FWIW, 247 has now assigned ratings to all of Ohio's signees.

http://ohio.247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/Commits

Cox: 2 stars, 0.7682
Rourke: 2 stars, 0.7893
Floyd: 2 stars, 0.7642
Ogun-Semore: 2 stars, 0.7723
Ross: 2 stars, 0.7580

Moves the class ranking up to #99 nationally, and #7 in the conference.

Here's a rating for you:

Miami's qb Ragland, a soph last season, threw 50% of their passes for 17 td's and only 1 interception.

He did not throw a pass in their first six games last year, 0-6.

He threw every pass in their seventh game. They went on a 6 game winning steak, lost their bowl to a 6-7 final record.

Miami plays in South Bend next season.

Those are pretty amazing stats for Ragland. Maybe an aberration, a tremendous hot streak.

Otherwise, looks like we're playing for second place in the East next year.

Hmm, that will make it harder a few years from now when I go back to demonstrate the normal inverse correlation. Historically the recruits that are the best are the unrated ones, and they have consistently done better in actual results than 3-star recruits have. Examples include Carrie, Brazill, Basham, Poling, and Blair Brown, among others.



Keep in mind that for Ohio, at least, there has historically been no correlation between recruiting rankings and actual performance, but here are the points awarded to Ohio by year, and the average ranking on 247Sports by year:

2012 112.25 points, average 77.08
2013 91.72, 76.18
2014 102.45, 75.97
2015 132.38, 77.33
2016 107.77, 77.3
2017 119.17, 78.8
'
Arguably the 2015 class was better, but that included Deontai Williams (still in JUCO, should be eligible for 2018 class), Jeff Christian (spent a year at Ohio Dominican, now at Ohio, but had to sit out last year), Demetrius Colbert (quit football due to concussions), London Cloud (I think he ended up at Toledo as a non-qualifier, but isn't on their roster), Clayton Glasco (went to JUCO, never returned), Najee Stevens-McKenzie (never qualified), Langston Provitt (quit football due to concussions), and Adrell Taylor (legal issues). Without those players, I think 2015 was not as good as 2017, but we'll have to see if there are any losses from the 2017 class.

As you said, how they perform on the field will be the true judge of how good they are.

No because Miami caught teams sleeping last year and could very well go 5-7 next year. Its good they are no longer the worst team in college football anymore. Im more concerned with Bowling Green who had a much better recruiting class.

Glad someone figured out what I've been saying in that Miami will win the East next year

Monroe, the only problem with Miami is that for a short period they seem to have forgotten that they suck. Hopefully, over the off season they will remember.

IF recruiting rankings were accurate, and IF recruiting rankings accurately predicted what happens on the field, (neither of which is entirely true), then combining the last five years of recruiting rankings, the standings next year would be:
WMU
Toledo
NIU
Miami
BG
Ohio
Ball State
CMU
Buffalo
EMU
Kent
Akron

For reference, in 2016, the same method would have predicted:
Toledo Actual 6-2
WMU Actual 8-0
BG Actual 3-5
NIU Actual 5-3
Miami Actual 6-2
Ball St Actual 1-7
Ohio Actual 6-2
CMU Actual 3-5
Kent Actual 2-6
EMU Actual 4-4
Buffalo Actual 1-7
Akron Actual 3-5

As you can see there is a correlation, but it isn't 100% accurate. Teams that stand out as winning notably less games than you would have predicted include BG and Ball State. Teams that won more than you'd have predicted include Ohio, EMU, and Akron. That's why they play the games, though.

Not bad for s 2 star recruit according to 247 Sports

The turn around for BG was marked from the beginning blasted by OSU to the end of the season. Ohio played BG right in the middle between how they played from the beginning to the end of the season. NIU is another one with a slow start last year. A program in my opinion is allowed an occasional down season. Frank himself was 4-8 in 2008. My biggest concern is BG back to form and we get them on the road this time. With Akron the ceiling is low on that program and I think 2016 was going to have to be the year for them to break through. Kent isn't bringing much talent into the program and Buffalo is so inconsistent. I feel the East is going to go through the Ohio-BG game again next year in all probability. Miami will be still in the race I'm sure when they walk into Athens so expect some hype for that one. At the end of the day I'm not expecting a quantum leap from them like some are predicting based on nostalgia of years ago when Miami was a point of pride for the state as far and away the most selective public school.

When you sign as many JUCO's as we did at critical spots, tells me we whiffed in recruiting in 2013, 2014, and 2015. So for us to attempt to say we're gonna go gunning for a MAC Title when we're bringing in 9 o-lineman, you're essentially saying that our depth chart is garbage and here is your new two-deep. Along with a JUCO QB, tells me all I need to know about Maxwell.

Maxwell needed some competition. He is not a bad QB, I can't call him a good QB either. The jury is still out. I would not write him off quite yet.

With all the back and forth going on there ought to be an orgasm at the end of this thread.

I must laugh at those that think they can predict the outcome of the next football season.

The MAC is not the easiest conference for pundits to project. In most years the most accurate preseason picks came from Phil Steele, but he had an off year last year, finishing 10th of 20 overall, and he was second from last in the MAC East, though he did nail the MAC West.

Here is last year's picks:
http://www.stassen.com/preseason/consensus/2016.html

and here's how they rated out:
http://preseason.stassen.com/prediction-accuracy/2016.html

The overall winner last year was Athlon, and the best East prediction came from Arena Fanatic who called it Ohio, BG, Miami, Akron, Kent, Buffalo.