True. It's going to get interesting.
We have a good chance of getting Fitzpatrick and Farmiok. If we do, those two alone will be, I think, our third and fifth highest rated recruits.
They'd be nice gets, but we need D-lineman. Good ones.
Sure we do. Not for next year but the future.
However that fact doesn't automatically make this class suck or mean the coaches are going a horrible job.
I will reserve final judgment on signing day, but
if we are not able to finish in the top 20, then Riley and company have not met the expectations they were hired to do. Bo had many classes ranked outside the top 20 and into the early 30s, and Riley was supposed to really excel with recruiting.
Even if we land Butler, Jackson, Fitzpatrick, and Farniok, I don't see this class ending up in the top 20.
Where was it said that this was the expectation of the new staff. I believe the two main objectives were that Riley has done OK with OSU level recruits -
he was sold as someone that does well with average talent and should be able to have better talent here (that is different then being a better recruiter). The second thing that most were sold on was that fact that he would not act like an idiot on the sideline and in the interview room.
Have you re-read what you just wrote? First off, he has performed worse with average talent than his predecessor (
who I was not a fan of and am glad he was fired), and that was evident from this past season. We also were told numerous times that Riley was known to be the best recruiter in the Pac 12, but since he only was able to try to sell a Yugo, he could not achieve highly ranked recruiting classes, but with the tradition, facilities, and financial resources at NU, he would be able to make NU competitive again in the recruiting arena. I am excited about a few guys coming in, and am still holding hope we see a big turnaround in the final 45 days, but losing out on 3 big recruits that the staff invested a lot of time in is highly concerning.
Just looking at Rivals, Bo's 2011 class ranked #15 and his 2013 class ranked #17. When you average out the final 4 seasons, his average ranking was probably in the mid-20s. Thus, if we end up in the mid-20s or worse, I am seeing no signs of improvement. And if we can't get better talent than we had before, and we have seen that this staff cannot coach up average talent, what are we to hang out hats on?
First off - I didn't re-read what I wrote because I know what I wrote. How has he performed worse - did you watch the games or are you just going of the record. How many points did we loss by last year? How many blow out losses did we have?
Yes the record sucks, however most teams have close games. These games come down to one or two big plays - which are normally coin flips. Example: long pass in the end zone that looks like a 50/50 ball: it can get caught / tipped away / tipped intercepted..etc (coin flip). If you watched the games, we lost about every coin flip that could be lost. I guess we won at least one of these coin flips with MSU - I truly don't remember any others going our way (I'm sure there were - just not many).
Again, Riley's weapon was not his recruiting - it was doing well with what he had. This class is not done yet, so comparing it to 2011 #15 only tells a partial story. In 2011, Bo had 21 recruits w/ average 88. Last year Bo / Riley class had 29 recruits w/ average 82 (a lot of people gave Riley credit for holding the class together and adding some talent at the end). This year Riley has 15 recruits w/ average 87 - still time to go and is expected to have about 22/25 recruits by the end. This is clearly a bump up from last year and very similar to the cherry picked year that you selected in 2011. We are also looking like we are in on some talent in 2017 - who knows how that will go.
Now a few more wins next year should give NU some traction in several areas - recruiting being one of them. I'm not going to decide if it was the players or coaches or luck that caused us to be 5-7, however if you couldn't see that we very easily could have been 9-3 with zero blowouts, then I don't know how to help you....
We do need more talent to win BIG Championships and get our name in the playoff hat. Sometimes new coaches are splash hires and they get the bump right away with recruiting - other times the hire is somebody that is not at as splashy. Not always going to get the quick spike in recruiting, so give it an extra year or two. Patience is not a bad thing.
