In state recruiting

[cole256 17,084]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I couldn't really search for it, but as far as in state recruiting......what the hell happened to us this year? We have like only 4 in the top 25. Maybe one in the top 10? 

Are we as least thinking this is an anomaly this year and it'll be back right coming up?

[PUB78 1,358]

12 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I couldn't really search for it, but as far as in state recruiting......what the hell happened to us this year? We have like only 4 in the top 25. Maybe one in the top 10? 

Are we as least thinking this is an anomaly this year and it'll be back right coming up?

I have been  wondering too.

[ellitor 33,094]

14 hours ago, cole256 said:

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I couldn't really search for it, but as far as in state recruiting......what the hell happened to us this year? We have like only 4 in the top 25. Maybe one in the top 10? 

Are we as least thinking this is an anomaly this year and it'll be back right coming up?

A couple things here and one of them is unfortunate. When Bama wants in state guys for the most part they get them. When they prefer out of state talent  better that’s when we do better in state. The other thing is the state of Alabama in terms of high school talent is rarely 25 deep in terms of guys that Auburn would take in a recruiting class. It usually comes in the top 15 range and in some cases top 10.  For example, this year  The staff would or would have taken all the guys ranked in the top seven in state. After the top seven the staff would only take the two outside the top seven we have in Riley and Cohen From the top 25. The rest outside of the top seven, as things are now, are not takes. There are two outliers outside the top 25 we would take or have taken in Foster–Allen and Jeremiah Wright at 30 and 31. We rarely take players in state rated that low historically.

[mcgufcm 4,100]

I would add we’re still heavily recruiting E.J. Williams and Sidney Williams (at least from what I understand). I never understood why we didn’t go harder after Kristian Story, but that ship likely sailed. He should’ve been recruited as a DB. 

We had the top two committed. Bama flipped them both. It would look a lot different if we’d held onto either. 

Last thought, I’m betting Cohen, Foster-Allen, and Wright all move up the rankings after this summer and their senior season. 

[Mikey 16,605]

As much as I hate to say it, we're getting our clock cleaned in-state. I'm happy with the LB class we have committed, but two of the top five in-state players are linebackers that we put the full court press on and simply lost.  Historically, we get around four of the top ten Alabama players and roughly 40% of our class comes from Alabama. . I don't  see that happening this time. We are getting some great players from other states, but the in-state numbers aren't going to be there for us this year unless there's some drastic event. ($aban retires, etc.)

23 minutes ago, mcgufcm said:

I never understood why we didn’t go harder after Kristian Story, but that ship likely sailed. He should’ve been recruited as a DB. 

What's the story with Story? Size and speed wise, he should be an ideal safety candidate.                                      

[ellitor 33,094]

2 hours ago, mcgufcm said:

I would add we’re still heavily recruiting E.J. Williams

Covered in the top 7 statements.

2 hours ago, mcgufcm said:

Sidney Williams

Last I heard we had cooled on him for now.

[McLoofus 35,182]

2 hours ago, mcgufcm said:

I would add we’re still heavily recruiting E.J. Williams and Sidney Williams (at least from what I understand). I never understood why we didn’t go harder after Kristian Story, but that ship likely sailed. He should’ve been recruited as a DB. 

We had the top two committed. Bama flipped them both. It would look a lot different if we’d held onto either. 

Last thought, I’m betting Cohen, Foster-Allen, and Wright all move up the rankings after this summer and their senior season. 

Not that it's relevant to what's actually being discussed, but Cohen is a guy who I think we need regardless of how he's rated. He's the guy in this class, so far, who I see meaning way more to the program than any recruiting analysis could predict. Of course, the last guy I said that about took a covert trip to Knoxville and had his offer pulled, sooooo...

[toddc 13,194]

6 hours ago, ellitor said:

The staff would or would have taken all the guys ranked in the top seven in state.

May want to edit your post before someone runs with this! 😆 

[autan 737]

We only had 3 in-state signees in the 2019 class and one was a legacy.  We might be leading nation with fewest in-state signees.

[toddc 13,194]

37 minutes ago, toddc said:

May want to edit your post before someone runs with this! 😆 

Guess I should have sent a pm to you!

[ellitor 33,094]

2 hours ago, toddc said:

May want to edit your post before someone runs with this! 😆 

Thanks!

[cole256 17,084]

I just mentioned top 25 because our success rate in the top ten this year is so pathetic.....it literally made me sad.....can't recruit in state, can't recruit Georgia and v Florida the way we used to.....how do we stay a top team?

[ellitor 33,094]

1 minute ago, cole256 said:

I just mentioned top 25 because our success rate in the top ten this year is so pathetic.....it literally made me sad.....can't recruit in state, can't recruit Georgia and v Florida the way we used to.....how do we stay a top team?

Well we are still getting better talent overall than we ever have for an extended period of time. We had 6 or 7 Top 10 classes in a row before the last class & that class was 11th. We had never done that before. The bigger issues are player development, player retention, & overall roster management.

