247 Sports FCS Recruiting Rankings

[Catatonic]

247sports, Rivals, and Scout all rank recruiting classes. i saw an interesting article a year or so ago about the performance of teams with recruiting rankings in the top 10. Turns out that recruiting rank is a very good predictor for who will win a FBS national championship a couple of years down the road.

I am wondering if any stat geeks have done a similar study of FCS teams. How well do rankings predict team performance? My hunch is not nearly as well as for big schools. My reasoning is that 247 and the other services closely monitor recruiting for very big schools but do a half assed job of keeping up with FCS recruits. For example, ACU has a commit from a former commit to another FCS school. He decommitted and recommitted over a week ago but still shows as commit to his former school. Two years ago a guy who committed to and signed with ACU was still showing up as a Colorado State commit two weeks after signing day.

Anyone, has anyone looked at FCS rank vs performance over a several year period?

[lionsrking2]

247sports, Rivals, and Scout all rank recruiting classes. i saw an interesting article a year or so ago about the performance of teams with recruiting rankings in the top 10. Turns out that recruiting rank is a very good predictor for who will win a FBS national championship a couple of years down the road.

I am wondering if any stat geeks have done a similar study of FCS teams. How well do rankings predict team performance? My hunch is not nearly as well as for big schools. My reasoning is that 247 and the other services closely monitor recruiting for very big schools but do a half assed job of keeping up with FCS recruits. For example, ACU has a commit from a former commit to another FCS school. He decommitted and recommitted over a week ago but still shows as commit to his former school. Two years ago a guy who committed to and signed with ACU was still showing up as a Colorado State commit two weeks after signing day.

Anyone, has anyone looked at FCS rank vs performance over a several year period?


The recruiting websites rank FBS classes to to cater to fans and sell subscriptions, but never intended to rank FCS classes. The further down the chain you go, the more incomplete the information, and less reliable the systems become when trying to rank teams outside of the top 70-75. I'd argue it falls apart after the top 10 (crapshoot after that) though you'll virtually never find an unranked player up that high. Anyone who relies on Rivals, 247 or Scout to get a true feel for FCS recruiting is not getting anywhere close to the real picture. Not to say there isn't some good information but some of the better players never find their way into any of the databases. Best way to evaluate a class is to examine a teams needs, see if they filled them numbers wise, then flip on the tape and decide for yourself. But you really won't know for at least a couple of years who can play or not. That said, it's a fun exercise this time of year.

[Milktruck74]

You can use the number of stars to rank recruiting classes, but in FCS it is always about finding kids that fit your system. For instance if Citadel recruited a 3 star drop back passer, that wouldn't be as good for them as a solid 1 star RB. And some kids are All-World and never improve, while others go under the radar and 3 years later are world beaters....It hink this is much more of a crap shoot in FCS vs FBS...itmay be the numbers, or the fact that 5 stars stand out much more than 3 stars.....Of course this is just my opinion.

[LeopardBall10]

There really are no good measures for FCS recruits. All of the major agencies you names have some questionable practices like re-ranking a player if he commits to an FCS school instead of Ohio State. They can't have a 4 star kid going to an FCS school, that looks bad on them. So if NDSU gets a guy like Wentz to commit all of a sudden his rankings drop to those "appropriate" for that level.

The Patriot League has taken a mocking approach to this in the Patsy Ratings that tries to rank the PL recruiting classes based on need, etc. Every year it is an interesting exercise, and while many people complain that they are inaccurate or silly it is still a method that has shown some low level predictive power. And its just fun. The biggest complaint is that the "star ranking method" for measuring top level recruits ignores a lot of other factors. But I have not seen a single other methodology proposed to rank the other best FCS talent.

[Catatonic]

Excellent observations that pretty much confirm what I have been thinking.

[Go Green]

We were just discussing the rating system on the Ivy Board last week. What prompted the discussion was a Yale commit who was given three stars by 247 even though he only had offers from Ivy schools, Army, and Georgetown...

