Recruiting optimist or pessimist?

[Wesley]

Originally Posted by Clones85'

might as well throw Genes 2007 year out. That is not a fair evaluation on how someone can recruit. Would definitely love to see more stars but Mac's numbers don't tell the whole story. How many of those 3 and 4 star players ever saw the field or amounted to anything?

2007 appears to be better than 2008 as the effect of winning only 3 games may have an effect. Kids want to go to bowl games no matter how small.

Many of the 3-5 stars have already committed. many of the 2 stars are out there. Unless you take the juco route, 2007 may on paper look better than 2008 class per rivals crazy star system.

[Clones85']

Winning barely any games isn't affecting Minnesota's recruiting class, hasn't reflected in the way Zook has been able to recruit Illinois.

This class has less Juco players, therefore I like it better. We can let these players grow for 2 years before throwing them in the lineup where we don't have that luxury with Juco players

[AlanAldaClone]

Originally Posted by Stormin

Mac NEVER usualy had 18 commits at this juncture. And at the time I posted we had 21 commits before the recent decommits. Look back at where we were when Mac "resigned". We had about 3 or 4 commits and no one was even considering us.

And I remember Mac's last class. We DID have about 8 or 9 verbals from the last week of January until signing day. We would sign 30 guys and get 24 or so to campus. Our attrition rate was terrible. At least schools want our commits. Back then they didn't care about them.

Mac resigned in November, you know. He never started hosting official visits until the end of November, beginning of December (after football season). We usually had a flurry of commits in July after Mac's camps. December was when we got the bulk of our verbals after official visits.

We had eight commits at the time he resigned, as I recall. And it was a typical Mac recruiting year. Typically we had about that number of commits at that time under Mac. You're simply not remembering accurately.

As I said before and will say again. Mac never hosted very many recruits in the final three recruiting weekends. All of our visit weekends were usually done by the first week in January. So if he didn't have even 18 commits by this time, where did they all come from?

Maybe Mac signed 30 guys because he knew only 24 would make it to campus. Just a thought.

[Cymon]

Originally Posted by isuno1fan

I don't care if the class is no better than one Mac would bring in. I'll take the same level of talent and FAR superior coaching anyday.

Mac couldn't coach his way out of a shoebox on gameday IMO. We SHOULD have won about 12-15 more games over his tenure than we did.

Agreed. I don't care about 5 stars or 2 stars. All I know is I saw a team that had given up during Mac's last year. I didn't see that last season.

[Wesley]

It just looks like 2007 was a good effort but that 2008 on a star basis is about the same. Maybe winning three games hurt our recruiting although we hung together as a team. Maybe we did not get a big boost out of winning the Superbowl. Team speed in 08 is a little better than in 07. I expect more jucos by Feb. Would you not take the best players available for a position- jucos instead of 1 or 2 stars? We ar not yet in the luxury of waiting two or three years for our newbie players to get better.

[isuno1fan]

I am a coaching optimist!

In Chizik I trust!

[AlanAldaClone]

Stormin, I went back and looked. In Mac's last class, only four players committed in the last two weeks of the recruiting season and one of those was Collins Eboh, who was probably committed all along. It was just a question of if he would make grades at juco, which he didn't.

The others were Matt Purvis, the youngest Leaders kid (again probably committed all along and it was just a matter of if a scholarship would be open) and Ben Lamaak, who wasn't offered until late after other recruits fell through.

Also keep in mind that this information was from Scout, who typically puts the date THEY found out about the commit as the commit date, when, in reality, the guy committed long before that.

[Clones85']

I'm all for getting the best players. But there are not that many JUCO players left and we are not going after very many either. If they are a question mark, than it makes more sense to go after a HS player.

[acgclone]

The fact is that Ames IS the toughest town to recruit to in the Big 12. So until Chizik can start to sell winning, he is going to struggle to get highly rated recruits.

He is going to have to get more out of less than just about any other coach in a BCS league.

It can be done, but it is obviously not easy. He will have to do a superior job of developing talent, on field coaching, gameplanning and find some hidden gem type recruits.

If he can do that and improve each year, then he can start to sell the "I'm building something special" and get some bigger fish.

