CRBULL

2 hours ago, USFBulls12 said:

People who don't think they deserve anything in life, get nothing. Ask and you shall receive.

There are people on here who know where you're coming from. It seems to be mainly the word deserve that rubbed people wrong. Our location affords us a level of recruiting, deserved or not, that should lead to high level results, and I don't think you were implying that anything should be handed to us without the effort required to work our way up over time to reach our potential.

Half of Michigan's recent classes would not be considered true blue chips and could have been among our targets (i.e. moderate to high 3*s from Florida).

However, I would trust the relationship CWT has with Harbaugh and say they probably have some sort of informal agreement in place on how to approach things.

On a side note, it's weird to me that some seem to think our recruiting has gone out the window now that we're in the AAC. The reality is it's about the same and I would expect an uptick this year as long as we keep momentum going, with the possibility of surpassing our highest ranked class next year if we keep the momentum going all the way through.

We still recruit along the same level as our prior BE teammates.

5 hours ago, Triple B said:

Just took a quick peek over there and I nominate the 2nd post in the thread for HOF:

With Eveld, Floyd, and the addition of Cameron, it would be hard for him to crack the lineup.  I'm actually surprised we're already offering 2013 QBs.  Perhaps we don't desperately need to recruit a QB for the 2013 class.

I think you found the post that jinxed our QB situation for a while.

If he ends up at Temple it would be a head scratcher for sure. Think it would be the first time we had a high-ranked recruit flip late to a non-elite team. Wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

2 hours ago, Bull Dozer said:

For a school like us major moves are made down the stretch as P5 elite teams start to fill up and kids see what their real offers are and others get pushed out as the top rated kids commit. This has always been how things work for us in recruiting. Anyone expecting us to have our classes all but filled by this time of the year hasn't been paying attention to USF recruiting over the years. Most of our highly rated commits usually come late in the game.... 

2 minutes ago, JTrue said:

Probability is on his side because it's Iowa.

Exactly.

9 hours ago, JTrue said:

I'm kidding here with my rebuttal, but to say USF is a slam dunk over ISU is silly. We're all homers here, but to simply dismiss Iowa State because you wouldn't go there doesn't hold up for a million reasons for 18 year olds being recruited. He may choose USF, he may choose Iowa State, but to say ISU holds "no upside" for him just isn't true.

Outside of exaggerating a bit, every person weights things differently and probability is on WWMJD's side for all the reasons I listed.

Easy, "If you love Iowa state go to Iowa State. But, if you love playing for championships with your friends while your family watches in the stands, come to USF and make a name for yourself like George Selvie, Mike Jenkins, Quinton Flowers, Marlon Mack and many others have done."

• It's cool playing storied programs, but not so cool if it's constantly being pounded by them. If it were that strong of a factor every so called P5 team would recruit better than every team not a so called P5
• Academics are great, but if it was that strong of a factor teams like Vandy would pull in more top recruits. A degree from USF is just as valuable for most of the people that attend - it's what you do with it that matters, unless you're truly in the ivy league making connections through college.
• Basketball is fun, but if it was that strong of a factor teams like Duke would pull in more top recruits.
• Having enough playing time and an encouraging environment to realize your potential is the best way to make the most of a football player.

It's fun to play devil's advocate, but USF has great advantages that players relate to and recruits better than a 3rd of the teams in the so called P5. Nothing against them as an institution, but that includes Iowa State.

 Was wondering that too, especially now that AW is back

Agree, the next benchmark is seeing how we perform as the target. 

I think one of the links in this thread or his thread on the recruits page had a spring or summer article mentioning that he was looking to be an early enrollee. I don't know if that's still the case. 

This is definitely an awesome commit, but we have had similarly rated commits with long offer lists. Dvario Montgomery and Sean price come to mind. 

If he no longer even lists us as an option after having been committed, it's more likely that he and the staff have had a parting of ways.

In general depth is only an issue when it comes to depth of players Taggart has pulled in for his system and how well his staff judged them as a fit for his system. Beyond that we have a team of players pulled in for a specific system with an average ranking and expectations comparable to a group of schools in the same range. We should expect to have comparable depth to teams in our average recruiting segment like Wisconsin, Iowa, NC State, K State, etc.

It would be interesting to see the rankings broken down by O and D, and maybe even by unit, to get a better feel for which schools are doing better at O and maybe O-line, for example.

I've referred to our recruiting in different threads since the last wave of conference realignment and I've never felt like the point gets across. Here's a graph posted on regressing deadspin that shows exactly what I'm talking about when referring to the potential of USF.

