Things were different for Tech football 10 years ago.
Baylor was a dumpster fire. TCU was a G5 school.
Neither is still the case. Both are relatively well-established programs with very competitive facilities and a definite proximity advantage to the best HS recruits. Only real constant is their puny alumni/fan base.
There are certain recruits that are "hits" who are worth more than others.
For example, compare Micah Peavy and Nimari Burnett. If we don't land Burnett, who knows where he goes, but probably not in the Big 12. If we don't sign Peavy, I think it's pretty safe to say he would've ended up somewhere in the conference, maybe Texas or Baylor.
So if Peavy & Burnett are equally-good players for us and play the same amount of games, Peavy increases Tech's relative strength as a program more, because the outcomes in his recruitment were either (1) Peavy plays 30 games a year for us, or (2) Peavy does not play 30 games a year for us + we have to play him 2-3x a year instead.
In football, I think this specific class of recruits have a much bigger cumulative effect because there's way more of these battles in each class.
From 2010-2012 (3 classes), Tech beat at least one of BU/TCU for 24 players. In terms of players that signed with BU/TCU/Tech, about 50% of the ones we could have signed, we signed.
From 2016-2019 (4 classes), Tech beat at least one of BU/TCU for 15 players. In terms of our "win rate" in these recruiting battles, we dropped from about 50% to around 25%. Some years (2018), as low as 18%.
In the last five recruiting classes, Tech beat both BU/TCU out on 3 players. TCU/BU signed 25 such guys in that time period.
These recruits (if they are hits) matter more than others. Tech was either going to have an NFL left tackle for 30 big 12 games (Halou. Vaitii), or we were going to not have him + play against him 3 times. It's a huge swing when you put it in the context of the battle for one recruit's signature.
With the Jacoby Jackson commitment, Tech is on track to land 3 guys that both TCU/BU wanted. And 2 more that at least one wanted (Jerand Bradley & Jack Tucker, two guys with very legitimate P5 offers).
That means, in a ronies class where Tech is likely taking <15 HS commits total, we already have as many guys that TCU/BU wanted as the last five classes combined...... TCU has none and BU has 3.
In a general sense, this is a way for Tech to leave the decade of suck. Our failure in this area may have been the primary driver of our recent woes (along with the fact that we've had a ridiculous amount of starts by QBs who were transfers / former walk ons). Probably the reason why an NFL team was able to discount Kliff's record enough to hire him. We were an awful situation relative to our peers.
Broadly speaking, 10 years ago, we were playing BU/TCU with a lot of guys they wanted. They were playing us with guys they took because they didn't land the guys who signed with us. Since then, it's been the opposite. We've been playing guys we originally wanted, with guys we didn't want as much as the guys on the other sideline.
Landing them is one thing, but the single most important factor is hits. It's not quantity of signees and it's not quality of signees on paper. It's hits. Can we sign guys that will impact big 12 games for us, instead of our conference peers.
In the decade of suck, not only were we losing 70% of these very important recruiting battles. When we did win some, over half of them were busts. Essentially a win for BU/TCU. The ones we were able to take from them, all 3 schools missed its evals. But we ate the bullet, not them.
For as much angst as there has been around here re: our recruiting class thus far, I'm quite encouraged.
If we stack classes like this together, 50%-60% of our HS signees will be guys that we beat out similarly-situated in-state peers for. Instead of 20% during the decade of suck. However, since Wells intends to use roughly 1/3 of his class each year on juco and grad transfers, we have an additional opprtunity to create value in the back half of our recruiting class. The space that was mostly reserved during the decade of suck for HS guys our peers didn't want, many of which were, you guessed it, busts.
If our coaches gamble pays off, their evals are correct and they continue to land these kinds of HS guys moving forward, we will be the team that has 25+ guys in our rotation who are 21-23 years old. And most of them will have been in the program for several years and most of them will be guys that our conference peers wished they had.
Baylor was a dumpster fire. TCU was a G5 school.
Neither is still the case. Both are relatively well-established programs with very competitive facilities and a definite proximity advantage to the best HS recruits. Only real constant is their puny alumni/fan base.
There are certain recruits that are "hits" who are worth more than others.
For example, compare Micah Peavy and Nimari Burnett. If we don't land Burnett, who knows where he goes, but probably not in the Big 12. If we don't sign Peavy, I think it's pretty safe to say he would've ended up somewhere in the conference, maybe Texas or Baylor.
So if Peavy & Burnett are equally-good players for us and play the same amount of games, Peavy increases Tech's relative strength as a program more, because the outcomes in his recruitment were either (1) Peavy plays 30 games a year for us, or (2) Peavy does not play 30 games a year for us + we have to play him 2-3x a year instead.
In football, I think this specific class of recruits have a much bigger cumulative effect because there's way more of these battles in each class.
From 2010-2012 (3 classes), Tech beat at least one of BU/TCU for 24 players. In terms of players that signed with BU/TCU/Tech, about 50% of the ones we could have signed, we signed.
From 2016-2019 (4 classes), Tech beat at least one of BU/TCU for 15 players. In terms of our "win rate" in these recruiting battles, we dropped from about 50% to around 25%. Some years (2018), as low as 18%.
In the last five recruiting classes, Tech beat both BU/TCU out on 3 players. TCU/BU signed 25 such guys in that time period.
These recruits (if they are hits) matter more than others. Tech was either going to have an NFL left tackle for 30 big 12 games (Halou. Vaitii), or we were going to not have him + play against him 3 times. It's a huge swing when you put it in the context of the battle for one recruit's signature.
With the Jacoby Jackson commitment, Tech is on track to land 3 guys that both TCU/BU wanted. And 2 more that at least one wanted (Jerand Bradley & Jack Tucker, two guys with very legitimate P5 offers).
That means, in a ronies class where Tech is likely taking <15 HS commits total, we already have as many guys that TCU/BU wanted as the last five classes combined...... TCU has none and BU has 3.
In a general sense, this is a way for Tech to leave the decade of suck. Our failure in this area may have been the primary driver of our recent woes (along with the fact that we've had a ridiculous amount of starts by QBs who were transfers / former walk ons). Probably the reason why an NFL team was able to discount Kliff's record enough to hire him. We were an awful situation relative to our peers.
Broadly speaking, 10 years ago, we were playing BU/TCU with a lot of guys they wanted. They were playing us with guys they took because they didn't land the guys who signed with us. Since then, it's been the opposite. We've been playing guys we originally wanted, with guys we didn't want as much as the guys on the other sideline.
Landing them is one thing, but the single most important factor is hits. It's not quantity of signees and it's not quality of signees on paper. It's hits. Can we sign guys that will impact big 12 games for us, instead of our conference peers.
In the decade of suck, not only were we losing 70% of these very important recruiting battles. When we did win some, over half of them were busts. Essentially a win for BU/TCU. The ones we were able to take from them, all 3 schools missed its evals. But we ate the bullet, not them.
For as much angst as there has been around here re: our recruiting class thus far, I'm quite encouraged.
If we stack classes like this together, 50%-60% of our HS signees will be guys that we beat out similarly-situated in-state peers for. Instead of 20% during the decade of suck. However, since Wells intends to use roughly 1/3 of his class each year on juco and grad transfers, we have an additional opprtunity to create value in the back half of our recruiting class. The space that was mostly reserved during the decade of suck for HS guys our peers didn't want, many of which were, you guessed it, busts.
If our coaches gamble pays off, their evals are correct and they continue to land these kinds of HS guys moving forward, we will be the team that has 25+ guys in our rotation who are 21-23 years old. And most of them will have been in the program for several years and most of them will be guys that our conference peers wished they had.
