The Bowls will be over with in a week or so and then the next big thing is Nat'l Signing Day. In looking at the recruiting rankings Ohio State and Texas are the big winners right now. But USC probably has more top rated talent signed than either of those programs, the rankings are seriously influenced by the number of the recruits you sign more than the quality of the recruits. Last year Alabama won the mythical recruiting crown because the signed 31 players on NLI day. Of course a number of those guys didn't qualify or enroll at 'Bama but on that day they had the numbers. So how's your team doing? As I said Texas is probably going to finish in the top 5 maybe as high as #2, but with the loss of Jamarkus McFarland to OU they don't have a lot of kids left on the board who are going to make an impact. The Irish will probably have too small a class this year to crack the final top 10. They have some high profile recruits they are still working that would help them make the top 10, but I doubt if they end up with more than 20 and that's too low a number to crack the top 10. If you reorder the rankings based on average player rank they would be in the top 10 tough so we do have a quality class. It was very helpful no doubt to the efforts of the staff to have a convincing win in a bowl game. A loss might have led to some defections. There are rumours that we do have one player looking around ...but we'll see. Terry
Terry, Thankfully for ND the Aloha Bowl results probably saved a couple of recruits from defecting and may help add a couple more solid players to this current class before it's over. As you said, this will probably be a class of around 20. The 2010 class is expected to be a monster top 5 class as they are in on so many of the top HS juniors now. Of course that will probably will depend on how well the team does this coming season but if they win 9 or 10 games...look out!!! By the way, from the little I got to see of the WR Shaq Evans......WOW! He should fit in nicely with the stable we have now. 8)
The Gators have 15 right now and are rated about 15th or so, but if you go by average star rating we would be about 5th. I expect we will sign in the 20's and finish in the top 10 and maybe top 5. USC is amazing with the star rankings. They sign more 5 star players than anyone every year.
I certainly expect the Gators to finish strong, being in the NC game win or lose will be a big plus to top players who are last week deciders.
Clemson has 9 commits and is expecting around 20. Don't know if it will happen. Some of them are quality (according to stars). Don't expect this class to be one of the higher ranked ones but should be sufficient to the needs.
I wouldn't get all that wrapped up about stars guys. Bradford was a 3-star on one service and a 2 star by another. Ya got to make 'em FB players!
Gunner, I agree. The ratings are okay but you have to get the positions that you need covered as well. Too many wr's and not enough ol's are a worse problem than 3 stars vs 5 stars.
Guys, we've all had and heard of players who don't have many stars and turn out to be stars. However what I think is true is that on average the players with the higher stars perform better overall than those with lower stars. So how many stars is not the final answer but if you asked me if I would like to have a team made up of players that have four stars as opposed to players that have three stars I would take the four star team.