You can’t win with recruiting threads because somebody will respond with, “why do we win 10 games then if it’s so bad” or “what about James Washington or Justice Hill they say hi,” while someone else will take the opposite approach and say, “if we only recruit better players we would beat ou” or “we would have 2-3 big 12 championships if we recruit better.”
I’m not trying to change either of those opinions. It is what it is and there isn’t an exact science to recruiting I know that. That’s not an excuse, it’s just there are no gurantees either way in recruiting. We could get a class full of 4 and 5 stars and some would live up to it and some won’t. We could get a class full of 2-3 stars and some will over achieve and some won’t. I tend to agree with the opinion that you better your odds when you recruit higher level ranked players, but am perfectly fine accepting a class full of 3 star guys with good offer lists. I’d pose the question what is the difference between a 3 star recruit with a good offer list and a 4 star recruit with a crappy offer list? Heck, I don’t think there is much difference between a 5.7 3 star and a 5.8 4 star.
Everybody has their own opinion when it comes to recruiting. Right now, I’d guess the majority of the board is confused as to what our exact strategy is? When it comes to recruiting most on here right now may even say we fail to have a strategy, or the one we have sucks.
I have to admit I’m a little concerned about our current class and I’ll explain why. I’ll break this down according to positives and negatives regarding this current class along with some thoughts about the direction we may be going to finish the class.
Let’s start with the positives:
-this oline class may be better then last year’s haul. Take that with a grain of salt as oline recruits may be the hardest to predict, but there is no doubt that we got some very talented guys to follow last years class of olineman. Coach Henson is doing a great job. But why do I say that? Look at 3 of the 4 oline recruits offer list? They are loaded with power 5 offers. I can handle throwing stars out the window if the kid has a big time offer list. That is what you are seeing with our take along the oline. I can also handle taking the 2 star kid out of Kansas because of the fact that the other 3 are guys with major offer lists. We should be done here unless a spot could open up for Micheal Lynn out of Colorado. I get the sense we could have landed him but had to tell him we were full. We did good here in the 19 class.
-I like both of our DT recruits. Jernigan is a big time guy with a nice offer list, and while Ross doesn’t have as nice of a offer list at least P5 schools showed interest and his frame is worth the take. I feel like osu is going to need to take a JUCO now at this position. I’m not attempting to spin it but it’s possible Enoch Jackson and osu cooled on each other. Enoch maybe wasn’t so thrilled to come back to stilly, and osu maybe filled it’s allotted high school DT spots in this class. Keep in mind that Enoch was in stilly when Ross and Jerinigan were there and committed. What happened after that with Enoch and his thoughts on what he viewed as open playing time and what our coaches thought regarding maybe only having 2 spots open for high school guys. By my estimate we would take 3 DT’s here and we need a JUCO to break up the class a bit and offer more stability for our depth next year.
-both of our DE’s are solid gets. Israel Hundley has a high ceiling and had decent interest from P5 schools. He is a bit of a project but if he works it could be amazing. Waltershied was just going to be a kid we were going to take because of the connection but I find myself asking, “why do the low rated recruited siblings not have any problem following their older siblings to osu(see Devin Harpers brother also in this class) but the higher ranked ones with siblings(Rudolph, Daniels, Sterns......say it won’t be so Dax) at osu don’t?” Having said that if he can turn out like his brother this is a fine take. We lost Collin Clay tonight. Again, not trying to spin but is it possible we had 2-3 spots to give at DE, Hundley & Waltersheid filled two and we like Trace Ford better for our third? I don’t think we need a JUCO here, but I do think we need to take another high school DE to fill this class. Is it possible that we will be ok here and hope more for Ford? We offered the kid the idea of playing baseball so I think we have interest there. You start to go to plan B guys if you miss out on Ford though, one would think.
-Grayson Boomer at TE is a great take. Again, I can handle his star ranking because his offers are amazing. Rivals is missing the ball on this osu recruit not giving him his 4th star. Typical of osu recruits and rivals.
Now for the negative and concern:
-this was a typical year of in state talent. Many will lead you to believe it was a down year in state, to which they would be full of crap. Reason that is being said is because ou went elsewhere with a lack of interest on the in state guys. This year is no different then last. Osu has a chance to capitalize on it and we haven’t. That leads to concern. Now, as I explained above we may have some justification and reasoning with some of this and why we didn’t push harder or get them, but it’s just not a good look. Lose out on Dax and Ford and one would have to say this was a major blown opportunity for osu in state.
-7 of our 14 recruits don’t have a P5 offer. I’m going to focus on this comment for a minute because it is the “biggie” to me in this class so far. In the past a lot of our classes that have ranked anywhere from 25-40 have had guys who were 2-3 star guys but many of them had interest from a P5 schools. This class is even lacking in that. That is a concern. While I struggle to see why OSU can’t take a jump and go from 3-4 four star guys to 5-6 four star guys this concerns me way more then that.