Maybe the guy ends up being an impact player. But for my money, a three star is a guy with either several high-end FCS offers, a few FBS offers, or one BCS offer.

And where the guy actually ends up going should be irrelevant to the rankings.

[RootinFerDukes]

I never knew that some sites will adjust a player's star rank down just because he didn't commit to a P5 school or FBS school. That's despicable.

[clenz]

I'll just quote myself from a thread from exactly 1 year ago...well...one day short of one year.

It was about last years 247 top 10 ranking...so....fitting....


Enjoy....then continue to think rankings matter



Bull****.

I'll say it in every single thread that recruiting rankings are mentioned...maybe someday someone will listen.


These don't mean ****. I worked for Rivals for about 5 years going across the state of Iowa gathering film on recruits for football and basketball. I cut the film to create game highlights and player highlights, published the film to the site, did interviews, involved with how to rank kids, etc... I know how this **** works.

247 doesn't know a damn thing about these classes beyond superficial ratings done on kids that they maybe saw 8 minutes of highlight tape on. That doesn't make 247 lazy, it's how Scout, Rivals, NY2LA (for BB), etc... do their rankings. Outside of the top 150-200 (even that's pushing it) the rankings are like the points on Whose Line Is It Anyway. For those unfamiliar (somehow) with that...

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/46/4688668e4138abc21361f6bde1e21598bf0d18751fb011bd6d 638cb06d94e6ec.jpg



Want some proof? I'll use specific names to make my case.

Class of 2010 - Andre Dawson http://sports.yahoo.com/uab/football/recruiting/player-Andre-Dawson-76560
I did film on him. Those highlights you see on Rivals...guess who was involved in that.

Look at his offer sheet - for those that don't want to click the link
Cinci
Illinois
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Northern Illinois
Purdue
Wisconsin
Northern Iowa

He was, long considered, the best player in the state of Iowa. There was, at one point, a strong push to make him a top half 4* recruit. Towards the end of the recruiting cycle someone started a rumor he wasn't going to be a qualifier due to how well he liked UNI and how strongly he felt about going there -regardless of his other offers and how could a kid not be a clearing hows qualifier, yet still enroll as an athlete a D1 school. What did that do to people at Rivals and Scout? Sent them panicking. One e-mail I got on the topic said "We can't have a 4* kid commit to an FCS program out of high school. That would make a mockery of our rankings." so they dropped him from the #1 player in the state and out of the top 50 position rankings. They knew they couldn't drop him from 4 to 2 so they dinged him down to a low 3 and had anyone got "solid confirmation even one of his offers was pulled" he would have gone to 2* or N/R after being 3-4* just a few weeks earlier and for all of his JR and SR seasons.

Once Dawson got to campus he was pretty much disinterested in football. Transferred after a year to Iowa Western CC for a year, then to Iowa for a season and then quit football all together.

Other kids in the state of Iowa that year? David Johnson (we all know that name), AJ Derby (started at Arkansas and bouncing around the NFL), Jake Waters (started 2 years at K-State), Brandon Scherff (4 year starter at Iowa, top 5 NFL pick and NFL starter), James Morris (4 year starter at Iowa, All B10, now with NE), David Parry - All P12 guy at Stanford, drafted by the Colts and starts for them, Jack Rummells (3 year OL starter for UNI and on a couple camp/practice rosters this past year). Turns out Scherff and Morris were the only two liked by Rivals that year. Parry won the award for best NCAA senior that started career as a walk on. His only offers out of HS were UNI, Illinois State and Navy. Chose Stanford due to academics. Why were Parry and Johnson so low but guys like Dawson (who was probably "rightfully" dropped but for the wrong reason...anyone watching football in Iowa knew DJ was the better back) were high to start? Dawson played at a highly respected program that had produced B10 WRs like Adrian Arrington (of Michigan fame) and Keenan Davis (of Iowa fame) in the previous few years. DJ played on a Clinton team that was historically awful and he was their only bright spot. Same with Parry at Linn-Mar High (the district I now live in...and it's not a great program but getting better because of kids like Parry).

