Recruiting always been a challenge. How much more so will it be as the FBS ranks swell with the addition if teams in the talent-rich Southeast and Southwest? I'm think of such programs as Charlotte, Old Dominion, FAU, FIU, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, UTSA, Texas State and so on.

24/7 sports list of Top 10 recruiting classes out of the MAC, CUSA and SBC. As you can see 3 out of the top 4 classes are WMU, Toledo, NIU but then a drop off to Bowling Green who has the 12th best class. The new big market programs are mostly in CUSA and they seem to be having an effect on the smaller market programs in the south that populate the SBC. When I see WKU, App St up there they have good recent history. Georgia St. is getting the upper hand against Georgia Southern the smaller market school.

Highest 10
Western Mich. 156.08
Western Ky. 152.07
Toledo 150.37
Northern Ill. 141.63
Louisiana Tech 133.77
Florida Int. 132.66
UT-San Antonio 131.41
Southern Miss. 129.63
Appalachian St. 124.49
Georgia St. 122.96

Average Rating
CUSA 98.47
MAC 98.08
SBC 86.69

Or how many are qualifiers, and are on the roster come the start of the 2018 season

I can't answer all of these questions in one post. The G5 you have to remember isn't getting home-run 4 and 5 star players. In other words there isn't this magical one recruit that comes along rather programs are built on 2 and 3 star guys who are solid FBS types. Its more dependent on making a great hire that can put a culture into a program, then start winning some games. Winning then leads to tradition. Tradition is not so much what people think it is something that stretches back 100 years. Tradition is more what the program has done the last 5-10 seasons, recent historical track records. That is how Appalachian State has become a place, they started to take off after a lot of FCS programs moved up in the late 90's, won some national championships ect and its carried over to the Sun Belt. The new FBS programs are adding competition to the bottom not the top of the G5, driving down recruiting of existing programs in the south which is turn is leading to a big talent gap from the top to bottom. Its affecting the MAC some at the bottom and that is why I'm saying the talent gap between Toledo/NIU level and Kent/Ball St level is larger than what it probably has ever been before. The bottom is falling out of conferences in the G5 but its not impacting the MAC as much as other conferences because of its own regional talent base.

I believe that would have been under future Michigan and Tennessee (interim) head coach Brady Hoke (hahahahaha)

247 ranks Ohio's class #108.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CompositeTeamR...

MAC rankings:

63. WMU
66. Toledo
79. NIU
85. BG
101. BSU
106. EMU
108. Ohio
111. CMU
115. Miami
124. Akron
130. Buffalo
132. Kent

Lots of factors in this ranking. Especially the lower you get the total number of recruits seems to matter.

WMU signed 1 four star, 17 three star and 2 two star players. We managed a couple 3 star, numerous 2 star, at least 1 one star and even a few no star players. No offense to the incoming class but after 13+ years this is what our staff gets? BTW, we ranked No. 108 this year nationally, No. 103 last year and No. 115 in 2016. Really impressive!

There are a variety of takes to this info. If you believe 247Sports is the gospel, and what they say is absolute, then yes, this demonstrates Ohio recruiting is bad. However, it also would indicate that Ohio's ability to "coach-up" players must be pretty darn good.

On the other hand, if 247Sports is only semi-accurate, and their degree of inaccuracy is consistent, then this class must be much better than advertised.

Or, 247Sports is just flat wrong--maybe increasingly wrong as you move lower on the list. Therefore, this "ranking" is practically meaningless.

Maybe there are other takes, but I'm not going to get too riled up about this report.

It seems obvious that this years signees have fewer P-5 offers than last year. It also seems to me to have fewer D-1 offers per player, but I haven’t calculated that yet.
I think last years class was maybe the best ever for Frank, this year not so much. But the only thing that counts is how it correlates to important wins.

Update:
2017- 21 recruits-12 P-5 offers(7 players)-89 total D-1 offers-4.2 ave.
2018-19 recruits—3P-5 offers(3players)-55 total D-1 offers-2.9 ave.
FWIW This is from Ted’s Bobcat Attack Recruiting Summary. Except Baker uses 247 sports

I think it definitely has an impact. How much is what I'd like to know also. Think of it like this: the MPF at least gets us in the discussion for certain recruits. It has to, right? But winning the recruit over takes more than not practicing in the cold.

Without the indoor facility, Ohio would be getting far fewer quality recruits than they are getting now. Anyone who thinks otherwise is greatly uninformed.

I did not say anything about how beautiful our campus is. What I did say is that after 13+ years our staff apparently cannot recruit a class that on paper holds a candle to either WMU, Toledo or NIU. Heck, even BG's class is ranked way better than ours. And as someone else pointed out, very few P-5 teams offered these guys anything. Finally, again after 13+ years I do expect our staff to win MACCs as well as Bowl games.

I think that's coachspeak more than anything. I bet other coaches say the same thing. And I bet they and other staffs do have their own rating system. But it's kinda hard for them as a staff to not pay attention to these ratings at all. It's so in your face nowadays.