CBS ranks us 28 in the country behind Ole Miss at 23, South Carolina at 26, and Mississippi State at 27.
We did finish ahead of Vanderbilt at 31.
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They donāt consider the portal additions and we didnāt sign anyone. And lost/changed directions on Rowser.
But then ESPN has us 21st, Rivals 26th, and 247 has us 18th in theirs and 28th in composite. So opinions vary.
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9th of 14 in the SEC
Itās too low no matter how you spin it. Transfers or not.
Luckily no one is more aware of that than Sam Pittman. And what heās built and the changes heās made appear to be moving us solidly in the right direction - see ā23 class.
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Coach them up.
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One guy they were counting on until November is not a part of the class. Theyāre in very good shape at safety for next season. Theyāll make it up from the portal or in recruiting next year.
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To me, the additions of Haselwood, Sanders, McGlothern and maybe Brini are like 5-star recruits because of a combination of their ages, past performance and the coaching they received in the programs they played in previously. None of them count toward the 247 composite rankings, which are the ones CBS uses (I think CBS owns 247Sports), but they are maybe the most important signees this year to Arkansas.
Recruiting rankings that donāt consider transfer movement are going to quickly become antiquated.
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It does not make sense that you would rate a Junior college transfer but not someone like Ridgeway or Haselwood.
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Matt, why did you say āMaybe Brini?ā
Because I donāt know as much about him as I do the others. I know he started several games at Georgia and assume he must be pretty good to do so on that defense, but I havenāt had a chance to look into him as much as I have the others.
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Yeah and what these so-called experts are not figuring in getting Jalen Catalon and Bumper Pool to come back are like 6 star guys in my opinion.we are already off to a great start in 2023 and if we have a great season next year it will be on and popping going forwardā¦
They did a re-ranking of the 2019 class I believe and we ended up I think 9th in the nation because of KJ and Burks and people like that. I have never been one to put tremendous emphasis on recruiting rankings because I know it will be 2 years before you find out what you have
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Is it easier to coach up 3 star players to perform at the level of a 5 star recruit or to coach a 5 star player to play at that top level? Few coaches get the most out of their 4 & 5 star talent, especially teams full of entitled prima donnas - exception perhaps being Saban. Expect & hope that teams like ut & aTm with top talent will continue to underachieve on game day as they have in the past & well below their recruiting rankings.
Trust that CSP & staff can continue to recognize, develop, & motivate talent to compete with the best - whether our recruits are 3, 4, or 5 star. With proven success & with our current coaches, Arkansas will attract more of the best talent.
I would like to see what happens with a bunch of 5 stars. What makes them 5 stars is size and speed. I like those attributes.
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There are many factors that can make us or any other teamās recruits higher rated than one or another service rates them. āYou can say our portal transfers make us much better than the rating.ā I believe that Ole Miss and LSUās portal newcomers are higher rated than ours. So, that logic would apply more to them than to us if that is true. āWe got great coaches who can make a 3 star play like a 5.ā Does anyone really believe that the SEC teams we are trying to catch donāt have great coaches too? We like to say that āstars donāt matterā but then we go nuts when a former 5 star transfers in. They donāt all pan out but it is a fact that 5 stars are more likely to excel than 3 stars statistically. When you fail to get the 5 star, you get the best star you can get instead and hope the longshot odds of success pay off. So, the original point stands. As far as competing head to head with our SEC rivals, we are in the bottom third of the conference at best. Sam is trying real hard to do better than that but so are the coaches at A&M, OleMiss, LSU, etc. and, at this time, they are more successful at it. We are doing better but we still got a long way to go. JMVVVVVVHO
It is possible that rankings and ratings take into account āposition scarcityā but I donāt see evidence of that. The rankings/ratings skew heavily towards skilled offensive players - maybe not at the 5-star level but at the 4-star level. There are a boatload of 4-star+ WR, RB, QB relative to the overall numbers.
Skilled players develop earlier - it takes time to add muscle to linemen (many have pounds that must be converted into muscle). Linemen must be projected out 2-3 years in most cases. Especially when you look at the trend towards sophomore and even freshmen getting offers you are getting into sketchy territory when it comes to accurate projections.
If I may use a baseball exampleā¦my son is a LHP, 6-5 and not done growing (we think). I tell him to shave before every prospect camp or campus visit. Inevitably, there is a kid with a full beard (I joke he dropped his kids off at daycare before the tryout to underscore his maturity) who throws 2-3 MPH harder but because he is fully developed he doesnāt get the attention. That early maturation helped that kid be a star already, but his long-term growth is going to come from hard work and training alone, with mother nature doing little of it for him.
I believe it was Dequinta Jones who was a DL committed to Michigan at 6-3 x 245. Petrino managed to get him to UA and the kid had grown a lot, 6-5 x 270 (played bigger here, of course). Michigan cooled on him for another recruit who was already fully grown and Petrino snapped up the kid still growing. He signed Knile Davis who played at UA before his 18th birthdayā¦still maturing.
So, amidst my rambling: there is a hidden game, the age game. Are you getting a kid who is younger, and therefore developing later? Is the kid done growing naturally, or is it all about weight room and pounding calories at this point? Those are two different things (or, maybe said better, if you have both the player has more opportunity for growth as a talented contributor).
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As always, there will be a lot more 3 stars in the Super Bowl than 4 and 5 stars combined.
There will be a few that had no stars.
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When I was going to school, the guys who were the stars on the junior high football team were a completely different set of guys than those who were the stars on the high school team. The junior high stars were those who got their growth early, and the high school stars were those who got their growth later.
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Yeah my high school team had two kids who were what would be called FBS recruits today. One signed with the Hogs, one signed with Memphis and then backed out and went to Henderson (girlfriend issues). The one that had signed with the Hogs did absolutely nothing in junior high; not even sure he started. The other one had been all-everything all the way through; I remember tackling him in Peewee when he was in sixth grade (probably the best tackle I ever made in a game, which tells you a lot about my alleged football career).
So all-everything didnāt do much in college, but heās now a successful attorney in LR (didnāt marry that girlfriend either). The junior high nonentity played four years in the NFL and a few more in the USFL and CFL. Heās still living in KC and associated with the Chiefs through their āambassadorsā alumni program.
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The only thing iām disappointed in is D-lineā¦I think even Vandy had better results than we did,ā¦
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