It's why the MVP is almost always the best player on the best team. It's easy to give them that award/rank them that high. Hard to justify a kid from a sub .500 program being a 3-4* kid.

Also keep in mind with DJ, had he played LB/SS in college and signed with Iowa/Iowa State (like they wanted to happen) he would have been a 3* "Athlete" because of where he signed. Instead, unranked RB for an FCS school.



Another one that's interesting is happening right now, and 247 is leading the charge at changing rankings on this one.

UNI DE/TE commit Desmond Chappel http://sports.yahoo.com/ucf/football/recruiting/player-Desmond-Chapple-183043 and http://247sports.com/Player/Desmond-Chapple-81282

He has offers from UNI (committed), Ball State, Miami (OH), Pittsburgh, SEMO, SIU, and Wyoming.
Jan 17 he was 3* across the board - Scout, Rivals and 247

On Jan 18th he tweeted "Blessed to say that I will be furthering my education and football career at the University of Northern Iowa!!! "...he has the tweet pinned to the top of his twitter

Rivals left him as a 3* and show he has a solid verbal. That's actually shocking to me. Watch it though, signing day he may be a 2*, or NR, depending who signs LOI where ahead of him.
Scout moved him to a 2* and show he has a solid verbal
247 has moved him to N/R and show him as uncommitted and "cool" for interest for every school...and I bet there will be zero updates to his page ever again.


Why? Can't have a FCS recruit ranked highly out of HS. Simply can't have it.

I could go on and on and on with examples but it doesn't matter. What the media has done to drive 25+ year old men to follow these kids every move is sickening. It's why I don't follow recruiting more than if something gets re-tweeted to my timeline so that I see a kid "committed". It's a perverse world.


But yeah...feel free to brag about being "ranked highly in the FCS recruiting rankings". We see it every year from the same set of schools. Yet those same schools can't seem to develop those kids to that potential because they never really accomplish anything as a team.

[clenz]

I'll also add this, from another thread about a week later in another thread about best recruiting classes....

It was a thread someone quoted my first post and said "Just read this" essentially. I then followed up with this.


Since I mentioned Desmond Chappel in that post here is some follow up

Rivals did not take the time to update his page as having signed a LOI with UNI

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160204/a517ac6f8f1f84bda605d73ed482d541.jpg

That also means they didn't change his star rankings like I thought they might. That, however, is simply because they will never edit that page ever again.

Maybe Rivals didn't update anyone as being signed....

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160204/3295b2ac8bcf270ee95f5d8f1fb136a0.jpg

Oops. Turns out, lots of pages now say signed, Exocet most kids going FCS.

Maybe Scout and 247 didn't do him as dirty. Let's look

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160204/29878c6b0fe89e26d9374b1b496bbd83.jpg

Compared too

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160204/d421beda9fd67a216f07d72eb4af4d62.jpg

Man, 247 is showing others as active roster already.

Scout took the same approach as rivals.


http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160204/b1367bb4ee6abf3c8bcdf55bac1b809d.jpg



Bragging about class ranking might work for anyone fighting for the top 30 or 40 recruiting classes. After that, well.....

Oh...and to follow up

Desmond's UNI profile for this coming season - http://unipanthers.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=3308


Oh...even after sending his LOI in to UNI and being announced as part of UNI's class scout still wasn't able to be bothered to update his profile.... http://www.scout.com/player/202246-desmond-chapple

[2021fbdad]

Unless you are a high 3, 4 or 5 star recruit the rankings are really hit or miss. My son had over 30 offers this year including several FBS offers and is not even listed by 247. The moderators at Scout and Rival's asked him to update them on his offers and visits. His profile has not been updated on either of those sites since June.

[BEAR]

Unless you are a high 3, 4 or 5 star recruit the rankings are really hit or miss. My son had over 30 offers this year including several FBS offers and is not even listed by 247. The moderators at Scout and Rival's asked him to update them on his offers and visits. His profile has not been updated on either of those sites since June.

