GrandGreen, on 02 February 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:
Obviously, you disagree with my point of view: why not give me some valid rationale why I and all the recruiting services are wrong. Dismissing something as "crap" is not exactly strong debate. I have followed NT recruiting for a very long time, and know no matter who is signed; the majority is going to think the class is a step toward greatness. Don't give me a hundred examples of individual players who have busted or excelled counter to their rankings. Give me an example of a class that has excelled at NT, the only one I can think of since returning to the fb division; is the 2001 class I think, that contained 6 state one hundred picks. This year class contained one area 100 signee. You might want to actually look at other school's recruiting lists and see how they compare to NT. Take the emotion out and look at who they have signed versus NT. I have not looked lately but the only Texas schools in the same tier as NT are UTEP and UTSA. In the Belt which I don't think is as good a comparison because of the geographically differences; NT is a head of woeful ULM and perhaps the Muts. What are your opinions who else in Texas or the Belt do you think NT out recruited?
By the way I think you will have a very difficult time finding any posts of my that demean any athlete at NT. If you think collectively the team is not open to criticism than you might want to restrict your reading to the official site.
I think pointing out that Rivals Top 100 lists from various years contain as many or more busts than big time stars is a pretty valid point in discussing how inexact their rating system is set up. My point was about how the ratings are subjective and the real measure of the player is how they develop. Look at some of TCU's classes from the early to mid 2000's, not rated highly by the expert sites, but ended up getting them to a Rose Bowl in 2010. Jerry Hughes, one of their top defensive players was a two-star undersized DL coming out of high school and ended up an All-American.
What about our classes/players? I provided a list of "unheralded" recruits that ended up being pretty good players for us including Cobbs, Quinn, Hurd, Fitzgerald, etc...
The "crap" I refer to are the negative comments about these young men that have just committed to play for us. I'm sure they were excited, found this site like one parent of a signee did, and then read where "we got it handed to us" in recruiting this year, etc... Seems ridiculous to me to criticize a class that hasn't set foot on campus yet.
Since you asked about our 2008 class, I noticed the following as three stars that were pursued and offered by some pretty big programs prior to ending up at North Texas. Here they are:
Dawaylon Cook: offers from Utah, West Virginia and TCU. Decommitted from TCU to sign with us. Contributed, but not a star, left the program early.
Riley Dodge: offers from Missouri, SMU, Texas, Rice and Tulsa. Signed with us due to TD. Injured most of his career and left once TD was fired.
Justin Edwards: offers from Mississippi and NMSU. I don't think he was ever eligible to play.
Troy Franklin: offers from Colorado State and Tulsa. Never contributed.
James Hamilton: offers from Kentucky, ULaLa, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP and Washington State. Solid contributer but never a starter.
Kylee Hill, Alonzo Horton and Nate Jenkins were all 3-star JUCO and either didn't get on campus or never contributed.
Dunbar, AK, Hill, Phillips and Shorter, for instance were all 2-star recruits that I would say exceeded the ratings, especially Dunbar, and have also shown what a good coaching staff can do for their development.
I would say the 08' class is a perfect example as to why it is ridiculous to respond with such negativety towards a class or respond positively without letting them develop.