[mcgufcm 4,100]

For the record, we have three of the top 12 in Georgia. UGA has two. If you expand to top 30, it’s 3 to 3. If you make it top 40, it’s 5 to 4 us. Plus, we’re likely co-leaders for Webb and Bigsby; leaders for Boykin; very much in it for Walker and Ojulari; and still pursuing Stackhouse and Gilbert. We’re doing just fine in Georgia. At least it doesn't feel (to me) like we're doing worse than we have in the past. We have very good potential to land five of the top 12 guys in the state (Steiner, Hudson, Capers, Webb, and Bigsby). That's a haul, especially if we add Boykin, Tate Johnson, and Jernigan.

[McLoofus 35,182]

17 hours ago, cole256 said:

I just mentioned top 25 because our success rate in the top ten this year is so pathetic.....it literally made me sad.....can't recruit in state, can't recruit Georgia and v Florida the way we used to.....how do we stay a top team?

Play up to our potential *right now*. *This* season. Play as well as we can with what we've got. 

If we do that, we'll win the games we should, we'll win one or two toss-ups, we'll look respectable in losses to top-10 type teams, and Gus's job will be safe. That's my opinion, but I think it's a very reasonable one. If we look like a good football team this season, our class will be just fine. Probably won't hit the in-state numbers we want but it will be a good class.

AFTER this cycle, though, the negative recruiting wouldn't hold water. We'd probably see real movement on the FOF. We should have a much better draft in April than we have had in a minute, which will appeal to kids in the next cycle. 

Actually, now that I think about it, all of those things would still be true if we changed coaches. And if we change coaches, we're probably going to get a splash guy who will generate a lot of excitement like every big time hire does at every big time program. The next guy would inherit gobs of talent all over the field and especially at the skill positions, but we'll have quick paths to playing time at a lot of positions. 

I see two possible bad scenarios next year: Gus forgets how to recruit or we hire a guy who doesn't know how to recruit. Both seem unlikely to me. OL recruiting is even adequate this cycle if we close like we think we can. 

[AuburnNTexas 7,149]

4 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Play up to our potential *right now*. *This* season. Play as well as we can with what we've got. 

If we do that, we'll win the games we should, we'll win one or two toss-ups, we'll look respectable in losses to top-10 type teams, and Gus's job will be safe. That's my opinion, but I think it's a very reasonable one. If we look like a good football team this season, our class will be just fine. Probably won't hit the in-state numbers we want but it will be a good class.

AFTER this cycle, though, the negative recruiting wouldn't hold water. We'd probably see real movement on the FOF. We should have a much better draft in April than we have had in a minute, which will appeal to kids in the next cycle. 

Actually, now that I think about it, all of those things would still be true if we changed coaches. And if we change coaches, we're probably going to get a splash guy who will generate a lot of excitement like every big time hire does at every big time program. The next guy would inherit gobs of talent all over the field and especially at the skill positions, but we'll have quick paths to playing time at a lot of positions. 

I see two possible bad scenarios next year: Gus forgets how to recruit or we hire a guy who doesn't know how to recruit. Both seem unlikely to me. OL recruiting is even adequate this cycle if we close like we think we can. 

Careful somebody is going to accuse you of being a sunshine pumper.  I did detect a bit of optimism in this post. LOL

[akillshot 296]

7 hours ago, AuburnNTexas said:

Careful somebody is going to accuse you of being a sunshine pumper.  I did detect a bit of optimism in this post. LOL

I'm wondering if Loof was hacked 🙄

[McLoofus 35,182]

11 hours ago, akillshot said:

I'm wondering if Loof was hacked 🙄

Hah! I'll bring it back down to Earth.

Gus is intensely criticized because people love Auburn and think very highly of Auburn and, no matter what our program's overall history is, we're a damned Ferrari that he drives like a Pinto. He's put in the work. He's done the maintenance. He's never gone over 2,999 miles without getting the oil changed. He spared no expense on the tires. If Ferraris have an LX package, he got the LX package. But none of that matters if he's going to grandma it down College St at 25 mph in the left hand lane. 

I HATE people who drive slowly in the left hand lane. But I love a Ferrari. 

Sorry. I'm just enjoying my dumb metaphor at y'all's expense. You get the point. Except for some JABA stuff in the front office, I think most of us are optimistic about what Auburn is capable of. And, to his eternal credit, Gus has this program primed to break out. We are stacked with young talent and our locker room is cleeeeeaaaaan. We have shown that we will play ball with coaching salaries. We are a Big Six program in the Michael Jordan of CFB conferences. Our schedule is tough but it guarantees a LOT of prime time football games. We are not a blue blood program but we are at the top of that next echelon and we are well positioned to surpass a Notre Dame or a Michigan or, Lord willin' and Lincoln Riley moves the hell on, an Oklahoma (strictly in terms of current relevance, of course).

Nevermind my metaphor. Sleeping giant applies. Don't know that we'll match bama or Clemson anytime soon but there is absolutely no reason we can't be a consistent top-10 program going forward, no matter what Gus does this season.