App ranked 101 in 2019 recruiting

[Apptrain]

Was Drink more worried about polishing up his resume than recruiting? With our record in the Sunbelt I don’t understand being #4 in the Sunbelt in recruiting. How do we improve this? I’ve heard Clark will improve it. I hope so.

[ericsaid]

Was Drink more worried about polishing up his resume than recruiting? With our record in the Sunbelt I don’t understand being #4 in the Sunbelt in recruiting. How do we improve this? I’ve heard Clark will improve it. I hope so.

App is 73rd according to 247 Sports. Not sure what you're looking at? Also there are only 15 commits which is a relatively small class when the rankings are mostly done cumulatively rather than using the average recruit rating.

[BeauFoster]

Our recruiting ranking is pretty consistently in this range. Has nothing to do with Drink working at it, unless Satt you consider Satt to be a below average as well.

[AppStFan1]

I believe we are much higher in 247 like someone else said. No offense to our friends Moose and AppSt94 (because I know they aren't the ones doing it) but the rankings for G5 and below by 247, Rivals, etc are worthless. They are all focused on P5 programs. If you don't have a P5 offer at all they often times won't give you more than 2 stars. We also have a small class. Supposedly we have not had the best class in the SBC yet while we win the league consistently.

Look at DJ Williams from last year. When he committed to us he was 2 stars. They bumped him to like a mid 3 because he was having such a dominant year and got P5 offers. When he went P5, or when it became clear he would, I remember seeing him go up to 4 stars.

Stars for the most part are based on offers, size, did you attend camps, where you come from, etc. Just remember that Jason Hunter, Brian Quick, Daniel Kilgore, and countless other NFL players we had were never rated.

There was a 3-year span where our highest rated recruit in the 247 Composite never panned out while our lowest rated turned out to be our best or one of top 2-3 players from that class.

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

It only looks bad because we have less recruits.

[Apptrain]

Was Drink more worried about polishing up his resume than recruiting? With our record in the Sunbelt I don’t understand being #4 in the Sunbelt in recruiting. How do we improve this? I’ve heard Clark will improve it. I hope so.

App is 73rd according to 247 Sports. Not sure what you're looking at? Also there are only 15 commits which is a relatively small class when the rankings are mostly done cumulatively rather than using the average recruit rating.

247 had Toledo at 73 for the 2019 rankings I saw. That’s weird

[Trock44]

Was Drink more worried about polishing up his resume than recruiting? With our record in the Sunbelt I don’t understand being #4 in the Sunbelt in recruiting. How do we improve this? I’ve heard Clark will improve it. I hope so.

On 247 the 2019 class is our recruiting class from last year. 2020 is the recruiting class you should be looking at for this year. Our recruiting class is ranked 76 this year, which is the highest it’s ever been. We only have 15 commits, which needs to add 5 or more to complete the class.

[AppDub]

First time poster here to the board, but have been following all of the great intel via everyone's posts since last year. Curious if anyone has heard any insight of potential pick ups from the transfer portal for next year? Surely our success has peaked some interest of players not getting the playing time they desire at larger P5 schools.

BTW, was a student at APP when both Satterfield and Clark played. You could see then that they were destined for big things. Glad to have Clark as the HMC now.

[Stonewall]

Our recruiting classes have been good enough to get us in the top twenty.....

[Mikebibbyforthreeeee]

Like others have said we have a small class this year because we have so few seniors. There isn't room for a big class. Apps average star rating is the highest in the sunbelt at 83.17

[AppSt94]

First time poster here to the board, but have been following all of the great intel via everyone's posts since last year. Curious if anyone has heard any insight of potential pick ups from the transfer portal for next year? Surely our success has peaked some interest of players not getting the playing time they desire at larger P5 schools.

BTW, was a student at APP when both Satterfield and Clark played. You could see then that they were destined for big things. Glad to have Clark as the HMC now.

Unless we have some attrition from our current roster, we won’t have any room for transfers. It is likely that we may see some movement after spring ball once players see where they are on the depth chart but that’s about it.

[appstatealum]

I believe we are much higher in 247 like someone else said. No offense to our friends Moose and AppSt94 (because I know they aren't the ones doing it) but the rankings for G5 and below by 247, Rivals, etc are worthless. They are all focused on P5 programs. If you don't have a P5 offer at all they often times won't give you more than 2 stars. We also have a small class. Supposedly we have not had the best class in the SBC yet while we win the league consistently.