Overall, I have fallen into the pessemistic category regarding ISU/Ames in the past couple of years. I just can't think of any tougher situations, than being the HC for ISU football.

[Stormin]

Originally Posted by AlanAldaClone

Stormin, I went back and looked. In Mac's last class, only four players committed in the last two weeks of the recruiting season and one of those was Collins Eboh, who was probably committed all along. It was just a question of if he would make grades at juco, which he didn't.

The others were Matt Purvis, the youngest Leaders kid (again probably committed all along and it was just a matter of if a scholarship would be open) and Ben Lamaak, who wasn't offered until late after other recruits fell through.

Also keep in mind that this information was from Scout, who typically puts the date THEY found out about the commit as the commit date, when, in reality, the guy committed long before that.

I went back even farther than that. For the record.

2003 Class

19 commits before 1-19-03
7 commits on or after 1-19-03

2004 class

16 commits before 1-20-04
13 commits on or after 1-20-04

2005 class

15 commits before 1-15-05
10 commits on or after 1-16-05

2006 class

20 commits before 1-11-06
10 commits on or after 1-11-06

2007 class

10 commits before 1-14-07
16 commits on or after 1-14-07

2008 class

18 commits so far 1-18-08 and our last verbal was on 1-02-08.

So to put into perspective the sky is NOT falling. It is only January 19, 2008. We have had several decommits and even with those we seem to be at or above the level that Mac was historically at. With a big recruiting weekend we could very well be sitting pretty well. We nabbed a very talented transfer in Bo Williams who was a TOP 250 player in High School.

Historically speaking we had a lot of verbals (for us) prior to 1-1-08. We technically get a lot of verbals at the end of the recruiting season. This would seem to be holding true once again and not any different than it was under Mac. And in Mac's last class, he got 4 verbals on 1-11-06. They were Prince McKinney, Kellen White, Derrick Russell and Jose Vargas. Only Vargas is on the roster.

So as I stated earlier, Mac traditionally didn't have a whole lot of verbals early in the recruiting season. We seem to be at least on his pace or a bit better IMO. Big recruiting weekend this weekend. Wouldn't it be great to get Sedrick Johnson? And remember that Mac had been here for a decade or so. Chizik is only in his second year. I am far more enthusiastic about our future under Chizik than I was under Mac. We had a young team and improved tremendously. I think we will get better and we played better as the season wore on. Mac's last year was pretty sad. Pretty bleak for having a veteran offensive line.

[twojman]

Originally Posted by Clones85'

Bates was not a 4 star. 3 star per rivals and 2 according to Scout.

If you all remember, Bates had his stars DROP as soon as he committed to ISU. This is the terrible thing about these rankings, if Texas or Florida does not want them, they must be bad so we will lower their stars.

Bates was a 4 star/ 3 star before his ISU commitment.

EDIT!!!! Maybe I am thinking of Arnaud....

[cyingreen]

Granted, Ames is never going to be mistaken for Miami, Fl, or LA, or even Austin, TX. However, lack of exciting surroundings and an abundance of nasty, cold weather hasn't seemed to deter places like KSU, NU, Boise State (for crying out loud) from being highly successful programs. We've got to 1. Be supportative with attendance and bucks. Noise in the stands can be a difference maker. It's time for some Trice Magic., 2. Be a little patient. It isn't easy to get it done in Ames. But with the right man and right support, it's doable. For now, forget stars and concentrate on the product on the field. The stars will come when we get more wins.

[Wesley]

Kansas and Misouri is closer to texas than Ames. The cheapest airport to fly home is the KC Airport. That said, it is not not much warmer in Nov in manhattan or Lawrence or Columbia.

[acgclone]

Originally Posted by Wesley

Kansas and Misouri is closer to texas than Ames. The cheapest airport to fly home is the KC Airport. That said, it is not not much warmer in Nov in manhattan or Lawrence or Columbia.

I would have to disagree on the temperature thing. It is usually about 10 degrees difference and that is very noticable. In Kansas City, a 2-3 inch snow will get school cancelled.

[Wesley]

Okay, it is 14 in KC and 1 in Ames, 14 in Columbia, 19 in Manhattan, 18 in Lawrence for the projected highs today.