re: How to win without blue-chip recruits

A couple of other things that drive this for Mizzou.

1. Pinkel really does have his own evaluation system and sticks with it. If a kid is a 4* with the services but Pinkel evaluated a 3* ahead of him, he's recruiting the 3*. This happens once or twice a year on average.

2. Players from Missouri or backwoods locations like West Texas who commit to Mizzou early in the process don't typically get upgraded to a 4* even though they have that talent. Aldon Smith and Denario Alexander are the two best examples of this. Smith was probably a legit 5* but came to Mizzou as a 3*.

I love it because it keeps Mizzou in on very good recruits. You also have to consider that even with these slights from the major services Mizzou has still gotten some very highly ranked kids over the years and almost never misses on high end 4* or 5* talent that make it to campus.

I get the feeling that Petrino was doing almost the same thing with the hogs back in the day. Wisconsin seems to be doing something similar under Alvarez. It seems that the schools that can do this are almost exclusively not on either coast. Probably due to less media hype.