It seems that there is a lot of pent up frustration here regarding the upcoming recruiting class. A lot of us, myself included, experienced the years when Buff football meant something nationally and are just plain sick of sucking, we want to win and want to win now. It doesn't help that we are in a time period that is without much footballwise and no other college sports to distract our attention.
This year may be a very frustrating year for a couple of reasons. One is the small numbers we are looking at in the class. We simply don't have enough schollies that we can really offer and accept enough guys to keep a constant stream of commits coming. We will have some long stretches between good news driving us nuts.
We also have some pretty high expectations but the profile of the program is such that the coaches are going to have to do a serious selling job to fulfill some of those expectations. The last time CU was relavent the kids we are recruiting were in elementary school so it is an uphill battle. I think we are going to see a number of cases where we get our hopes up only to see a USC, Oregon, Stanford, or even a UW (who went to a bowl last year) or Boise (who has won a lot of games even if they were against the little sisters of the poor) sweep in and grab the kid. The good news is unlike Hawkins our staff is going after kids other major conference schools want, the bad news is that we have to do more convincing to get those kids.
Much of the frustration is going to be at positions like OL where kids recognition is more based on team success than individual statistics. A guy like PRich can stand out on a 3 win team with numbers and highlights, what does an offensive lineman have to show for his efforts other than some bruises and a dirty uniform.
I think it is critical that the team show significant progress on the field this season. Our schedule sets up for it but we have to win in our OCC and get some conference wins. We also have to put up a better fight in our losses, at least show that we belong on the field instead of having the other team decide when to go into mercy mode. A bowl, any bowl would be huge for this team and our recruiting.
I don't have anything specific that I can back this with but I sense that a number of our best recruits are going to come on board late. I also get a sense that we are going to see even more kids dropping commitments and switching that we have in past years. Again I can't point to specific kids or situations but it seems like a lot of kids have committed just to have a school next to their name but aren't as solid as that commitment makes it sound.
Because this class is smaller we also can't miss on the kids we take. They may not have to be the superstars but we can't afford to have a lot of misses, we need kids who are able to contribute at this level and who don't become non-factors
This year may be a very frustrating year for a couple of reasons. One is the small numbers we are looking at in the class. We simply don't have enough schollies that we can really offer and accept enough guys to keep a constant stream of commits coming. We will have some long stretches between good news driving us nuts.
We also have some pretty high expectations but the profile of the program is such that the coaches are going to have to do a serious selling job to fulfill some of those expectations. The last time CU was relavent the kids we are recruiting were in elementary school so it is an uphill battle. I think we are going to see a number of cases where we get our hopes up only to see a USC, Oregon, Stanford, or even a UW (who went to a bowl last year) or Boise (who has won a lot of games even if they were against the little sisters of the poor) sweep in and grab the kid. The good news is unlike Hawkins our staff is going after kids other major conference schools want, the bad news is that we have to do more convincing to get those kids.
Much of the frustration is going to be at positions like OL where kids recognition is more based on team success than individual statistics. A guy like PRich can stand out on a 3 win team with numbers and highlights, what does an offensive lineman have to show for his efforts other than some bruises and a dirty uniform.
I think it is critical that the team show significant progress on the field this season. Our schedule sets up for it but we have to win in our OCC and get some conference wins. We also have to put up a better fight in our losses, at least show that we belong on the field instead of having the other team decide when to go into mercy mode. A bowl, any bowl would be huge for this team and our recruiting.
I don't have anything specific that I can back this with but I sense that a number of our best recruits are going to come on board late. I also get a sense that we are going to see even more kids dropping commitments and switching that we have in past years. Again I can't point to specific kids or situations but it seems like a lot of kids have committed just to have a school next to their name but aren't as solid as that commitment makes it sound.
Because this class is smaller we also can't miss on the kids we take. They may not have to be the superstars but we can't afford to have a lot of misses, we need kids who are able to contribute at this level and who don't become non-factors