I've got a high school freshman son that is getting letters from schools but none of them speak specifically toward their athletic programs. But its funny how the coaches from those same schools show up at games. xlolx He's good at football but he's just a freshman...that's 3 more years before he can go to any of these schools...xlolx Kid might get better or might want to take up the tuba and be in the band by his senior year.

[katstrapper]

Didn't or Isnt Hero Sports trying to do an FCS Recruiting Rankings? I though I read that somewhere.

[DeltaDevil662]

My reasoning is that 247 and the other services closely monitor recruiting for very big schools but do a half assed job of keeping up with FCS recruits.

This pretty much sums it up. There are 2-3 stars that we signed last year that never got their profiles updated. I've seen 3 star athletes sign with other SWAC schools and lose a star.

I thought that I read somewhere that Hero Sports would start doing a dedicated ranking system for FCS schools. It's long overdue

[clenz]

This pretty much sums it up. There are 2-3 stars that we signed last year that never got their profiles updated. I've seen 3 star athletes sign with other SWAC schools and lose a star.

I thought that I read somewhere that Hero Sports would start doing a dedicated ranking system for FCS schools. It's long overdue


Hero Sports isn't going to really be any different unless they have about 5 or 6 scouts in each state dedicated only to the FCS. Dedicated to only covering guys that places like Scout, Rivals, 247, etc... ignore. That means build their own network with coaches. It means completely creating their own ranking system, which is going to be odd given that players are going to have FCS and FBS offers.

Nothing against anyone Hero might employ for this task but it's about zero percent chance the rankings are any good. That isn't because those guys wouldn't be good at their jobs, but FCS recruiting is just hard to rank and follow.

To help illustrate this.

Here is a UNI commit - a 6'5 325 pound OL named Mason Neisen. http://www.hudl.com/video/3/3042421/57c1d848ed57ef341c8c8f4d

http://i348.photobucket.com/albums/q340/unipanthers10/mn_zpsk8hnsju1.png

He has no stars on any service. The only known offer is UNI, HOWEVER he took visits to Iowa, Iowa State and NDSU. Other than those 4 known D1 schools that were recruiting him. I'm sure nearly every D2/D3 within a 5-6 hours of his home town offered/wanted him.

http://hawkeyenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Mason-Neisen-1024x550.jpg



His highlight film from just his senior year is 6 minutes of about 500,000 pancake blocks. He is/was a monster in high school. He was 1st Team All District, 1st Team All State, 1st team Academic All State yet only 1 D1 offer. How do you rate him?

To make it even harder to rate a guy like him? He played at Denver High Shool (about 30 minutes NE of Cedar Falls). He played class 1A football in Iowa, which the second smallest school classification for enrollment. In Iowa it goes 4A (largest 48 schools), 3A (next 56 largest schools), 2A (next 56 largest), 1A (next 56), A (left over schools big enough to field 11 man teams (generally about 56 schools) and then 8 man (generally about 60 schools). The DL in his class generally averages about 6'0 and between 190-220lbs. Did he dominate simply because of his size or because of his skill? How do you rank him?


Oh, and since rankings are comparing and ordering players here's another UNI commit from a school in his same school classification - Jake Brinkman of Iowa City Regina. http://www.hudl.com/video/3/4239018/5833116cc124d813c823a062

https://twitter.com/brinkman_jared/status/755882448416808960

Brinkman is an unranked DT commit. Here's the catch, he played OL and DL in high school. He was named 1st Team Elite All State on the offensive line. What does that mean? In Iowa, the Elite All State, ranks simply the best of the best no matter the classification. So he is a kid that was considered one of the five best offensive lineman in the state this past year, but was recruited by every school to play DT, and will play DT in college. What schools were recruiting him? Iowa, Iowa State, UNI, and NDSU (where his brother plays LB). Oh, Brinkman was also named the best DL in the state of Iowa by the Iowa High School Rivals page. Yet, he is unranked as a DL recruit. There is a kid from a similar sized HS in Iowa that wasn't named the best DL in the state by the name of Coy Kirkpatrick. He had 25 tackles and 2 sacks this past year. He is a 3* on Rivals and 247. He is committed to Iowa. He's considered the 9th best recruit in the state (Neisen in 19th). Brinkman isn't on any list. He committed to UNI a long time ago. Very early. Wonder why he isn't on the lists? AAMF, Brinkman doesn't even have a 247 page. How would Hero sports identify him as someone to rank?

