jayakris
2,500+ Posts
The ranking is somewhere in the 7 through 11 range on the 4 main recruiting services, and generally one or two spots ahead of aggy on average, on paper. But this is an even better class in my mind, than higher-ranked classes we have had in the past.
I just think this is the best class we have had in over a decade in terms of picking up players without question-marks. Not a single one of them being considered a head-scratcher, in terms of their talent/abilities and how they fit within a roster-full of holes we have. It is just the comprehensive approach to building a team with all the requisite pieces, that I find masterfully accomplished by Charlie.
No bad evals in the class, and all these guys' ratings are legit and some under-rated. In fact I see nobody (except aggy) saying that even one single player in this class is over-rated by the agencies. Actually, we were about to pick up a guy that many thought was over-rated (Soso) and interestingly, he never picked us! In fact, most recruiting analysts had said we should go for Warren who is underrated (at around national #75, if you can believe that) only because he missed most of his junior season with an injury.
There are details like that on almost every player. Like Gilbert Johnson that many think is better than Lodge that we missed on, and that he was underrated only because many big programs thought he wouldn't make the grades and didn't pursue him. Like Deshon Elliott, Charles Omenihu, Connnor Williams who have all been trending upwards in the senior year and are possibly under-ranked at 4 stars (at 3 stars for Connor). Like Wheeler who some now say may be a 5-star player (he made the biggest jump in final rankings at rivals) and even better than maybe Malik. Like Vahe, who is vastly underrated, seeing his senior year play (he may be as good as his cousin, 5-star Mea whom we lost to LSU).
Hardly a player comes to mind, whose ranking has been trending down in the senior year. You need guts to identify PLAYERS and pursue them, waiting for the rankings to take care of itself in the end. That is how Charlie went about it. One of the most pleasant things was going and getting a guy they probably evaluated poorly earlier - PJ Locke - in the end. That guy is really good and may be better than Jamile Johnson he replaced (though Jamile was also trending up this year, and Tech got a good one in him).
That is just from following the trends in recruiting gurus' opinion. Year after year, I used to be bothered hearing of our highly rated players signed up 1.5 years ahead to be trending down in the final year but being grudgingly kept at their rankings by the services because it was guys like Mack, Davis, Muschamp, and Akina picking those guys. None of it this year. Well, maybe Ryan Newsome who trended down a bit (and hello, our staff eased off on him a bit too!) because he was getting all triple-teamed in the senior year and having some trouble with his hands. But I would take him as a Kick returner anyway, so I am glad.
I am glad that the "lock them up when they are in their diapers" scheme is history. Never understood it though it got us a lot of top players (with fear of not getting an offer later). The top ones came in along with some lemons too, which was the problem. During the period when we got lucky with fewer lemons (or a perceived lemon like Colt became money), we kicked ***, but when that didn't happen, we sucked. Evaluating later in their highschool career would certainly avoid evaluation mistakes, which is just plain logic.
I never believed that Mack and his staff were poor evaluators. They were great coaches who knew how to evaluate a player. It used to bother me when half-penny recruit gurus kept saying they were poor "evaluators". Their problem was that they were evaluating with essentially half the data points and often from tape of games were those players had not become marked-men in HS. That is the problem that went away this year, and I am so glad for that. Too much risk involved in Mack's approach, really. Anyway, nobody but Mack could manage to do what mack was doing, so Charlie wasn't even going to try!
Typically a Mack class would have 15 four-star guys but about 6 of them would be trending down and not doing well in the senior year (just a feeling). So we would end up with 8 or 9 real players. This class on the other hand has about 15 four-star national top-400 players on paper, but probably about 18 guys who are of that caliber. Effectively about twice as many players of real potential as would be there in a typical top-5 or top-8 class we had for most of the last 15 years.
If he can coach them right (and all past evidence shows he can), Charlie has the players to do some damage. Maybe one more class of players are needed for NC type results, but he may have enough now to not get fired after 3 years. Good job, Charlie.
I just think this is the best class we have had in over a decade in terms of picking up players without question-marks. Not a single one of them being considered a head-scratcher, in terms of their talent/abilities and how they fit within a roster-full of holes we have. It is just the comprehensive approach to building a team with all the requisite pieces, that I find masterfully accomplished by Charlie.
No bad evals in the class, and all these guys' ratings are legit and some under-rated. In fact I see nobody (except aggy) saying that even one single player in this class is over-rated by the agencies. Actually, we were about to pick up a guy that many thought was over-rated (Soso) and interestingly, he never picked us! In fact, most recruiting analysts had said we should go for Warren who is underrated (at around national #75, if you can believe that) only because he missed most of his junior season with an injury.
There are details like that on almost every player. Like Gilbert Johnson that many think is better than Lodge that we missed on, and that he was underrated only because many big programs thought he wouldn't make the grades and didn't pursue him. Like Deshon Elliott, Charles Omenihu, Connnor Williams who have all been trending upwards in the senior year and are possibly under-ranked at 4 stars (at 3 stars for Connor). Like Wheeler who some now say may be a 5-star player (he made the biggest jump in final rankings at rivals) and even better than maybe Malik. Like Vahe, who is vastly underrated, seeing his senior year play (he may be as good as his cousin, 5-star Mea whom we lost to LSU).
Hardly a player comes to mind, whose ranking has been trending down in the senior year. You need guts to identify PLAYERS and pursue them, waiting for the rankings to take care of itself in the end. That is how Charlie went about it. One of the most pleasant things was going and getting a guy they probably evaluated poorly earlier - PJ Locke - in the end. That guy is really good and may be better than Jamile Johnson he replaced (though Jamile was also trending up this year, and Tech got a good one in him).
That is just from following the trends in recruiting gurus' opinion. Year after year, I used to be bothered hearing of our highly rated players signed up 1.5 years ahead to be trending down in the final year but being grudgingly kept at their rankings by the services because it was guys like Mack, Davis, Muschamp, and Akina picking those guys. None of it this year. Well, maybe Ryan Newsome who trended down a bit (and hello, our staff eased off on him a bit too!) because he was getting all triple-teamed in the senior year and having some trouble with his hands. But I would take him as a Kick returner anyway, so I am glad.
I am glad that the "lock them up when they are in their diapers" scheme is history. Never understood it though it got us a lot of top players (with fear of not getting an offer later). The top ones came in along with some lemons too, which was the problem. During the period when we got lucky with fewer lemons (or a perceived lemon like Colt became money), we kicked ***, but when that didn't happen, we sucked. Evaluating later in their highschool career would certainly avoid evaluation mistakes, which is just plain logic.
I never believed that Mack and his staff were poor evaluators. They were great coaches who knew how to evaluate a player. It used to bother me when half-penny recruit gurus kept saying they were poor "evaluators". Their problem was that they were evaluating with essentially half the data points and often from tape of games were those players had not become marked-men in HS. That is the problem that went away this year, and I am so glad for that. Too much risk involved in Mack's approach, really. Anyway, nobody but Mack could manage to do what mack was doing, so Charlie wasn't even going to try!
Typically a Mack class would have 15 four-star guys but about 6 of them would be trending down and not doing well in the senior year (just a feeling). So we would end up with 8 or 9 real players. This class on the other hand has about 15 four-star national top-400 players on paper, but probably about 18 guys who are of that caliber. Effectively about twice as many players of real potential as would be there in a typical top-5 or top-8 class we had for most of the last 15 years.
If he can coach them right (and all past evidence shows he can), Charlie has the players to do some damage. Maybe one more class of players are needed for NC type results, but he may have enough now to not get fired after 3 years. Good job, Charlie.