Here is the list of guys in our class without a P5 offer:
Thomas Harper Ath.
Kody Waltershied DE
Brendan Costello Qb
DeMarco Jones DB
Xavier Player DB
Joe Michalski OL
Na’ Drian Dizadare LB
I could spin that list and say some of the things ive heard such as “well Thomas Harper showed up at one of our camps and out performed a lot of guys with P5 offers” or “Costello was about to get some major interest from the likes of UCLA and other west coast schools” or “DeMarco plays at BTW and committed to us before other schools could get involved” or “Na’Drian plays like Calvin Bundage” or “go watch Michalski’s tape” or “Xavier Player played on one of, if not the best secondaries in all of Texas last year at Steele” or “Kody is going to be better then his brother.” Those are all comments I’ve heard, but we would be spinning the crap out of what amounts to guys with zero P5 interest that we know of.
Truth is some of the above guys will probably exceed expectations and some simply are going to be what they are.
I’m not looking to debate the star system. To be honest I’ve been around here long enough and gone back and fourth to know stars are crap. My issue with this class is the lack of interest from other P5 schools with our recruits. That is what has me concerned. At least in the past our 2-3 star guys had offer lists. Right now that aspect is making me a bit nervous about our future.
Receuitng is the life blood of your programs future and we have to base our future on rankings, stars, and highlight reels. I know Gundy has a culture built. I heard his explanation at media days to recruiting. I’ve listened to him talk about why we take who we take. I realize there has to be a buy in and a fit with the kid and the unvirsity and in our case town. I mean kstate fans would probably tell us all to shut up about recruiting if we’re being honest.
I also know there are other factors at play in a recruits mind:
-Playin time
-the city life
-coaches
-wins vs. losses
-conference appeal (mostly SEC)
And many more I’m not even bringing up.
I’ll end it with this. I wonder how much of our struggle in this current class could be with defensive recruits because of our past? This 2019 class focus was going to be on the defensive side. Most of the highly recruited siblings I brought up earlier were guys that were going to play on the defensive side of the ball and they didn’t come here and they had an inside look first hand at our programs defense.
We held onto Glenn Spencer to long and we are dealing with the side effects. The big 12 conference is a joke defensively and we had one of the worst DC’s amongst that group. How much of that has hurt where we are now? I don’t want to point the finger at Glenn or put undo pressure on Coach Knowles. I’m simply asking if some of our recruiting shortcomings have to do with our ineptness on that side of the ball and we had to start over essentially?
Just my take and attempt to have some recruiting discussion. Fire away.
I’m not trying to change either of those opinions. It is what it is and there isn’t an exact science to recruiting I know that. That’s not an excuse, it’s just there are no gurantees either way in recruiting. We could get a class full of 4 and 5 stars and some would live up to it and some won’t. We could get a class full of 2-3 stars and some will over achieve and some won’t. I tend to agree with the opinion that you better your odds when you recruit higher level ranked players, but am perfectly fine accepting a class full of 3 star guys with good offer lists. I’d pose the question what is the difference between a 3 star recruit with a good offer list and a 4 star recruit with a crappy offer list? Heck, I don’t think there is much difference between a 5.7 3 star and a 5.8 4 star.
Everybody has their own opinion when it comes to recruiting. Right now, I’d guess the majority of the board is confused as to what our exact strategy is? When it comes to recruiting most on here right now may even say we fail to have a strategy, or the one we have sucks.
I have to admit I’m a little concerned about our current class and I’ll explain why. I’ll break this down according to positives and negatives regarding this current class along with some thoughts about the direction we may be going to finish the class.
Let’s start with the positives:
-this oline class may be better then last year’s haul. Take that with a grain of salt as oline recruits may be the hardest to predict, but there is no doubt that we got some very talented guys to follow last years class of olineman. Coach Henson is doing a great job. But why do I say that? Look at 3 of the 4 oline recruits offer list? They are loaded with power 5 offers. I can handle throwing stars out the window if the kid has a big time offer list. That is what you are seeing with our take along the oline. I can also handle taking the 2 star kid out of Kansas because of the fact that the other 3 are guys with major offer lists. We should be done here unless a spot could open up for Micheal Lynn out of Colorado. I get the sense we could have landed him but had to tell him we were full. We did good here in the 19 class.
-I like both of our DT recruits. Jernigan is a big time guy with a nice offer list, and while Ross doesn’t have as nice of a offer list at least P5 schools showed interest and his frame is worth the take. I feel like osu is going to need to take a JUCO now at this position. I’m not attempting to spin it but it’s possible Enoch Jackson and osu cooled on each other. Enoch maybe wasn’t so thrilled to come back to stilly, and osu maybe filled it’s allotted high school DT spots in this class. Keep in mind that Enoch was in stilly when Ross and Jerinigan were there and committed. What happened after that with Enoch and his thoughts on what he viewed as open playing time and what our coaches thought regarding maybe only having 2 spots open for high school guys. By my estimate we would take 3 DT’s here and we need a JUCO to break up the class a bit and offer more stability for our depth next year.