Coy Kirkpatrick committed to Iowa before his Junior year (summer 2015). He was offered on a June Saturday and committed on the spot. He wasn't ranked by any recruiting service at that point. He had zero other offers at that point. He received no other offers due to his early commitment. He wasn't even first time all state for his class (same class as Brinkman and Neiesen) his senior season. All of that and yet he's a 3 star but a kid like Brinkman (also a very early commit but to UNI) isn't, even though Brinkman is/was widely considered the better HS player?


How do you compare those two players? Who do you rank higher? That's just 2 players in a very small portion of the state (the two HS are about 2 hours apart).

These are the types of nuances and make ranking anything outside of the top 200-300 players in the country nearly impossible.


Another thing that makes this hard is tracking who has offers where. I can tell you that on a yearly basis there is about 2 or 3 known UNI commits before the third week of Jan for UNI. That doesn't mean UNI doesn't have more, they always do. However, UNI keeps their recruiting very close to their chest. Then about the third week of Jan we see about 80% of the class sending tweets out with their commitment. I kid you not i think I saw about 8-9 come out in the last week, and some we didn't know had an offer. There is about zero chance we offered all 8 in the last week and they insta-committed.

[SFA 93]

Almost here!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3OWqAqUoAA7BOr.jpg

[Gangtackle11]

I never knew that some sites will adjust a player's star rank down just because he didn't commit to a P5 school or FBS school. That's despicable.

Happens every year. It's a business plain & simple.

[GodHelpTheBears]

Different states and metro areas have different scenes, the quality of which varies.

While Kansas City has fewer people than St Louis, its HS football scene is better. I'd argue that Tulsa and Memphis have given us more quality players than STL over the past 5-7 years, despite being much smaller and contributing fewer players to our rosters. Our current staff has retrenched, going to Texas, Oklahoma, and the Kansas JUCOs for recruits. It's worth a shot, since we've never been able to lock I-70 down, and no one else in the Valley recruits those areas heavily, particularly from Oklahoma City south.

One final thought - our best players of the 2010s (Schaffitzel and Cole) were local, and received no attention outside of southwest Missouri as high schoolers.

[SkinsWizDukes]

The recruiting sites are businesses and the vast majority of their revenue come from the top dog P5 schools. Of course they are going to cater to them and spend more time ensuring players committed to those schools are getting coverage.

[SU DOG]

Agree completely that your recruiting success depends on getting the kids needed for your system. I don't totally discount the services, however. IMO, the most valuable info you get from them is who else also offered the player.

[clenz]

Different states and metro areas have different scenes, the quality of which varies.

While Kansas City has fewer people than St Louis, its HS football scene is better. I'd argue that Tulsa and Memphis have given us more quality players than STL over the past 5-7 years, despite being much smaller and contributing fewer players to our rosters. Our current staff has retrenched, going to Texas, Oklahoma, and the Kansas JUCOs for recruits. It's worth a shot, since we've never been able to lock I-70 down, and no one else in the Valley recruits those areas heavily, particularly from Oklahoma City south.

One final thought - our best players of the 2010s (Schaffitzel and Cole) were local, and received no attention outside of southwest Missouri as high schoolers.
David Johnson had two offers out of high school - UNI and Illinois State. ISUr wanted him to play defense. UNI said they'd give him a look on offense. The rest is history.

FCS completion % record holder Eric Sanders had zero offers, I believe, other than UNI. He's likely the best QB to ever play for UNI and one of the better ones in FCS history.

