Man they are killing UT right now. 5 of top 14 in 2015 LSR. Texas has #19 and then #33. I think Strong will turn it around but he has an uphill battle.
Pull your head out of Rivals *** because they can not rate crap. Time after time after time their highest rated recruits fall flat at the college level.
That's quite the generalization. We can always find 5-star guys who didn't pan out, but there are plenty who did. I guess considering all other factors, I'd much rather have A&M's class than ours right now.
Count me as a who gives a crap about their recruiting until they can finish in the top 3 in their conference, much less start competing for conference titles. With the talent they had on offense this past season, their defense sucked serious hind tit. I have confidence that Strong can instill a program of winning based on effort and accountability.However, recruits these days seem a bit less interested in winning tradition and a bit more about flair/"swag"/uniforms and cool Twitter program followers.
They will eventually have to start winning meaningful games and conference championships for this to continue. So far in the sec they have beaten Alabama once and that's about it.
Ags problem is D. Dead last in the SEC and Sumlin teams typically are really bad in that arena. Perhaps great recruiting will overcome it, perhaps, but then from a W and L standpoint there's that tough division to deal with, year after year. Anyway, offensively they have just landed one of the best in the country in Murray--he is fabulous.
Right now, I think only somebody who is in denial would say that TAM is not winning the recruiting battle. However, I think we kind of expected that Sumlin would have the upper hand over Strong initially. The key will be how well Texas develops what they have. If this coaching staff can do more with less, so to speak, then recruits will see that and we will start seeing the tide turn. How well will TAM do now that Johnny Football has moved on and a lot of seriously good OL talent is in the NFL? Both of those things are going to play major roles in how well Texas recruits in future.
4 years of total crap has put us here and only winning will take care of it. aggs have had a fair amount of attrition from their top class just like we went through so they aren't as set as their class would suggest. This year isn't in the books yet so let's go out and win some games and the recruiting will take care of itself. We lost to Baylor 3 of 4. That alone can kill your recruiting. We weren't competitive against OSU. Time for the guys to step it up and take ownership of the problem by winning.
Winning absolutely is the #1 solution to recruiting but we just won't know for a few more months. Horns should wind up with about 25 recruits for 2015 and, IF we look good on the field and win enough, a top 10 class is not out of the question. May is just too early to be deciding, as a few are doing, how this recruiting class is going to wind up. Plus, even if the class is not rated that high, this coaching group has shown it can develop athletes into big-time winners. Only 3 months to go--hang in there everybody.
Ags could wind up with 5 5*s this year. It's definitely unprecidented. Murray Mack Malik Sheffield Lodge
All these kids know is Texas has been lame for 4 years, a national joke, and our claim to fame is beating a down OU team. On top of that our new coach is from a less prominent program and he didn't win anything of such importance there that he is recognized as a top level coach yet. He still has much to prove in the higher level of universities where big boy ball is played many times a year. On the other hand you have Aggy getting a ton of press form the conference move and JFF being a hot button topic for 2 years. Then the regular national players like LSU, Bama, etc have stayed in the upper class of big schools. What appeal do we really have at the moment? We don't have a recent winning tradition, no one respects us on the field, and our head coach is unproven in that lead role in the higher ranks and not a big name. What does anyone really expect? We have to prove we are on the rise again before Strong has proven ammunition to sell. Promises and hopeful visions of the future can only go so far. If we get back on the map, make some real noise in the win column, and play with fire and swagger again...the upper level recruits will come back to Austin. Winning takes care of everything. Hope is nothing more than wishful thinking. Not enough to sell the best 16-18 year olds who want to join a winner, not help try to win again.
Winning will cure a lot of things, but I'm not sure Strong will ever have a recruiting class at, or near the top. His way of doing things is like night and day compared to Mack's folksy charm and it isn't going to appeal to some of the top 5 star HS prima donnas. That's not to say he can't win big at Texas. He's just probably going to have to do it with less regard for recruiting rankings and more focus on getting his type of players.
We are talking about recruiting 17-18 year old boys who are becoming men. There are two big sides to this task -- one is related to physical attributes where measurement techniques have been developed and recognized. These are the football stats and measurements.of body skills and attributes. The second side is related to mental attributes like character, attitude,and aggressiveness. There is more art involved in measuring this second side because there is no recognized numbering scheme. This new UT coaching staff has enough experience that they measure this second side in their own way, which seems to be significantly different than the M.Brown coaching staff. TAM is winning the first side by a large amount now. We cannot tell about the second side of recruiting until the W-L column is more visible. The performance numbers also are a measurement of the mental side of the recruit. However, this relationship is constantly changing due to the age group of these recruits. Given more words I can give a number of examples, to show that the old coaching regime fell down because they ultimately could not get the 4-5 star recruits to start for them in what should be their junior/senior years. This is the numbering system that we should use to compare the success of the recruiting classes between TAM and UT. Just counting the "stars" can be a very misleading way of measuring the success of a recruiting program.
