GDReports has released their rankings to signal the end of the recruiting phase, I have an exact layout of where I stand according to them. With recruiting over and filling all of my 10 scholarships (no SimAC signees this time!) signed, here are my Guess ratings of where I am and what I signed.
As always, I selected my primary targets within my 359 mile radius and a couple backups for each position should those fail to pan out. My Primary targets were those guys who had the best Guess ratings as shown by yatzr’s Recruiting Tool, were within my radius, and had some other redeeming qualities like high WE or whatever. By the 3rd response cycle, I had all 10 of my primary guys green and plenty o’cash left. So I went shopping. It pretty much boiled down to finding 4 undecideds to upgrade some of the current targets that I already had green. The night before signing I hit them pretty hard and had 3 out of the 4 upgrades green by signing time. The 4th guy was a hold out who never moved off of undecided until a full 24 hours after signings started. I kept enough money to sign a fall back guy just in case he never budged (something I didn’t do last season), but he finally did. With how poorly the carry over situation for recruiting money, I’m just not a big believer in leaving that extra cash on the table.
QB – Guess rating: 30.97 – that’s pretty low, even by my standards. The other 2 QBs I have signed since being at CUA were both above 34.00. But since he is a FR and I have what seemingly are 2 decent QBs ahead of him, I have time to train him up and with a 39 WE and 51 GI, he may turn into something above decent.
RB – 44.97 - Didn’t have an extremely pressing need for a RB, but with 54/50 speed/elusiveness, he was difficult to pass on. Plus he is toting a 61 STR as a freshman. I think he’ll develop into something good. He came within the top 25 of all RB recruits for DIII at #20 (my only top 25 signee).
WR (2) - Guess rating: 41.81, 40.26 – both have SPD and WE above 40, one has HANDS and ELU above 50, and he’s the lowest rated one. I think they will develop well over the seasons.
OL (2) – Guess rating: 40.00, 38.40 – nothing fancy but a couple of platoon players to round out the OL as decent backups. Sporting such poor vision, my opportunities at high caliber players in my immediate recruiting path is pretty limited. One has STR of 33 (ugh) but compliments it with BLK of 69. The other has 51 STR/ 43 BLK and they both have GI over 45.
DL (3) – Guess rating: (all DT) 41.47, 41.02, 39.73 – again, nothing fancy but each of them have decent STR/TKL. (54/43, 47/58, 52/50). This ought to set a decent foundation for growth until I am winning and improve my vision to get better recruits.
DB – Guess rating: (CB) 39.54 – decent SPD/GI/TECH at 56/35/40, but horrendous TKL at 26. Another development player until I have better vision.
So there they are. Only one top 25 recruit within his position and nothing too spectacular. Somehow I managed to rank 18th within Guess’ recruit class even with a horribly low rated QB our recruiting class average is 39.82. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about that, I just don’t see how though. I did not sign any 4/5 star recruits according to Guess, and I believe that. The BIG news is that by moving out most of the SimAC signed recruits over the last 3 recruiting sessions, I only have 3 of them left on this CUA team. And with a practice plan in place, they have posted some growth into decent platoon players as well. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE………. (I always wanted to say that)…..
CUA made a significant leap in overall full roster ratings by moving from 228 in the 3 consecutive seasons prior to my tanking over to 226th my first season, 207th my second season, until now in my 3rd season by coming in at (drum roll)………….. 29th!!!!! Completely blew my estimation of coming in around 150th away. Dropping as many SimAC signees and three top 50 (last two were top 20) recruiting classes has really moved us up the list. The overall full team roster rating is 49.24.
The season prior to me arriving, the full team roster rating was 24.16, my first season it was 34.38, then 43.58, until the 49.24 that I have it at now.
Position grades:
QB – C
RB – C
FB – N/A
WR – D+
TE – C
OL – D
DE – N/A
DT – D
OLB – N/A
ILB – C+
CB – D-
S – C-
Pass Offense – C+
Rush Offense – B-
Overall Offense – C+
Pass Defense – B-
Rush Defense – B-
Overall Defense – B-
I’m looking forward to this season and trying to achieve my goal of a winning record for this team. Hopefully it will happen.