Pretty short mailbag this week, here are my answers!
Dsmith25: Why are so many of our recruits with multiple P5 offers rated as 2-Stars by Rivals? I'm not a stargazer, but hype is a part of rebuilding. Seems like many of them should be 3-stars.
It's a legitimate question and you're not wrong that hype is a big part of recruiting. But the reality is that a big part of stars is when national and regional analysts see you and how you do when they do. If you have an off-game or camp in front of a national or regional analyst, it will affect your rankings. There is only one regional analyst for Texas and that analyst is also responsible for Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. That's a big territory with a lot of different schools that need attention so it's impossible for him to get to all of them. While publishers do get a chance to submit evaluations of players, it will never mean as much as the evaluation of a regional analyst.
But don't be concerned about the hype surrounding this class, because it is palpable at this point. The local coaches and players in the area understand the guys that SMU has coming in in this 2016 class are ballers and head-and-shoulders above previous SMU classes, stars or not.
Peruna08: FB and BB: Which schools are on our OOC schedule next year?
For football, Baylor, TCU and UNT are back on the schedule and expect SMU to try to schedule an easy matchup for the fourth OOC game, though hopefully easier than James Madison.
For basketball, Stanford and TCU will make return trips to Moody Coliseum. SMU will be in the 2K Classic and will play two of three out of Michigan, Marquette and Pitt. Not sure how the rest of the schedule works out because many of the games were buy games to get teams to Moody. I'd hope that SMU pays a return trip to Yale because that is a likely NCAA team and is a good resume game despite being an Ivy League school.
CTMustang: With the 2016 class largely complete, is Morris giving out any 2016 offers (transfers not included) or simply standing pat on commits and prior offers?
There are a couple extra recruits that are getting looks from SMU like J.T. Williams and Clifton Lewis but otherwise SMU is sticking with its current class and the recruits it has already offered and is still trying to bring in: Caesar Williams, Adewale Omotosho and Jordan Carmouche. Otherwise this live period is being spent keeping the 2016 recruits happy before they sign and offering some 2017 prospects and evaluating the 2017 and 2018 classes.
And one from Twitter: How does SMU's class compare to the rest of the AAC:
I will answer this one in depth on Signing Day with a full conference recruiting class power rankings just like last year but SMU definitely has a top 3 class in the American. Houston is definitely on track for the top class but Memphis' class was hurt by the coaching change. USF has a surprisingly strong class but if SMU can fill it out with Jordan Carmouche and JT Williams this weekend that should secure SMU the #2 spot.
Dsmith25: Why are so many of our recruits with multiple P5 offers rated as 2-Stars by Rivals? I'm not a stargazer, but hype is a part of rebuilding. Seems like many of them should be 3-stars.
It's a legitimate question and you're not wrong that hype is a big part of recruiting. But the reality is that a big part of stars is when national and regional analysts see you and how you do when they do. If you have an off-game or camp in front of a national or regional analyst, it will affect your rankings. There is only one regional analyst for Texas and that analyst is also responsible for Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. That's a big territory with a lot of different schools that need attention so it's impossible for him to get to all of them. While publishers do get a chance to submit evaluations of players, it will never mean as much as the evaluation of a regional analyst.
But don't be concerned about the hype surrounding this class, because it is palpable at this point. The local coaches and players in the area understand the guys that SMU has coming in in this 2016 class are ballers and head-and-shoulders above previous SMU classes, stars or not.
Peruna08: FB and BB: Which schools are on our OOC schedule next year?
For football, Baylor, TCU and UNT are back on the schedule and expect SMU to try to schedule an easy matchup for the fourth OOC game, though hopefully easier than James Madison.
For basketball, Stanford and TCU will make return trips to Moody Coliseum. SMU will be in the 2K Classic and will play two of three out of Michigan, Marquette and Pitt. Not sure how the rest of the schedule works out because many of the games were buy games to get teams to Moody. I'd hope that SMU pays a return trip to Yale because that is a likely NCAA team and is a good resume game despite being an Ivy League school.
CTMustang: With the 2016 class largely complete, is Morris giving out any 2016 offers (transfers not included) or simply standing pat on commits and prior offers?
There are a couple extra recruits that are getting looks from SMU like J.T. Williams and Clifton Lewis but otherwise SMU is sticking with its current class and the recruits it has already offered and is still trying to bring in: Caesar Williams, Adewale Omotosho and Jordan Carmouche. Otherwise this live period is being spent keeping the 2016 recruits happy before they sign and offering some 2017 prospects and evaluating the 2017 and 2018 classes.
And one from Twitter: How does SMU's class compare to the rest of the AAC:
I will answer this one in depth on Signing Day with a full conference recruiting class power rankings just like last year but SMU definitely has a top 3 class in the American. Houston is definitely on track for the top class but Memphis' class was hurt by the coaching change. USF has a surprisingly strong class but if SMU can fill it out with Jordan Carmouche and JT Williams this weekend that should secure SMU the #2 spot.