The examples of similar types of players through the FCS is crazy. It's about finding a fit for the kid and the system.

Cooper Kupp isn't cooper Kupp if he goes to Idaho State, Northern Iowa, Cal Poly, NDSU, etc...

[Catatonic]

Hero Sports isn't going to really be any different unless they have about 5 or 6 scouts in each state dedicated only to the FCS. Dedicated to only covering guys that places like Scout, Rivals, 247, etc... ignore. That means build their own network with coaches. It means completely creating their own ranking system, which is going to be odd given that players are going to have FCS and FBS offers.

Nothing against anyone Hero might employ for this task but it's about zero percent chance the rankings are any good. That isn't because those guys wouldn't be good at their jobs, but FCS recruiting is just hard to rank and follow.

To help illustrate this.

Here is a UNI commit - a 6'5 325 pound OL named Mason Neisen. http://www.hudl.com/video/3/3042421/57c1d848ed57ef341c8c8f4d

http://i348.photobucket.com/albums/q340/unipanthers10/mn_zpsk8hnsju1.png

He has no stars on any service. The only known offer is UNI, HOWEVER he took visits to Iowa, Iowa State and NDSU. Other than those 4 known D1 schools that were recruiting him. I'm sure nearly every D2/D3 within a 5-6 hours of his home town offered/wanted him.

http://hawkeyenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Mason-Neisen-1024x550.jpg



His highlight film from just his senior year is 6 minutes of about 500,000 pancake blocks. He is/was a monster in high school. He was 1st Team All District, 1st Team All State, 1st team Academic All State yet only 1 D1 offer. How do you rate him?

To make it even harder to rate a guy like him? He played at Denver High Shool (about 30 minutes NE of Cedar Falls). He played class 1A football in Iowa, which the second smallest school classification for enrollment. In Iowa it goes 4A (largest 48 schools), 3A (next 56 largest schools), 2A (next 56 largest), 1A (next 56), A (left over schools big enough to field 11 man teams (generally about 56 schools) and then 8 man (generally about 60 schools). The DL in his class generally averages about 6'0 and between 190-220lbs. Did he dominate simply because of his size or because of his skill? How do you rank him?


Oh, and since rankings are comparing and ordering players here's another UNI commit from a school in his same school classification - Jake Brinkman of Iowa City Regina. http://www.hudl.com/video/3/4239018/5833116cc124d813c823a062

https://twitter.com/brinkman_jared/status/755882448416808960

Brinkman is an unranked DT commit. Here's the catch, he played OL and DL in high school. He was named 1st Team Elite All State on the offensive line. What does that mean? In Iowa, the Elite All State, ranks simply the best of the best no matter the classification. So he is a kid that was considered one of the five best offensive lineman in the state this past year, but was recruited by every school to play DT, and will play DT in college. What schools were recruiting him? Iowa, Iowa State, UNI, and NDSU (where his brother plays LB). Oh, Brinkman was also named the best DL in the state of Iowa by the Iowa High School Rivals page. Yet, he is unranked as a DL recruit. There is a kid from a similar sized HS in Iowa that wasn't named the best DL in the state by the name of Coy Kirkpatrick. He had 25 tackles and 2 sacks this past year. He is a 3* on Rivals and 247. He is committed to Iowa. He's considered the 9th best recruit in the state (Neisen in 19th). Brinkman isn't on any list. He committed to UNI a long time ago. Very early. Wonder why he isn't on the lists? AAMF, Brinkman doesn't even have a 247 page. How would Hero sports identify him as someone to rank?

Coy Kirkpatrick committed to Iowa before his Junior year (summer 2015). He was offered on a June Saturday and committed on the spot. He wasn't ranked by any recruiting service at that point. He had zero other offers at that point. He received no other offers due to his early commitment. He wasn't even first time all state for his class (same class as Brinkman and Neiesen) his senior season. All of that and yet he's a 3 star but a kid like Brinkman (also a very early commit but to UNI) isn't, even though Brinkman is/was widely considered the better HS player?


