And we are up to 18 with Sam Knight on the roster. 19 if that CC guy signs.

Hey, situation, how many MAC Championships have our 2-star and NR guys won? And, I have a feeling WMU is a lot closer to a MAC game/championship than us.

It really is rather simple, just look at how many 3-star recruits any of the better programs recruit. They have probably 2/3 of their classes in 3-star guys then add just a few 4 and 5-star guys to go along with a few 2-star guys.

You know, sometimes you learn a lot when you look at what better programs are doing. And, I don't necessarily mean Top 20 teams. it's the Cincinnati's, UK's, and others that we could be "like" that do this. I would much rather be in the TOP 3 in recruiting in the MAC rather than about #8. I think we get a lot out of our talent but why not start with even better talent and get much more out of them?

Back to the 3-star question again? OK, here is the percentage of Ohio's players with at least one 3-star rating, by year:

2005 4% (Brandon Jones)
2006 17% (Hodge, McCrae, Hubbard)
2007 9% (O'Hara, Strum)
2008 30% (Bussey, Britain, G. Moore, Tafua, Dawson, B. Jackson)
2009 27% (Lechner, Hughes, J. Davis, Edmond, Fortune, Woseley)
2010 18% (Kozak, Tarrant, Blake Jones)
2011 50% (Russell, L.Smith, Crutcher, Price, T. Davis, Welter, Fisher, Haser, Hammonds, Bennett, Purdum, Powell)
2012 53% (Edmond, Wade Wells, Gibbons, S. Smith, Watson, Schany, Windham, Tanner, Laseak, Patterson)
2013 27% (Wyatt, Quallen, Murdock, Alexander, Morgan, Cedric Brown)
2014 29% (Lowery, Duckworth, McCray, Walker, Brunson, Connor Brown, Dudziak)
2015 50% (Hagen, Howell, Ball, Fair, T. Williams, M. Williams, Cloud, Rangolam, Glasco)

Would you say that these have been Ohio's best recruits each year? As I look over this list, I'm struck by how many turned out to be duds, either transfers, guys with injury issues, or who for one reason or another, or who just never played. As an interesting contrast, let's look at the NR guys for the last few years, the ones that got no ratings higher than the lowest possible rating:
2011 (McQueen, Curtis, J. Johnson, Bass, Lucas)
2012 (W. Johnson, Blair Brown, Rodriguez, Reid)
2013 (Poling, Mangen, Cope, Aloese, McLeod)
2014 (DiCillo, Pruehs, Irons, Langenkamp, Fox, Brunis, Nelson, Bonnstetter, Boland)

OK, lets see which group was better, by looking at the percentage of each group that was a contributor:
2011, 3-star players 42% contributed, unrated players, 80% contributed
2012, 3-star players 40% contributed, unrated players 75% contributed
2013, 3-star players 50% contributed, unrated players 100% contributed
2014, 3-star players 57% contributed, unrated players 56% contributed

I think it's pretty clear that over the last 4 years the unrated players have been substantially better than the 3-star players. Honestly, I don't think anyone can look at these names an not agree with that statement.

The good news is that the staff seems to be improving, and they are being more selective about the 3-star players, and are getting better ones, ones that actually contribute. They continue to be able to find some very good unrated players, though, and I hope that continues.

As an interesting note, the position that got the most compliments this year on BA, without a doubt, had to be linebacker, where everyone agrees that Ohio is set for awhile to come. Interestingly, all three of the starters can be found on the unrated list. Similarly, 2 of the 3 WR that Paul wants to see on the field full time are on that list, along with the starter at TE, and 3 of the 5 starters on the OL.

If you look at the list of players that Ohio offers, they do go after 3 and 4 star recruits. The problem is that the 4-star players, and the high 3-star players generally have lots of P5 offers, and Ohio isn't able to get very many of them. Instead, they apparently get a fair number of 3-star players with grade issues, off-the-field issues, injury issues, or players that are just low 3-star players.

