re: Arkansas's lack of recruiting

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I could never stand him. Awful Xs and Os coach.

That's why he's still unemployed.

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I actually liked him when he first got here but he squandered the good will he had with silly things like insulting every HS coach in Texas.

With hindsight being 20/20 I think that is the moment you can point to (along with Pittman leaving after his buddy got canned) that the wheels started to come off for Bielema. He increasingly turned to Midwestern coaches with limited contacts in the South and Southwest and that put us behind the 8 ball when it came to recruiting.

Even if Morris doesn't do amazing things with the football team Peoples was right to pick him. He will, at least, rebuild our recruiting ties across the state and in Texas.

Why would anyone with other options chose to live in r-Kansas?

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Anyone else have legitimate ... solutions?

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Relo and rebrand as University of West Memphis?

It starts with instate talent. They need to spend some of the walmart money on High schools in the big cities and make more kids interested in FB. The top schools have alot of instate talent.

Without boosting instate players it won't matter how much money they poke into the Arkansas facilities.

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(Yes, I realize College Station is far from great but it’s nicer than Norman, one and half hours from Austin, two hours from Dallas, and practically a suburb of Houston, so we get easy access to (especially Houston) kids who just want to stay home DESPITE having zero winning history.)

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Lol more like 3-3.5. No way in hell you could make it in 2. shite it can take as long as 4 if traffic sucks.

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Bert was a solid hire when we got him. What went wrong? I honestly don't know. I mean we all see the results, but don't know why he wasn't successful here.

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A couple things went wrong. Arkansas isn't fundamentally set up to succeed immediately. There is a threshold that sets up for sustained success, and it's known by some as the Blue-Chip Ratio. Essentially, National Championship winning units have a Blue-Chip Ratio of at least .5. Meaning half the roster is full of blue chip prospects. Some pan out, some don't, but when you're left with at least 50% of the higher quality recruits, then good things happen. While Clay Travis always talks about having at least two top ten classes as a prerequisite to a National Championship, the Blue-Chip Ratio sheds a little more light on the issue.

Let's take a look.

2018 - 49th overall, 7th in the SEC West, 0 Five Stars, 2 Four Stars.

2017 - 27th overall, 6th in the SEC West, 0 Five Stars, 5 Four Stars.

2016 - 23rd overall, 6th in the SEC West, 1 Five Star, 5 Fours Stars.

2015 - 22nd overall, 7th in the SEC West, 0 Five Stars, 7 Four Stars.

2014 - 29th overall, 6th in the SEC West, 0 Five Stars, 4 Four Stars.

These blue chips were Bijhon Jackson, Brian Wallace, JoJo Robinson, Frank Ragnow, Hjalte Froholdt, Cheyenne O'Grady, Jamario Bell, Jalen Merrick, Ty Storey, Jeremiah Ledbetter(JUCO), McTelvin Agim, Devwah Whaley, Austin Capps, T.J. Hammonds, Briston Guidry, Jake Heinrich, Chevin Calloway, Montaric Brown, Jeremy Patton(JUCO), Bumper Pool, Connor Noland

On the roster for this upcoming season, Brian Wallace, Hjalte Froholdt, Cheyenne O'Grady, Will Gragg, Jamario Bell, Jalen Merrick, Ty Storey, McTelvin Agim, Devwah Whaley, Austin Capps, T.J. Hammonds, Briston Guidry, Chevin Calloway, Montaric Brown, Jeremy Patton, Bumper Pool, Connor Noland

OL - Brian Wallace, Hjalte Froholdt, Jalen Merrick
TE - Cheyenne O'Grady, Will Gragg, Jeremy Patton
QB - Ty Storey, Connor Noland
RB - Devwah Whaley, T.J. Hammonds

DL - McTelvin Agim, Austin Capps, Briston Guidry
DB - Chevin Calloway, Montaric Brown
LB - Jamario Bell, Bumper Pool

Arkansas has a Blue-Chip Ratio of 17/85 or .2. While that's horrible in it's own right, let's take a deeper dive. Chevin Calloway, Montaric Brown, Bumper Pool, Chevin Calloway, and Connor Noland are freshman/red shirt freshman, three of the blue chips are tight ends and you have Chad Morris playing a spread, Merrick is backing up Froholdt, and Briston Guidry and Jamario Bell don't really seem to play.

So let's look at a few of our own metrics, or the "usable blue-chip ratio" and the "experience blue-chip ratio". Obviously these will be a little different, and the .5 target isn't there, but we can compare to some other teams if we want. First off, Pool and Noland are likely to redshirt, and there are 3 TEs on this list. So that 17 is really closer to a 15 with the redshirts and a 13.5 with the TEs(3/2 is 1.5). That really means your "usable blue-chip ratio" is really closer to 0.1588.

With Brown, Calloway, Guidry and Merrick having zero starts, Hammonds with only 32 attempts in 2017, Bell not having a role and moving spots, Storey having 1 career completion, that really means your "experience blue-chip ratio" is roughly 7 total guys with a ratio closer to 0.0824.

Interesting.

Thanks for putting that time into your post as well. It's nice to see a post like that on here.

Is little Henry going to Stanford?

They have the momentum now but we’ll see.

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Is little Henry going to Stanford?

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If I were a betting man I'd say he comes to Fayetteville. But I don't think he is close to making a decision yet.

Look at Warren High School. Small town(5,757) and they consistently put out D1 athletes. They worship their high school football down there, and it shows.

We need all the other schools in central and southern Arkansas to catch up with the times.