How do you compare those two players? Who do you rank higher? That's just 2 players in a very small portion of the state (the two HS are about 2 hours apart).

These are the types of nuances and make ranking anything outside of the top 200-300 players in the country nearly impossible.


Another thing that makes this hard is tracking who has offers where. I can tell you that on a yearly basis there is about 2 or 3 known UNI commits before the third week of Jan for UNI. That doesn't mean UNI doesn't have more, they always do. However, UNI keeps their recruiting very close to their chest. Then about the third week of Jan we see about 80% of the class sending tweets out with their commitment. I kid you not i think I saw about 8-9 come out in the last week, and some we didn't know had an offer. There is about zero chance we offered all 8 in the last week and they insta-committed.

Interesting post. Good points.

[Daytripper]

Great signing by the Bearkats. The #105 recruit in the state of Texas. Not by position....Overall.


http://herosports.com/news/fcs-recruiting-southland-conference-top-35-recruits-southland#6

Merchant is one of the most highly rated prospects heading to an FCS school, having been a former Oklahoma State pledge. He is rated a 3-star prospect with all three services and he is also rated the No. 105 overall prospect in talent-laden Texas -- an almost unheard of state ranking in the Lone Star State for an FCS-bound prospect. He could play cornerback and possibly return punts or kicks for the Bearkats, or he may be able to lineup as a safety because of his physical style of play. No matter where he plays, count on him making an impact in the FCS. Remember the name.

[Catatonic]

Great signing by the Bearkats. The #105 recruit in the state of Texas. Not by position....Overall.


http://herosports.com/news/fcs-recruiting-southland-conference-top-35-recruits-southland#6

Merchant is one of the most highly rated prospects heading to an FCS school, having been a former Oklahoma State pledge. He is rated a 3-star prospect with all three services and he is also rated the No. 105 overall prospect in talent-laden Texas -- an almost unheard of state ranking in the Lone Star State for an FCS-bound prospect. He could play cornerback and possibly return punts or kicks for the Bearkats, or he may be able to lineup as a safety because of his physical style of play. No matter where he plays, count on him making an impact in the FCS. Remember the name.

Looks like a great pick up and an excellent class overall. SFA looks good as well.

Overall, I think Clenz's last post made an excellent post. it is very tough to have enough personnel to adequately judge FCS recruiting classes. ACU only has a couple of guys from Hero's top 35 but most of us are pretty excited about our class even though we got a late start.

We are picking up a couple of big linemen that have gone largely unnoticed. Peyton Bird was committed to Illinois State but switched to us last week. 247 still shows him as an Ill. State commit.There are a couple of other examples of under the radar guys we have coming in but I won't take time to list them....

[Daytripper]

Looks like a great pick up and an excellent class overall. SFA looks good as well.

Overall, I think Clenz's last post made an excellent post. it is very tough to have enough personnel to adequately judge FCS recruiting classes. ACU only has a couple of guys from Hero's top 35 but most of us are pretty excited about our class even though we got a late start.

We are picking up a couple of big linemen that have gone largely unnoticed. Peyton Bird was committed to Illinois State but switched to us last week. 247 still shows him as an Ill. State commit.There are a couple of other examples of under the radar guys we have coming in but I won't take time to list them....


ACU has a lot to offer. Great school, new stadium, good young coach. I hope you guys make a big leap this year.

[Catatonic]

ACU has a lot to offer. Great school, new stadium, good young coach. I hope you guys make a big leap this year.


Thanks. We got a very late start with recruiting. I don't expect this class to be outstanding although I have been surprised by some of the guys they have gotten to commit in a short time. I look forward to seeing what they can do with a full year to recruit.

Equally important, I am looking forward to watching how they develop talent. It will probably take us a couple of years to see huge results, although I expect to see some progress in 2017. Wouldn't take much to improve from a 2-9 team that looked worse each week as the season went along.