I personally think it's better 3-star players that Ohio needs, not more 3-star players. I just want guys that are players, players that end contributing, regardless of whether they are 3-star players or NR players. Last year's class seems to be full of those, as was 2013, and 2015 looks like it will, also.\

As for the other schools, it would be interesting to look back at their recent years to see if they 3-star players they are getting are actually good, or if they have the same problem Ohio has. I do know that most of the recent draft picks from the MAC have been NR players.

With the addition of the Glenville defensive lineman, that is another defensive verbal from this class who had a major offer (GT)

Feeling excited about this defense.

Partly that's a function of an ebb-and-flow at ESPN, during 2013-2014 they seemed to stop doing evaluations of G5 players, so they rated almost none of them, but they have returned to rating G5 players again in 2015. It would be a lot easier to gain historical perspective if these services didn't keep changing how they do things every year.

In addition, I think that time will show that the services overrated the 2011 class, and underrated the 2013 class.

Casper, there seem to be two problems. The first is that none of them seem to be any more accurate than the others. If one was better, I'd just use that one.

The other problem is that they all change constantly. Here are some things I've seen:
1. Rivals - A decade ago, they were honest and rated people they didn't know as 4.9, and 2-star recruits were rated from 5.0 to 5.4. In those days they also did a good job of rating all the people, plus as I said, they were honest about the ones they didn't rate. Then later they inflated all scores, and the minimum became 5.2, whether they look at his film or not. In recent years they don't even seem to bother with MAC recruits unless the information dumps into their lap. This year they only have listed half of Ohio's recruits, and the other half they will probably list on the last day, and rate them all 5.2, which could mean they looked and don't think much of them, but more probably it means they aren't going to bother looking at film.

2. Scout.com - Again, they used to be honest in indicating who they had rated, and who they hadn't rated. Non rated players were simply no stars, while everyone else was 1 to 4 stars. Then they inflated the scores, and everyone is 2 stars. You can sort of tell who they actually looked at because they have a "national ranking". So far they have looked at 5 of Ohio's recruits. At this point they are better than Rivals because they at least make an effort to list Ohio's recruits, but you can't reach any sort of conclusion from their information. Right now Ohio has five 3-star recruits, who happen to be the five players they are known to have looked at. Would Ohio have sixteen 3-star recruits if they looked at sixteen recruits? Possibly, but there is no way to know. If they don't ever get around to looking at all the recruits, how can you reach any conclusions from their ratings?

3. ESPN - This one started up about 2006. They made an effort to rate the players for everyone, and to cover the MAC. Then they pretty much dropped non-P5 coverage. In their class rankings, they only rank the top 25 classes, and they have minimal information on other teams. Now, this year they seem to have put a little effort back into rating MAC players again, and you see a lot more players for all the MAC teams that have "ratings" assigned. They have rated 8 Ohio players, and given 6 of them 3-star ratings. If they stayed like this, they would have some value, but odds are next year they will do something different.

4. 247Sports - These guys just popped up a couple years ago, and they made a concerted effort to rank all the players. This was looking like it was going to be the best service for MAC recruits by far. Unfortunately, after about this time last year, they simply stopped rating recruits, and dumped all the late class members in at their minimum. This year they picked up where they left off last year, leaving large numbers of players unrated.

Whenever the services change, and they all do, all the time, it makes historical comparisons impossible.

Ohio currently seems to have 18 recruits for this year, based on information from twitter. Here's where the services stand at the current time:
Recruits Identified
Rivals 9
Scout 15
ESPN 14
247Sports 16

Recruits that we know have been rated:
Rivals 7 (one 3-star)
Scout 5 (five 3-star)
ESPN 8 (six 3-star)
247Sports 5 (one 3-star)

Recruits list as minimum or NR
Rivals 2
Scout 10
ESPN 6
247Sports 11

...sooo, last year 247Sports was the best all year at getting the players rated, this year they are the worst. Last year ESPN was the worst, only rating 4 of 24 players, and this year they are the best, with 8 players rated. Rivals does a poor job of identifying recruits, but at least they try to rate them after they ID them.

