Ok, what does any of that have to do with the Coogs filling the positions of need? Look at the list; do you see any wasted scholarships?
A.) ESP is not here yet. We could still sign the 8 or so, early and add more in the Spring.
B.) Just signing a bunch of bodies will get our roster upside down and guys taking up schollies for no reason whatsoever. Let the coaches do their job and pick who they want. Applewhite filled up classes early, and a handful of those guys were asked to look elsewhere for playing time. Applewhite also didn’t recruit positions of need (have you seen our secondary?).
In addition, just because coaches complete their evals, doesn’t mean the the kids are ready to commit or sign early. Kids change their minds, it happens. I think people aren’t satisfied with the results because they’re going in with some preconceived notion that majority of college football programs will have the same result every ESP. These things are as volatile as a teenager’s mood. ESP may be new, but the former has been a catalyst in recruiting since its inception.
It has to do with the talent left on the board. That is all. Talent left on the board. So far our decommit list is only 3 deep, but they are 3 of the best recruits we had in this class. Sure would be neat if they did not sgn elsewhere in december or if we can find replacements for them in the next 4 weeks.
This is where a lot of people get lost in how talented is/should be evaluated. Stars are nice but said ad nauseam, stars don’t mean everything. Some kids can’t go to a ton of camps, and that is where most recruiting services are most active. Rarely will you see guys actually get out to games and watch these guys play. No. They don’t. Not in 2019; it’s more about having a cute little platform in which non-football guys can manipulate numbers and assign their ratings to kids they’ve never watched play a full game in context.
A ton of services rely on some cheap version of the transitive property. They’ll say recruit A is a good player but recruit B embarrassed him, so recruit B is the better player. Then they update their ratings on their site. Meanwhile recruit C does not go to camps, or can’t afford it. But coaches keep tabs on him and watch him play live and like his skill set. Coaches saw recruit C have a good showing in district play against both A&B. Recruiting services have no interest in C, and assign him some arbitrary rating.
To take things a step further, if a recruit lights it up in the season early, he’ll jump up the ratings board. If said recruit shuts down his recruitment soon after then he’ll be locked in at that particular rating and could lose a star depending on what school he goes to (i.e. Nelson Caesar, and Sofian Massoud). Going even further, some recruits are asked remain silent during their commitment as to not scare off other potential targets.
Why is any of this important? It’s because “talent left on the board”, may not be visible to those who do not evaluate the targets. Talent (recruits) in hand may not be visible to those who don’t communicate weekly with it. There is going to be some guys that sign who are not rated as high as people want. There’s going to be some guys who sign, and don’t do it when every one else has already signed. That doesn’t take anything away from the coaching staff.
That’s why I take committments lightly until they actually sign the LOI. Then I wait and see if they actually make it into school. I’ve seen too many recruiting classes to get too excited until the hay is in the barn.