Look at DJ Williams from last year. When he committed to us he was 2 stars. They bumped him to like a mid 3 because he was having such a dominant year and got P5 offers. When he went P5, or when it became clear he would, I remember seeing him go up to 4 stars.

Stars for the most part are based on offers, size, did you attend camps, where you come from, etc. Just remember that Jason Hunter, Brian Quick, Daniel Kilgore, and countless other NFL players we had were never rated.

There was a 3-year span where our highest rated recruit in the 247 Composite never panned out while our lowest rated turned out to be our best or one of top 2-3 players from that class.

Yep. Where do you think guys like Corey Sutton (3 star), ADG, Evans, Cam Peoples, Josh Thomas, Jolly would rank if you re-evaluated them. Stars mean nothing, they just rank “interest”, not talent.

Football requires physical talent, but it is just a part of the bigger pie. I’ve coached peewee/juniors and organized tournaments and it always blows my mind to see these ridiculously talented kids in practice- running faster than everyone, throwing harder, one hand catching, jumping high - then they go in a game and lack the body control, positioning, balance, route skills, hand fighting, hand positioning anticipation and vision to win games. In fact, those same kids end up looking pretty bad. My son is only doing junior flag right now, but I strictly focus my coaching on their mechanics and the things listed above. When they hit middle school and are physically ready, they will be ahead of the curve.

[AppStFan1]

I believe we are much higher in 247 like someone else said. No offense to our friends Moose and AppSt94 (because I know they aren't the ones doing it) but the rankings for G5 and below by 247, Rivals, etc are worthless. They are all focused on P5 programs. If you don't have a P5 offer at all they often times won't give you more than 2 stars. We also have a small class. Supposedly we have not had the best class in the SBC yet while we win the league consistently.

Look at DJ Williams from last year. When he committed to us he was 2 stars. They bumped him to like a mid 3 because he was having such a dominant year and got P5 offers. When he went P5, or when it became clear he would, I remember seeing him go up to 4 stars.

Stars for the most part are based on offers, size, did you attend camps, where you come from, etc. Just remember that Jason Hunter, Brian Quick, Daniel Kilgore, and countless other NFL players we had were never rated.

There was a 3-year span where our highest rated recruit in the 247 Composite never panned out while our lowest rated turned out to be our best or one of top 2-3 players from that class.

Yep. Where do you think guys like Corey Sutton (3 star), ADG, Evans, Cam Peoples, Josh Thomas, Jolly would rank if you re-evaluated them. Stars mean nothing, they just rank “interest”, not talent.

Football requires physical talent, but it is just a part of the bigger pie. I’ve coached peewee/juniors and organized tournaments and it always blows my mind to see these ridiculously talented kids in practice- running faster than everyone, throwing harder, one hand catching, jumping high - then they go in a game and lack the body control, positioning, balance, route skills, hand fighting, hand positioning anticipation and vision to win games. In fact, those same kids end up looking pretty bad. My son is only doing junior flag right now, but I strictly focus my coaching on their mechanics and the things listed above. When they hit middle school and are physically ready, they will be ahead of the curve.

I don't remember exactly where those guys were coming out but I would guess 2 or low 3-star. Here is where I would say they should probably be right now.

Corey Sutton - mid 4 star. 91-93
Evans- 4-star 90-92
ADG- 4 star - 90-92
Peoples- high 3 star, 86- waiting to see healthy before I go higher
Thomas- 3-star 89. Almost 4-star
Jolly- 3-star 87. Could move up to 4-star with a huge year in 2020.

Now after saying this I am going back through and looking at their ratings while posting this. In HS they are
Sutton- 3-star 85
ADG- 2-star 79
Evans- 2-star 75
Peoples- 2-star 72
Thomas- 2-star 79
Jolly- 2-star 77

Nick Hampton was a high 2-star 79. I bet he will end up being more like a 87-91 type when all is said and done. Demetrius Taylor was a 77 2-star and now should probably be a 84-86 3-star.

I can already see that 247 is giving our guys a slight bump from mostly 2-star to now low to mid 3-star because of our success. They did the same for Clemson. I remember their classes were never above 15-25 range and then after they won a title they suddenly had a top 3-5 class every year.

Basically, 247 and Rivals did not think we had a chance to have a good class. Whoever does the ratings needed to look at our guys harder. I think our coaches have done a great job identifying talent.

