is our hope - get a top 40 players that can compete, start winning and then build real depth.
90% of the roster are Coach B’s system player’s…just like it was when Petrino arrived…they were Coach Nutts system player’s.
It’s not necessarily a ranking per position thing because if that were the case we beat N. Texas by 5 TD’s. Example would you rather have duel-threat Matt Jones or 5 STAR Ryan Mallet in this offense…
You make a very good point. If you have a difference maker at QB or a few other positions, I think you probably don’t lose to CS and NT.
Or, to put it another way, if your play at a few key positions (QB, first and foremost; Safety, Middle Linebacker) is sub-par,it almost doesn’t matter how talented the rest of your team is.
LSU has been the poster child in support of this statement over the lat 10-15 years. Very strong up and down the roster, but sub-par QB play held them back.
That’s where we are in trouble right now. Our Safety play is just flat terrible. So is qb.
This isn’t a quick fix. I hope we can find a judo qb, or develop Noland. I know everyone like JSJ, he’s just too small.
DD, do you feel like the way we are playing today that we will be able to hold this class together without some decommiting ? WPS
I have talked to several commits this week and their message is they knew that Arkansas was down and are coming to play early and turn it around.
It would be silly for me to predict that all 19 would remain intact, but they do appear to be locked in with this coaching staff and bringing about the revival.
Wins and losses matter but only so much, in my personal opinion we have shown to be poorly prepared and coached, if that continues i can’t see many sticking.