The one thing about this class that is the most different from the prior recruiting classes is the presence of several what I would call "true 3-star" recruits. Other classes have had a guy here and there that had multiple P5 offers, and consensus 3-star ratings, but this class has about 5 of them.
Edit - I am rating all the recruiting classes using a simple formula, (3 pts for a P5 offer, 1 pt for a G5 offer). I consider actual offers to be more accurate than recruiting ratings. It's easy for an analyst to assign a rating number, but when a coach makes an offer, he's putting his money where his mouth is.
I am listing the number of top players (6 or more points) recruited by each team, plus the average for each team. The former measure gives you a measure of the top of the class, the latter a measure of the depth of the class. The teams are being placed in order by the average points per recruit.
This took awhile as I had to cross-reference several recruiting services to find all the offers. The number before each team is the average points per recruit. After the team name comes the number of "highly sought recruits", and how many points each got:
Results:
4.67 WMU - 6 (Goulbourne 45, French 15, Tranquil 14, Tucker 7, Bellamey 7, Spencer 6)
4.57 Ohio - 6 (D. Williams 45, Christian 16, Hagan 15, Howell 12, Ball 8, McKnight 7)
4.27 Toledo - 6 (Green 27, Landry 15, Covington 13, Harris 7, Thompkins 7, Childress 6)
4.00 Kent - 3 (McRae 41, Simmons 14, Jones 11)
3.75 BG - 4 (Sotolongo 35, Lamar 11, Horstman 11, Bozeman 6)
3.16 Buffalo - 2 (Hawkins 23, Reed 12)
2.86 Miami - 5 (Bahk 13, Leever 8, McMullen 8, Allen 6, Ross 6)
2.30 NIU - 5 (Tears 21, Hughes 11, Pugh 10, T. Smith 7, Brown 6)
2.12 U.Mass - 3 (Lindsay 17, Thomas 13, Franklin 8)
1.56 EMU - 3 (Turner 14, Snelling 12, Figueroa 7)
1.31 Akron - 1 (Jordan 12)
1.04 Ball State - 2 (Thurman, 9, Gilbert 6)
0.50 CMU - no highly sought recruits
The most highly sought after recruits:
45 Goulbourne, WMU
45 Williams, Ohio
41 McRae, Kent
37 Sotolongo, BG
27 Green, Toledo
23 Hawkins, Buffalo
21 Tears, NIU
17 Linday, UMass
16 Christian, Ohio
15 French, WMU
15 Hagan, Ohio
15 Landry, Toledo
14 Tranquil, WMU
Another way to look at this data would be the percentage of players each team took that had no other FBS offers:
Buffalo 26%
Toledo 27%
WMU 29%
Miami 31%
Kent 43%
BG 46%
NIU 50%
Ohio 57%
Akron 63%
U.Mass 64%
CMU 67%
EMU 68%
Ball St 75%
This is probably what hurt Ohio's ranking in the national rankings. How good or bad Ohio's class turns out to be may well end up depending on how good the mystery players end up being. In years past they often ended up being some of the best players, so I'm not concerned about it. Some like Seymour, Grimes, Glasco, M. Williams, Arp, Key, and Croutch I think will be very good.
As I looked through this from a perspective of what other offers the players had, some thoughts that occurred to me:
1. Ohio's class and WMU's class are remarkably similar, except that Ohio's class includes a lot of under the radar players, where WMU's class has more players that had a single other offer.
2. Miami beat almost no P5 schools, but kicked butt against MAC schools
3. Some schools, like Miami, NIU, and Buffalo (if I recall correctly) beat out a ton of FCS schools. I awarded no points for those. Had I awarded points for that, they would have done better in this ranking.
4. Certain schools really got beat a lot. I saw Ball State, Akron, EMU, CMU, and Toledo on the losing side a lot.
5. Ohio was rarely on the losing side against other MAC schools. Mostly they were going for a higher grade of player, and lost to P5 schools. Where they did lose to MAC schools, it was on highly competitive players.
6. Like Ohio, Miami's recruits included what may be twins, in their case, from Oxford, Ohio, with no other offers.
7. Buffalo and Kent have better classes than the rankings give them credit for. Meanwhile CMU and Ball State appear significantly worse than the rankings show them.
Players Ohio lost to other MAC Schools, and their points:
Bahl, Miami 13
Snelling, EMU 12
Leever, Miami 8
Bellamy, WMU 7
Thompkins, Toledo 7
Phouthavon, BG 6
Allen, Miami 6
Lautanen, BG 5
Miller, BG 4
Maybry, Buffalo 4
Zielinski, Miami 4
Osborne, Buffalo 2
Jones, BG 2
Bell, Toledo, 2
Murrer, Miami 2
McKinley Lewis, Toledo 1
Average 5.3, and of the 40 players with 6 points or more taken in by the entire rest of the MAC, Ohio had offers to 7 of them.
Against other schools, only Miami really got the best of Ohio. Ohio was:
Miami 1-5
BG 3-4
Toledo 4-3
Buffalo 2-2
Ball St 1-0
Akron 4-0
WMU 2-1
Kent 2-0
Overall Conclusion - I believe Ohio's class is much better than #6. How much better depends on the under the radar players. Ohio was very aggressive about going for a better grade of player than they have in the past, and they were able to land a fair number of them.
Last Edited: 2/8/2015 4:19:59 PM by L.C.