Also agree with Third Coast that Strong has a slight disadvantage selling a program with super strict rules and oversight even once we are a major player again. Not to say he can't have great recruiting success, but as TC said, lot of prima donna, celebrated kids nowadays aren't into strict authority like that. Lot of he top players are used to constant praise over the ground they walk on. Won't matter to kids with strong parental guidance, yet that's the minority of cases nowadays. No doubt rival head coaches will highlight (even exaggerate) some of the unusually strict policies Strong has implemented and try to scare them off. This isn't the old days of strict parents and respect for elders. Many kids are used to doing as they please for the most part. Hell just go to your local restaurant or grocery store and watch the kids running all around like drunk midgets without a care in the world. Then you see the parents look over at them torment others and giggle. Awful.
The Manziel phenomena is kind of strange. He gets more press then Andrew Luck did coming out of college. JM has been a huge difference. aggs seem to have gotten more upside from that then we got from winning an NC. If JM flops in the pros, the whole thing will die out like Tebow mania did and losing will start to take it's toll on the agroids. Their D will be better this year, but I still don't think it will be ready to stop LSU and Bama in the trenches, and they aren't going to score 42 on Bama again.
One good year for atm does make a dynasty. UT will turn it around. Strong will turn it around. In three years this will be the most feared team in America. No one will want to play the Horns because they will not want their asses kicked. Strong will reverse the whip on ou. I predict right now that Strong will have a winning record against ou, and by a significant margin.
I think you'll even see an evening out in recruiting success by us and Ags after next season. With JM gone, Bama and the top SEC dogs will flex their muscles to squash the Aggy hype that was basically a one-man show. Bama will be experienced, LSU is last on schedule, and the Ags draw South Car and Mizzou from the East. They should finish the same at 9-4 (4-4) due to a horrendous OOC schedule. lol Lamar, Rice, SMU, La-Monroe...what a joke. Without those gimmes they might have finished below the last 2 years in wins. Let's not forget their leading RB rusher is in Dallas now. JM and Malena combined for 1,310 of 2,406 Aggy rushing yards. Not to mention 19 of 33 rushing TD's. So both the run and pass game are taking a tremendous hit to the NFL. On the Texas side, I absolutely expect to see a revamped team with talented players finally going all out and with a clue what they are doing on defense. Not predicting BCS run...just conf title contention and 9 wins. Ash will be ready in July Strong said, so that's the info I'm using, a healthy Ash for the Fall. We can worry about changing predictions later if something were to happen. Just like you would if the new Aggy QB went down. I'm not basing my predictions off an injured player that isn't going to be injured for Week 1. Strong says he'll be ready for camp, that's the word I'm trusting. And I do believe in Ash as a solid, efficient QB with sufficient help from the players around him. Which he has yet to have the luxury to play with since taking over. Either way, A&M will suffer some embarrassments in SEC that they avoided in past with JM. Their coverage will be far less of a suckfest by the media and possibly the opposite. Our coverage will be positive as we can only go up from where we were, and I believe in Strong turning it around asap to earn our respect back as a team to take seriously. Just that role reversal in media coverage and respect will cause many recruits to start taking Texas seriosouly again. Aggies will be exposed as team that hasn't done dick in their own division for 3 years running. Without JM, the allure is gone. One season and this will all change, at least evening things up between the schools. Mark it down.
Brad, I think you should consider that our new coach is "Top Five" in one pole and "Number One" in another. Couple that with the fact that our assistant coaches are "Number One", and we must be "BACK". Strong is "Top Five" in pay and benefits among D-1 coaches. He is "Number One" in buyout amount. Our assistance coaches are number one is buyout amount. With those stats, we need to be watching Bellmont far more closely than Brazos County. That said, if anyone in Travis County accepts a call from or talks to Korn Ferry, they should be given a oneway ticket to Norman, Baton Rouge or Brazos County.
Some of you guys need to stop sugar coating it. Aggy is kicking our ***. This reminds me of Sherrill vs. McWilliams. If Strong doesn't show soon that he can compete off the field, its going to get really ugly on the field. How could it not? Yea, I know "let's talk football players and not recruiting rankings". Great line, but go back it up.
Aggy here... there's plenty of talent in the state. You can win with three star talent if you can develop it... Mac couldn't. Time will tell if Strong can. We haven't had a lot of four and five star talent. if Sumlin can utilize it then... well... watch out. Of course everything is cyclical.
I think we all need to show some patience here. I know this will probably fall on def ears for some but the reality is that Smart has not coached a game yet. I know it's Texas but even at Texas, there needs to be a opportunity to build your program. Strong is 37-16 as a Head Coach at Louisville. He's 3-2 in Bowls and one of those loses was as Interim for Florida. Heck, even the great Darrel Royal was 6-4-1 in his first Season at Texas. Strong is a hell of a Defensive Coach and has shown to be a pretty good HC thus far. He hasn't forgotten how to Coach Football. Texas will be just fine if we are patient IMO.
The Longhorn forums read a lot like your average A&M forum at the beginning of the Fran era when we kept hoping that momentum would shift. Things are always cyclical, but with the combination of Sumlin, the new Kyle Field, and the SEC, I think the momentum is going to be on A&M's side for a decade or so. On that note, Kingsley Keke just committed to A&M. 24/7 had the Longhorns as the heavy favorite.
