re: 2015 Recruiting Discussion

When you see a national top 100 guy from MS without any real offers, it's pretty obvious that there's something fishy there.

Obligatory he's from MS so it must be grades.


Seriously I agree there is smth wierd there but I have no clue what.

What's the word on terry joseph as a recruiter? I know Nebraska fans liked him so I'm assuming he was good.

I won't discuss Mack Brown because he almost immediately took control of high schools in Texas. How he did it is some kind of wizardry that probably won't ever be repeated. Since the day he arrived until the '14 cycle, it's fair to say he's been top dog. So I'll list strategies of various staffs in Texas since his arrival plus his predecessor.

Mackovic - from Illinois, he came to Texas with no ties and he didn't want to kiss the high school coaches' asses to change that. Instead, he saw a great Texas brand and decided to recruit nationally. Locking down your home state didn't seem to occur to him because he was from the B1G where everyone goes everywhere. But by being an outsider, him spending all his time elsewhere rubbed the HS coaches the wrong way. Though a pretty good offensive mind, he really didn't have that southern charm at all, and he never really made any inroads into the state. But he actually recruited nationally okay (he pulled Ricky Williams out of Cali even).

RC Slocum - really struggled once he lost control of TX HS ranks. He continued to fight for top tier prospects til the end while ignoring the 2nd tier. All of our energy was spent on these guys. This left us high and dry several classes in a row. At first we literally skipped a year recruiting defense because of it and then ended up taking 3rd tier types at the end of each cycle because we needed bodies. Slocum really had blinders on about it and expected that things would turn around on the trail on their own. He didn't really respond to Brown's early recruiting until it was too late in the 2002 class.

Stoops - got out of the gate fast with a MNC in his 2nd year. But early on, he was offering and taking 2nd tier guys early, beating us to the punch on them. He fought for the top guys but only when he seemed to be in the game, not chasing his tail on longshots. They really focused on evaluating guys that Mack passed on early. Of late Stoops has taken a few more grade risks than he has in the past though

Patterson - TCU really has always been 3rd tier. They don't win recruiting battles so they focused heavily on evaluations. Over the years they've taken a lot of kids that played the "wrong" position in high school and converted them. It requires a good evaluation of attributes and trust that you can teach them the fundamentals of a new position. But like the JUCO methods of Snyder, it's really hard to replicate or there would be a lot more people doing it.

Fran - when he came to A&M, he really had buzz. And he tried to keep that going through recruiting rankings. The fraud ran deep though because he took grade and character risks at the top that inflated our class rankings, along with some 3rd tier guys at the bottom. This placated the fanbase because, hey, "our class is ranked 8th!" while 2-3 wouldn't get into school and 3-4 more would wash out as malcontents. Anyway, you don't build a team with 3-4 stars and a bunch of stiffs. It's a team game and constantly having shallow recruiting classes won't work.

Briles - the Texas HS legend uses that to his advantage. He has a ton of connections through the state and sometimes gets in on guys before they've even played a down of HS football bc coaches let him know to come watch them. His offense is completely built on speed so he recruits that speed and teaches the rest. He's long taken character risks but he's done a masterful job of handling them tbh.

Sherman - inherited a woeful organization that lacked hard workers. He went about fixing that on day one with guys like Hunter and Frederick. He did okay taking a few top kids each year because of his pedigree but really struggled with the sales part of recruiting. He didn't like to kiss the ring because he honestly felt like there were 200 kids in Texas that could play Big 12 football and so he'd rather have great coaches than great recruiting. I mentioned in another thread this seems to be Strong's approach (with a little Mackovic mixed in). He did okay with the 2nd tier but failed filling out classes a lot, taking real risks at the back half, which led to heavy attrition. He was an ace evaluator and people talk about the 3 first rounders this year but forget that we are likely to have no one else drafted after those 3. Arkansas, Tennessee, Vanderbilt - all had more combine invitees than us this year.

Sumlin - seemed to follow the Stoops plan. Obviously he can recruit and obviously he and his staff have heavy ties to the state so it's a bit easier. But before we played a down, we recruited an absolute frickton of 2nd tier guys. Our recruiting really took off when we started winning on the field. We closed on RSJ, Hall, Miles, Mastro, JaQuay, and Manning all towards the back half or after that '12 season. But we signed 32 guys in that class and about 20 of them committed before the season - and possibly none of them had tu offers. And most importantly, in a massive '13 class, we've only lost Kohl (baseball), Aguilar (injury), and Larue (transfer) to date.

So if you are Strong, what strategy do you employ? It's easy to say win on the field. It's true, that works. But you have to get there first. Right now the question has to be what to spend his time on between now and August. But should he spend his resources chasing ghosts like Ketchum suggests (the RC strategy)? There are a lot of methods here that have worked. But not a one was built upon a singular recruiting victory. Like everything else in life, they were built on sound foundations of some sort.

Nice writeup. I could see him going the Stoops route but with some Patterson mixed in. Some of his public comments indicate he puts a lot of value on his staff's ability to evaluate talent independently.

A good thing the coaching staff has going for them is they'll get no pressure going that route. The failures of highly touted recruiting classes in recent years is still a very fresh wound for their supporters.

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I could see him going the Stoops route but with some Patterson mixed in. Some of his public comments indicate he puts a lot of value on his staff's ability to evaluate talent independently.

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Yeah, he does seem to place a lot of value in what they are looking for, not what Rivals or 247 are. Take the two OL prospects they signed late. I'd never heard of either of them. As long as they evaluate well, they'll do well at that approach imo. And when they start winning and looking like they are on the upswing, they'll gain traction fast.

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A good thing the coaching staff has going for them is they'll get no pressure going that route.

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I disagree. Their fanbase is awful at this point. They've spent 15 years checking off recruiting wins. "Settling" is not going to be popular. I'd already say his honeymoon period is over as they are obsessive about us at this point. Anything less than pushing Aggy's shite in on the recruiting trail is a failure. And that sort of thinking leads you to spending all your time tilting at windmills.

In their mind (as only Ketch can get into), they don't need to take the slow and steady approach, they need a huge coup. Plant a flag. Declare victory. Then go back to taking everyone they want. I've always felt this was an awful time to take that job because of this and the fact that building a solid foundation is going to take a couple of years. I think there is a pretty decent chance he's fired before the '15 class graduates. He just seems to lack the charisma to overcome the situation.

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with the extra oomph that being the head coach of Texas

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meh, most people consider us the #1 program in the state right now and that seemingly carries a lot more oomph

we may not knock them off for good, but what happened in the 2000s will never happen again. that's the point, right now were hot shite and we need to capitalize on it. we HAVE done it before we ran the state in the 80s and 90s. they'll get players, but so will we, such is life having two big time football programs in a state, but what happened in the 2000s will never happen again and the thought of "there texas...wow" is definitely not the climate in todays world, and wont be going forward. I mean we aren't some bitch program that we were in the 2000s

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My perspective is strictly based on general knowledge rather than the facts as one would learn them from direct observation.

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we are here to stay. texas isn't just going to walk in and take over our top spot with the snap of the finger. especially with the way strong is looking. you thought what we did to them in recruiting this past year was bad? 2015 is going to be worse for them

they have more sidewalk fans from the previous decade. but we absolutely dominate the coverage, tv ratings, etc. I think Austin has been our 2nd or 3rd highest city when it comes to ratings. only 2 or 3 million people watched the sips WHOLE SEASON than our one game against bama.

no one is saying they will be completely down forever, but this can easily turn into the 80s/90s when we were the top dog even though they had some decent teams. we were just better