[citroknight]

Was Drink more worried about polishing up his resume than recruiting? With our record in the Sunbelt I don’t understand being #4 in the Sunbelt in recruiting. How do we improve this? I’ve heard Clark will improve it. I hope so.

Someone else mentioned it, but you're not looking at the class that is currently being recruited. 2019 recruiting rankings correspond to the kids who graduate HS in 2019. So those are the freshman on your current roster. 2020 recruiting rankings are what you're looking for.

[AppSt94]

I believe we are much higher in 247 like someone else said. No offense to our friends Moose and AppSt94 (because I know they aren't the ones doing it) but the rankings for G5 and below by 247, Rivals, etc are worthless. They are all focused on P5 programs. If you don't have a P5 offer at all they often times won't give you more than 2 stars. We also have a small class. Supposedly we have not had the best class in the SBC yet while we win the league consistently.

Look at DJ Williams from last year. When he committed to us he was 2 stars. They bumped him to like a mid 3 because he was having such a dominant year and got P5 offers. When he went P5, or when it became clear he would, I remember seeing him go up to 4 stars.

Stars for the most part are based on offers, size, did you attend camps, where you come from, etc. Just remember that Jason Hunter, Brian Quick, Daniel Kilgore, and countless other NFL players we had were never rated.

There was a 3-year span where our highest rated recruit in the 247 Composite never panned out while our lowest rated turned out to be our best or one of top 2-3 players from that class.

Yep. Where do you think guys like Corey Sutton (3 star), ADG, Evans, Cam Peoples, Josh Thomas, Jolly would rank if you re-evaluated them. Stars mean nothing, they just rank “interest”, not talent.

Football requires physical talent, but it is just a part of the bigger pie. I’ve coached peewee/juniors and organized tournaments and it always blows my mind to see these ridiculously talented kids in practice- running faster than everyone, throwing harder, one hand catching, jumping high - then they go in a game and lack the body control, positioning, balance, route skills, hand fighting, hand positioning anticipation and vision to win games. In fact, those same kids end up looking pretty bad. My son is only doing junior flag right now, but I strictly focus my coaching on their mechanics and the things listed above. When they hit middle school and are physically ready, they will be ahead of the curve.

To add to this, there needs to be a mindset of toughness, competitiveness and heart. I know that with Sean Clark, he looks at the kids size, frame, footwork and hands, but if the kid doesn’t have a little bit of “dog” in him, he isn’t interested. Everything else can be taught and improved upon, but the inmate ability to want to not get beat in one on one matchups can’t be taught.

[bigdaddyg]

This topic has been debated and beaten to death but it’s still interesting. How on earth does any service know how truly talented a particular kid is. Some are obvious- the 6’4” 250lb fast tackling machines who dominate are probably legit 5 stars. The tweeners that we get the 6’2” 210lb linebackers who come in and add an inch and 10-20 lbs of muscle who blossom into beasts and have chips on their shoulders defy the ridiculous ratings system. I would love to see a breakdown (I know someone did this for our last few classes) of some of middling P5 rosters that shows the amount of playing time in relation to final high school rating. Basically is there a metric that shows how close or far off was a kids rating? It’s all subjective so probably not. I coached a good bit of rec and travel baseball and it always drove me nuts when guys would gush over kids who “killed it” it the batting cage or “threw gas” inside a batting center. I liked to say wait until that same kid faces live pitching with people watching and when the lights come on. Same for the flamethrower- wait until a batter gets in the box. I hate to use the example but I’ll never forget when Armanti was called the training camp MVP. That was the kiss of death. We know how that panned out.

[AppStFan1]

This topic has been debated and beaten to death but it’s still interesting. How on earth does any service know how truly talented a particular kid is. Some are obvious- the 6’4” 250lb fast tackling machines who dominate are probably legit 5 stars. The tweeners that we get the 6’2” 210lb linebackers who come in and add an inch and 10-20 lbs of muscle who blossom into beasts and have chips on their shoulders defy the ridiculous ratings system. I would love to see a breakdown (I know someone did this for our last few classes) of some of middling P5 rosters that shows the amount of playing time in relation to final high school rating. Basically is there a metric that shows how close or far off was a kids rating? It’s all subjective so probably not. I coached a good bit of rec and travel baseball and it always drove me nuts when guys would gush over kids who “killed it” it the batting cage or “threw gas” inside a batting center. I liked to say wait until that same kid faces live pitching with people watching and when the lights come on. Same for the flamethrower- wait until a batter gets in the box. I hate to use the example but I’ll never forget when Armanti was called the training camp MVP. That was the kiss of death. We know how that panned out.