I felt the need to post this after seeing some of the crazy comments along the lines of "we shouldn't expect to compete with P5 teams" that followed the NC State and Maryland games. When you look at where we sit among our recruiting peers, on average, that is where you should expect to be competitive - and for USF, when the ship is righted, that includes both those teams and plenty others in the P5.
 
http://regressing.deadspin.com/chart-which-ncaa-football-teams-outplay-their-recruit-1640831522/+benes

http://www.thebullspen.com/gallery/image/206-2014regressingdeadspinexpectedtalentvsrealizedsuccess/

What does this graph tell us?

• Our recruiting segment (even during sustained poor performance and poor conference affiliation) is comfortably among respected P5 teams
• The red line directly above where we sit in this graph is where an average coach (hopefully Taggart) should be able to take us (into the blue if they are good)
• Wisconsin is the top over-performer in our recruiting segment

The section circled in green is where I believe we could move with a couple years of sustained success (8+ wins a year).

It's pretty interesting to have a visual summary of all the over and under performers

We know way deep down Smazza actually cares and wants USF to succeed. I'm not so sure about this guy.

Nice, but in the future if we do a 2-1 I would rather have the home game in the middle, that way if they buy out we don't have to worry about giving them two home games for the price of one.

A retrospective on the offense.

What worked well, what didn't? What should we continue to do? What should we do differently?

What worked? Mack when we're blocking well. White when we're blocking well and now that he seems to be settling down. Passing to the backs, especially Swanson, though defenses will now plan for this.

What didn't work? OL blocking ability, run and pass. White is having some trouble finding his receivers even when he has time, holding onto the ball for 4+ seconds, though he is getting better as he seems to be calming down. Identify the specific plays that haven't produced and lower their priority.

What should we continue to do? Identify the specific plays and scenarios that have produced and prioritize them, these plays should be the staple until the OL has new players that can consistently open lanes for Mack. Continue shifting the pocket and giving White quick-throw options. Continue the sweeps and getting Mack to the outside.

What should we do differently? If we are shifting slightly more to throw oriented to open the run (saw this over last couple games), consider adding another quick throw target to the bread and butter plays to help White have a quick throw that he feels comfortable with. Work with White on getting the ball out within 2 seconds on all of his short options so he feels comfortable making those really quick throws that defenses are going to force him to make. What can we realistically work with in a two-week period?

Was thinking the same thing on TOP, changes the game when you give the D a longer breather and even more incentive when you add some points.

I agree with Blackice, young team making mistakes cost us this game. When this O finds an identity and matches the output of the D, watch out. The D will be that much better when they get longer breaks and get energy and momentum from the O.

Really tough lesson, but he'll probably shift the ball to the correct hand from now on. This is what it's like to have a team loaded with underclassmen. Promising to think what we'll have in a season or two.

I think the OP meant cost us the game in the sense that it was a huge momentum shift at a critical time. Had we punched that in it would have energized the D that much more on UWs following possession.

I like the adjustments the offense made in the UConn game. They were prepared to compensate for the OL and rolled the pocket several times.

I'm hoping to see more of that today if UW starts getting pressure early.

No doubt certain individuals can make a big difference on a team and it takes a decent coach to put the right ones in the right situation.

There is no doubt that their talent was used much more efficiently (this is the case with any winning team with a good system despite their level of talent - look at Wisconsin's recruiting level), but more overall talent on an individual basis, no they do not, that's what the facts tell you.

Despite what you and some of the sky is falling crowd say, there is no current trend to indicate that our recruiting will change beyond the normal swing for our current statistically significant factors, of which Big East vs AAC apparently wasn't a large one.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the QB situation and it's baffling, but it's not a talent gap issue (beyond what we already had to work with when we were in the Big East).

The entire point and bottom line is that we are still a top 30-50 destination school, regardless of conference and lack of recent winning record, for upper level talent. It just needs to be gathered and implemented to its potential.

Going back to the original post, I agree some are not considering reality so let's take a look at the facts.

Here's an average of the Rivals class rankings over the last 3 years for us and our OOC competition:

                  2012      2013      2014      AVG

USF               49          49          39          46

NC St            53          47          30           43

Maryland       35          33          53           40

Wisconsin     57          57          33           49

We are recruiting at the same level as we did before the Big East broke up, and roughly better than 33% of the schools in the recently proclaimed mythical "P5" conferences.

Saying we can't compete with NC State is like saying we can no longer compete with Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, WV, and Rutgers because they are now in the "P5."

We haven't been competitive at any level for the last three years, but the facts show it isn't because of the potential talent we can pull in. Whether that talent is pulled in effectively to meet the chosen schemes is another matter.

The other interesting thing that came up when looking at the facts is that it's impressive what Wisconsin has been able to do with the talent level they have been pulling in for the last 5 or so years. I had pictured them having top 20 classes before I actually looked it up and noticed they have been recruiting lower than us.

Agreed on a competent coach away, we already have the other part in our recruiting ability.