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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 2622004, member: 40"] The OP is hardly an alarmist, and I think the intent behind this thread are a "fair" set of questions to pose. Here's the way I see it. Jackson is a stud recruit. Nunn has truly elite / blue chip offers. The Canadian LB and TE are both camp kids that aren't highly rated. Might that change now that they are on the recruiting service radar screens? Possibly -- maybe they'll end up being three star recruits after being evaluated, maybe not. But they both appear to be above average athletes, and I'm confident when our staff makes camp offers -- they must have liked what they've seen from both of these prospects. So while I don't think either [as of right now] is going to move the needle with respect to our recruiting ranking, I do like the speed / athleticism of both of these guys. We've had good luck with Florida defensive backs. Cole is slight of build, but I trust Monroe's eye for talent. He has P5 offers, too, so maybe he'll eventually get rated higher. You can never have enough dbacks with speed. That leaves the two linemen. Here's my perspective -- a team like Syracuse is never going to recruit either OL or DT on par with the elite programs. Might we pull a guy here and there? Sure -- but even when Babers rights the ship, we're going to have to look at system fits in both trenches. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Guys like Froumy, Red, and even a guy who's seen the field like Servais fit the profile Babers and staff are looking for. Tall, athletic, versatile, in shape, and capable of playing at a fast pace. If they continue to pull guys on the OL like the ones they've been bringing in, and if Red fits that mold, then I'm 100% fine with it. Ditto Rondi. Seems like a bigger DE with some athleticism that we'll grow into a DT who then will have above average speed / athleticism for the position. Schools like Ohio State get NFL sized guys who check all of the boxes. We're almost never going to land recruits like that -- so instead we have to get athletic guys we can cultivate into quality DT -- kind of like Slayton or Bromley. Please note, I'm not suggesting that Rondi's talent is on par with either of those two, just that I see him as following that same formula. Here's what I expect over the next few years. We get back to a bowl game this year, and that starts the ball rolling. It will no longer be faith without evidence, and our staff has turned the roster over, improved our size / speed, and has brought in QBs that will help keep our offense playing at a high level. The coaching staff will finally be able to sell something positive on the recruiting trail -- the on-field performance and video game like offensive stats -- and we're going to see an uptick with our recruiting at the offensive skilled positions. We're going to start landing more big play skilled talent. After some more success, we're going to start landing larger [in terms of physical stature] big play skilled talent. I also think that we're recruiting LBs that are athletic and have better size than what we're accustomed to. And the defensive backfield is loading up on athletes. But on both sides of the ball, I don't expect us to ever consistently pull 4- or 5-star linemen. I think we're going to continue to identify guys who fit our system, and some [many?] of those guys will tend to be lower rated. If people point to how we're recruiting OL and DTs as the indicator of whether recruiting is going well or not, then they are probably going to be perpetually underwhelmed. [/QUOTE]

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