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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 5126319, member: 40"] I think this is a fair question to ask. Because coming off of last year's class -- even with limited time to work with -- Fran and his hastily-assembled staff killed it. Killed it both with respect to the portal, flipping high profile recruits from other schools, and also going out and outright landing a couple of guys who wouldn't have even considered us before Fran arrived. So with that spectacular haul [and it's important to note that usually when a new coach comes in after an outbound coach is let go toward the end of the year, the class is usually just stop gap, since the new coach has to mostly start from ground zero] as Fran's opening number -- I think many expected this year to be more of the same. I confess that at times, I have had a similar thought a what Anomander outlines above. I've also thought stuff like: [LIST] [*]Boy, it's only May / June / July -- we've already got twenty-xxx recruits committed -- shouldn't they be saving room? [*]Or -- this guy seems under the radar -- shouldn't we be holding out for higher rated guys? [*]Or -- I expect this team to win 9 or 10 games -- shouldn't we wait for the success to start happening, so we can sell something even MORE positive on the recruiting trail? [/LIST] So I acknowledge what Anomander is asking about above. And I do think that there are a group of recruits in this class that it is fair to question, because they weren't rated highly initially, or they weren't on anyone else's radar, etc. A good example of this is the OL from CNS. But on the other hand, he's mammoth-sized, he's athletic, and he's got the right measureables. Whether he achieves an actualization of that potential remains to be seen, but I understand the gamble. And that's what we've got with about half of this class -- speed, athleticism, and size. If we hit on some of those prospects, then this class will look better through the lens of hindsight than it does right now, in July. And if some of these guys get evaluated [several for the first time], and their star ratings climb a bit, this class might be positioned differently in the rankings toward the end of the year. The other thing that takes some of the risk away from the class we've lined up -- at least for me -- is when you look at the committable offer list for most of the class. The majority of guys we've landed have very solid offers -- some of them, elite offer lists from factory programs. Several of them might not have those blue chip offers, but several offers from respectable peer programs in the ACC, B1G, and others. Again, offer lists don't tell the full story, but when you see a guy who commits to us who's a low rated 3-star, but he's got offers from Tennessee, Penn State, etc. I have a little more confidence about how it will play out. So... I guess we'll see. I know that we'll have some attrition toward the end of the season, because that always happens anyway, and it happens even MORE fluidly now in the portal era -- so I'm not worried about open scholarships at this point. If the class is "full" now, that's not a problem -- because we're sure to have 10 or more vacancies to work with come December / January. Now, if we can get these behemoth OL to pan out, and these insanely fast DBs with size to pan out, then it will just prove that Fran can spot game. Which is why he's considered a recruiting guru. [/QUOTE]

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