I don't know the exact percentage but the NFL's average star ratings were 3 stars. Most in the NFL are 3 and 2 star from HS. Then there are a lot of 4 star kids. Usually about 1/2 or 3/4 of the 5 stars pan out and make it there.

[citroknight]

This topic has been debated and beaten to death but it’s still interesting. How on earth does any service know how truly talented a particular kid is. Some are obvious- the 6’4” 250lb fast tackling machines who dominate are probably legit 5 stars. The tweeners that we get the 6’2” 210lb linebackers who come in and add an inch and 10-20 lbs of muscle who blossom into beasts and have chips on their shoulders defy the ridiculous ratings system. I would love to see a breakdown (I know someone did this for our last few classes) of some of middling P5 rosters that shows the amount of playing time in relation to final high school rating. Basically is there a metric that shows how close or far off was a kids rating? It’s all subjective so probably not. I coached a good bit of rec and travel baseball and it always drove me nuts when guys would gush over kids who “killed it” it the batting cage or “threw gas” inside a batting center. I liked to say wait until that same kid faces live pitching with people watching and when the lights come on. Same for the flamethrower- wait until a batter gets in the box. I hate to use the example but I’ll never forget when Armanti was called the training camp MVP. That was the kiss of death. We know how that panned out.

I need to look for links but overall, the talent a school brings in is generally a good indicator of performance. At the very least when you compare against your immediate conference peers since they always make up the majority of a team's schedule.

Of course it's not 100% as easy as just lining up a conference by recruiting rankings and saying done, this is how the standings will be. Like you alluded to, there's subjectivity in evaluating a kid. One scout may grade a little different than another. Some kids may be graded correctly but are late bloomers or are really helped by coaching development.

You also have to keep in mind the history of the recruiting services. They've generally been subscription based. So to drive up interest among the bigger and more involved fan bases, their recruits get a slight boost. A RB recruit that's a 2 star for App can all of a sudden become a 3 star if UNC or NC State swipe him away.

[Yosef84]

This topic has been debated and beaten to death but it’s still interesting. How on earth does any service know how truly talented a particular kid is. Some are obvious- the 6’4” 250lb fast tackling machines who dominate are probably legit 5 stars. The tweeners that we get the 6’2” 210lb linebackers who come in and add an inch and 10-20 lbs of muscle who blossom into beasts and have chips on their shoulders defy the ridiculous ratings system. I would love to see a breakdown (I know someone did this for our last few classes) of some of middling P5 rosters that shows the amount of playing time in relation to final high school rating. Basically is there a metric that shows how close or far off was a kids rating? It’s all subjective so probably not. I coached a good bit of rec and travel baseball and it always drove me nuts when guys would gush over kids who “killed it” it the batting cage or “threw gas” inside a batting center. I liked to say wait until that same kid faces live pitching with people watching and when the lights come on. Same for the flamethrower- wait until a batter gets in the box. I hate to use the example but I’ll never forget when Armanti was called the training camp MVP. That was the kiss of death. We know how that panned out.

I need to look for links but overall, the talent a school brings in is generally a good indicator of performance. At the very least when you compare against your immediate conference peers since they always make up the majority of a team's schedule.

Of course it's not 100% as easy as just lining up a conference by recruiting rankings and saying done, this is how the standings will be. Like you alluded to, there's subjectivity in evaluating a kid. One scout may grade a little different than another. Some kids may be graded correctly but are late bloomers or are really helped by coaching development.

You also have to keep in mind the history of the recruiting services. They've generally been subscription based. So to drive up interest among the bigger and more involved fan bases, their recruits get a slight boost. A RB recruit that's a 2 star for App can all of a sudden become a 3 star if UNC or NC State swipe him away.

There is absolutely a correlation between the "talent" as reflected in star ratings vs. performance at the top of the P5. I've never seen a study focused on G5 but that's where it breaks down. The 4 and 5 start kids are vetted pretty well but the 3 star and below are not very reliable. The presence of a 4 or 5 star rating is a good assurance of a talented roster but the absence of those ratings does not really reflect an absence of talent.

[app97]

our product on the field has always exceeded our recruiting rankings. We are lucky to have had coaches who get the most of their players.