-both of our DE’s are solid gets. Israel Hundley has a high ceiling and had decent interest from P5 schools. He is a bit of a project but if he works it could be amazing. Waltershied was just going to be a kid we were going to take because of the connection but I find myself asking, “why do the low rated recruited siblings not have any problem following their older siblings to osu(see Devin Harpers brother also in this class) but the higher ranked ones with siblings(Rudolph, Daniels, Sterns......say it won’t be so Dax) at osu don’t?” Having said that if he can turn out like his brother this is a fine take. We lost Collin Clay tonight. Again, not trying to spin but is it possible we had 2-3 spots to give at DE, Hundley & Waltersheid filled two and we like Trace Ford better for our third? I don’t think we need a JUCO here, but I do think we need to take another high school DE to fill this class. Is it possible that we will be ok here and hope more for Ford? We offered the kid the idea of playing baseball so I think we have interest there. You start to go to plan B guys if you miss out on Ford though, one would think.
-Grayson Boomer at TE is a great take. Again, I can handle his star ranking because his offers are amazing. Rivals is missing the ball on this osu recruit not giving him his 4th star. Typical of osu recruits and rivals.
Now for the negative and concern:
-this was a typical year of in state talent. Many will lead you to believe it was a down year in state, to which they would be full of crap. Reason that is being said is because ou went elsewhere with a lack of interest on the in state guys. This year is no different then last. Osu has a chance to capitalize on it and we haven’t. That leads to concern. Now, as I explained above we may have some justification and reasoning with some of this and why we didn’t push harder or get them, but it’s just not a good look. Lose out on Dax and Ford and one would have to say this was a major blown opportunity for osu in state.
-7 of our 14 recruits don’t have a P5 offer. I’m going to focus on this comment for a minute because it is the “biggie” to me in this class so far. In the past a lot of our classes that have ranked anywhere from 25-40 have had guys who were 2-3 star guys but many of them had interest from a P5 schools. This class is even lacking in that. That is a concern. While I struggle to see why OSU can’t take a jump and go from 3-4 four star guys to 5-6 four star guys this concerns me way more then that.
Here is the list of guys in our class without a P5 offer:
Thomas Harper Ath.
Kody Waltershied DE
Brendan Costello Qb
DeMarco Jones DB
Xavier Player DB
Joe Michalski OL
Na’ Drian Dizadare LB
I could spin that list and say some of the things ive heard such as “well Thomas Harper showed up at one of our camps and out performed a lot of guys with P5 offers” or “Costello was about to get some major interest from the likes of UCLA and other west coast schools” or “DeMarco plays at BTW and committed to us before other schools could get involved” or “Na’Drian plays like Calvin Bundage” or “go watch Michalski’s tape” or “Xavier Player played on one of, if not the best secondaries in all of Texas last year at Steele” or “Kody is going to be better then his brother.” Those are all comments I’ve heard, but we would be spinning the crap out of what amounts to guys with zero P5 interest that we know of.
Truth is some of the above guys will probably exceed expectations and some simply are going to be what they are.
I’m not looking to debate the star system. To be honest I’ve been around here long enough and gone back and fourth to know stars are crap. My issue with this class is the lack of interest from other P5 schools with our recruits. That is what has me concerned. At least in the past our 2-3 star guys had offer lists. Right now that aspect is making me a bit nervous about our future.
Receuitng is the life blood of your programs future and we have to base our future on rankings, stars, and highlight reels. I know Gundy has a culture built. I heard his explanation at media days to recruiting. I’ve listened to him talk about why we take who we take. I realize there has to be a buy in and a fit with the kid and the unvirsity and in our case town. I mean kstate fans would probably tell us all to shut up about recruiting if we’re being honest.
I also know there are other factors at play in a recruits mind:
-Playin time
-the city life
-coaches
-wins vs. losses
-conference appeal (mostly SEC)
And many more I’m not even bringing up.
I’ll end it with this. I wonder how much of our struggle in this current class could be with defensive recruits because of our past? This 2019 class focus was going to be on the defensive side. Most of the highly recruited siblings I brought up earlier were guys that were going to play on the defensive side of the ball and they didn’t come here and they had an inside look first hand at our programs defense.
We held onto Glenn Spencer to long and we are dealing with the side effects. The big 12 conference is a joke defensively and we had one of the worst DC’s amongst that group. How much of that has hurt where we are now? I don’t want to point the finger at Glenn or put undo pressure on Coach Knowles. I’m simply asking if some of our recruiting shortcomings have to do with our ineptness on that side of the ball and we had to start over essentially?
Just my take and attempt to have some recruiting discussion. Fire away.
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