In the end I'm not impressed by any of these services. In fairness, they all know where their revenue and click-throughs come from, they come from the P5, so that's where they put their attention. Rating players for the MAC is an afterthought, if they do it at all. I guess we should be grateful for any attention we get, but honestly, I question how accurate any conclusion you would reach from their data.

It would be nice if there was a service that actually tried to rate every MAC recruit, but more typically, by the end of the year, no service seems to look at much more than about half the recruits. As a result, I think any conclusions you try to reach from this data is questionable at best. We are hungry for information, so we try to use what we have, but what he have isn't very accurate, in my opinion.

Let me see. It seems Ohio just received a commit from Alex Alders, not rated by Rivals, who has six offers from Ohio, Toledo, W. Michigan and Colgate, Yale, Air Force. Taking him will ruin Ohio's Average Stars Per Recruit Rating. What do you do? Me, no question, bring him and every other like him you can find to Ohio.

I will bet Alex Alders accomplishes more for Ohio than a certain, Florida, 3 star, eight offer Ohio recruit from 2012.

Sorry, I just don't see recruiting service stars as important. Do any of you seriously believe coach Dixon cares at all about a recruiting service rating of a recruit? Does anyone think coach Solich would dream of offering a scholarship based upon stars? Do recruiting services check academic records? Do recruiting services evaluate character?

All District Awards:
SW District http://tinyurl.com/k5wwdn9
-Elijah Ball, 1st team, Division II
-Mayne Williams, 2d team, Division I

Central http://tinyurl.com/l4hm43v
-Clayton Glasco, 1st team, Division I
-Jake Hale, 2d team, Division I (defensive line)

Northwest http://tinyurl.com/kpa8j8c

NE Inland http://tinyurl.com/luklc7n
-Johvahn Fair - not listed
-Alex Alders - 1st team, Division II (offense)
-Evan Croutch - hon mention, Division II

NE Lakes http://tinyurl.com/m37xxlh
-Sam McKnight - 1st team, Division II
-London Cloud - 1st team, Division II
-Najee Stevens-McKenzie - Special Mention, Division II

Southeast http://tinyurl.com/k922owd
-Trae Williams - 1st team, Division III
-Austin Pleasants - 1st team, Division VI
(Adam Luehrman, Ryan Luehrman also 1st team)

Looking over the All-Ohio awards http://tinyurl.com/lgwbflz
Division I
-Clayton Glasco 2d team

Division II
-London Cloud 1st team

Division III
- Trae Williams 1st team

Division VI
-Austin Pleasants Spec Mention

-Sam McKnight 2d team
-Alex Alders spec mention

L.C., you probably do better than most of the recruiting services. One final comment, you could probably divide the 3-star guys into high and low. The high ones are the ones with a bunch of P5 offers. The lower 3-star guys are more the MAC types.

So, I guess from now on I will have to say I am looking for us to offer and sign guys that have more P5 offers. And, I bet people will be happy with me if I get off the 3-star bandwagon:)

Going by Ted's chart, as it stands today:

_______Current______Recruits________Total
QB_______ 5____________ 1___________ 6
RB_______ 5____________ 0___________ 5
FB_______ 0____________ 0___________ 0
WR______ 9____________ 3___________ 12
TE_______ 5____________ 0___________ 5
OL______ 13___________ 4___________ 17
K _______ 1____________ 0___________ 1

DT_______ 3____________ 2___________ 5
DE_______ 7____________ 1___________ 8
ILB_______1____________ 3___________ 4
OLB______5____________ 1___________ 6
CB_______ 8____________ 1___________ 9
S _______ 5____________ 2___________ 7
P _______ 1____________ 0___________ 1

Total:____68___________18___________ 86


That's one more than we can have on scholarship, so someone we don't know about will be gone by fall.