Nice.

Edit: That's seven 3-star commits by my count. Antonio Howard could make it eight.

Just when I was starting to get excited because I see we might have 7-8 3-star recruits, I go look at 247 Recruiting. Looks like we are still behind a bunch of MAC schools. Those Top 6 are eating everyone else for lunch! Are those 6 suddenly getting a ton of 3-star guys or is this "grade inflation"?

I still have to believe this is a very good class but 4-5-6 of the MAC schools were at 10 or so 3-star guys. So now I am not so sure we are catching up/passing them.

I guess we will just see what happens on the field the next few years...

The question is, Is everybody qualified?

Solich says two guys on the edge but they are optimistic.

247sports has us ranked 8th in the MAC and Scout.com has us 9th in the MAC. Kind of falls in line with our normal middle of the pack ranking they usually give us.

Winning in the living room?

Winning in the MACC?
Then why ranked so low?

From the general tenor of the posts in these recruiting threads, we had a terrific recruiting this year.

Haven't we heard that before.

I'll believe it when I see it.






Injuries.

That's a very good question, and one that I can't answer at the moment. I'll try to take a closer look at it sometime. Certainly there is some grade inflation, because overall the MAC rankings haven't moved up much in the national rankings. On the other hand, the MAC does seem to be getting some better players.

My one measure that is most independent of grade inflation is competitive offers. Since the number of FBS schools hasn't changed that much, you'd think that the number of offers wouldn't have changed that much. Here's what that metric looks like for Ohio, the number of offers the players chose Ohio over:
2006 .65
2007 .76
2008 1.40
2009 1.02
2010 .87
2011 2.62
2012 2.64
2013 2.17
2014 2.28
2015 2.31
2016 3.00
2017 4.79

How about the number of total P5 offers that players chose Ohio over (P5 applied retroactively):
2005 0
2006 2
2007 1.5
2008 6
2009 5
2010 0
2011 9
2012 13
2013 2.5
2014 5
2015 12
2016 3
2017 21

By both measures, which should be immune to inflation, this looks like a very good class.

Next, how many 3-stars are there?
Per ESPN - 4 (Coleman, Robinson, Tusha, Kitrell)
Per Scout - 3 (Tusha, Harris, Keszei)
Per Rivals - 1 (Harris) but note, they dont rate Ohio players anymore
Per 247Sports (using their ratings) - 10, as follows:
86 - Coleman
85 - Harris
84 - Robinson, Harris, Kitrell
82 - Brooks
81 - Keszei, Tusha
80 - Cherry, Minter

Per 247Sports Composit, which averages in ratings from the other services - 7

Is history is a guide, the unrated players will have some surprises. Those would be Cox, Ross, Floyd, and Ogun-Semore.

Good work L.C. 21 P5 offers is impressive and there are a few less power schools than going back when the Big East was around. With the numbers I feel its safe to say 8-10 3 star recruits in this class which Casper71 says is adequate to be coached up. Solich always has made finding big lineman as a top priority. You need 5 lineman on the field at all time when only 2-3 WR and RB's are needed on the field. Go 2 deep and that's 10 lineman compared to 4 WR's. Bowden signed 2 players over 250 pounds in his recruiting class. Ohio has 9 over 250. Up front has proved to be a good recruiting strategy through the years for Solich.

My friend, none of that matters much if we don't have a quality quarterback.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/conferences/statisti...

So do we know what happened with Newton? Sounds like he isn't here.

I don't think he signed with anyone, so maybe there's an academic issue or something that prevented that from happening.