But is anyone else a little concerned about our high school recruiting? When Applewhite was hired he had the recommendation of high school coaches that should be paying dividends by now. I know it is just rankings and whatnot, but according to 247 we are now 6th in the AAC for next year. I know there is an incredible amount of time until December. But playing catchup at this point seems like a less than stellar plan. When you drill down on SMU, Memphis and Cinci they have a lot of top 1000 recruits that are warm, warmer or favorites. We have 1 in the top 1000 and only 1 other.
The transfers are great but that is a terrible long term plan. Any word on recruiting that is positive out there?
I think this staff is all in for this year, and are betting on this team to do the unthinkable this year. Because of the amount of grad transfers, I know we are trying to run the table and at minimum be in NY6 and gamble at Playoff appearance and downtown club invite for Ed. If that’s the case I think Major doesn’t want to be in the same position as last year when you have a shot at 4 star guy but not enough scholarships. If this team performs the way the coaches expect, I think we will be in the position to be in running for a lot of higher rated guys.
Putting Ed in Heisman race and a possible playoff appearance would be validation for the pitch that a 5* / 4* is not necessarily giving up that possibility at Houston and we can still compete for a Natl title.
I agree with everything @CoogQ said except there is a 0% chance we’ll be in the playoff this year, even if we go undefeated and have an average scoring margin of +20. We’re starting this year unranked and basically forgotten, which gives us no chance of making it all the way to #4 in the CFP rankings by year end. Yes, I know the AP and Coach’s polls are not the CFP rankings, but I don’t think it matters. If there’s anything to be learned from our 2015 campaign and UCF’s 2017 campaign, it’s that it will take any G5 a minimum of 2 years to get itself into the playoff picture.
But I agree that Heisman pub and winning this year will get us back on the radar of big time recruits.
still too early to judge his recruiting classes but so far i haven’t been impressed. that’s why i laughed when people kept saying hs coaches love him. if that’s the case then how come we not getting 4 stars like we did when herman was hc? year in and year out we should have a top 3 recruiting class in this conference. this year’s class was ranked 5th in the aac. that’s not good enough.
CMA can be loved by HS coaches (there is empirical proof of that), but not be able to get highly ranked recruits to commit. One does not guarantee the other. I think Herman was able to get great recruits because he was coming off a National Championship with OSU (winning) and he’s much more animated and attention-grabbing than CMA (demeanor). That’s why it’s so important for CMA to win and soon. His demeanor is not likely to win over recruits. His style of play and winning will.
the “loved by hs coaches” thing is overblown. that don’t mean jack squat to me. I’m pretty sure tony Levine was loved by hs coaches too and look where that got him.
You can be loved by the coaches, but most kids, realistically, want to play in a “Power Conference”. We can’t offer that. The Lying Coach was able to promise our soon to be entrance to the Little 12, that is gone now. That said, we are getting mostly 3* players (that was not the case 10-15 years ago), nice transfers coming home, and now if we can continue to pick up 5 quality, known Grad transfers, we should be OK.
3* (and sometimes more) recruits
3-5* transfers (sit out a year)
1-5 3-5* Graduate transfers
We start winning AAC Championships, going to P6 bowls and finishing ranked each year, they will stay home and come to THE University of Houston.
Levine wasn’t loved by coaches. I know one who thought he was business-like and somewhat unfriendly. Applewhite is a favorite. That doesn’t mean Texas high school coaches are going to demand that four- and five-star players go to UH. That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the benefit of having a good relationship with HS coaches. What it does mean is that UH will get a favorable report and also tips on overlooked players. The latter has already happened a number of times. The DT from Port Arthur is near the top of our board for DTs, yet he was flying under the recruiting radar. He’s now committed to UH.
Sam you are absolutely correct. The 4* and 5* players with offers from the creme de la creme of college football are unlikely to choose UH. Yes, I know we got a few in the past and there’s always a chance we will pick one up now and then; but that is an exception to the rule. But, we have gotten a lot of kids that were overlooked by everyone because their coaches called our staffs and put in a good report. That the coaches are behind CMA is a big plus.
I think its really swell that everyone here thinks Tony was a great recruiter, but honestly I don’t think he was. I think those kids were just hungry. They worked their asses off to become great football players.
Remember last summer we were ALL saying “this year we’re gonna be awesome, we have the #1 prostyle qb class of 2013, NY6 here we come”. Turns out he cracks under pressure, but yeah in practice he has a great arm.
Having a whole bunch of alabama worthy guys is good, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve seen this parade before.
Reminds me of when Daniel House got here in bball. His instagram was full of that lowrider car he got. Now the guys under Sampson post workout vids. Put football on that trajectory and we WILL win a shiteton of games.
Realize that we’re 6th because we only have 4 recruits committed so far. Every team ahead of us has 6+ recruits committed at this point. If you look at recruit average, we’re 3rd behind UCONN (1 recruit) and Memphis (6 recruits).
At this point in 2015, Herman had 4 commits. Every 4+ star commit we got that year, sans Ed Oliver, came after October. Looking back this decade, for 4*s that stayed committed to Houston through Signing day, only Terrence Broadway committed prior to August (Jul 25th). All the others, committed after October.
Let’s slow down and breathe a little…long way to go until signing day.
Loved is an odd way to describe a relationship between college and HS coaches. These are professional relationships. How many college coaches are really “loved” by HS coaches?
What’s more important is are they trusted by HS coaches? Are they accessible? Are they deemed as decent and essentially likable? Levine was certainly all of that and his recruiting success reflected it.
Someone said that Herman could coach and surrounded himself with good coaches. Not that Levine could coach, but he did not have the same budget to get good coaches.