Taz challenged me in another thread to add up the power five offers from last year's football recruiting class and compare them to this year's on his premise that I would find them about the same. I thought it was interesting enough to start a new thread.
Well, the task is impossible because there are far more recruits in this year's class than last year's. So to be fair, I decided to count ONLY the 21 lowest rated recruits in this year's class, according to their Rivals ranking, because last year's class had 21 members. This year, we had one recruit, Wirtel, who had a Rivals ranking of 5.2 and a handful more who had a 5.4 rating. The rest were filled out with some 5.5 recruits. I didn't count Iowa State's offer, only Power 5 offers by other schools.
Here are the results: last year's class had 44 P-5 offers, far more than I would have guessed, I admit. This years class, or the 21 I counted, had 49 P-5 offers. So while it appears on the surface that Taz was right, here's an interesting fact that proves, I think, why he was wrong:
Of the 44 Power 5 offers in 2015, two players, Joshua Thomas and Demond Tucker, had 19 of those, nearly half. Thomas checked in with a whopping 12 P-5 offers and Tucker had 7.
What is more, too many of the 2015 recruits had only one offer -- ours. Those included Akers, DeLira and Jordan Wallace. McMillen only had one other offer from a directional school. Our lowest ranked recruit in 2016, Wirtel, only had one other offer, but it was from a power 5 school, Illinois. He is the only recruit in the class who had as few as 2 offers, power 5 or otherwise.
Also, in the interest of full disclosure, one of the 5.5 recruits from this year's class that I picked for the comparison was JaQuan Bailey. He alone had 11 P-5 offers.
Also of interest, this year's class had no recruits with a 5.3 Rivals ranking. As I said, Wirtel, a deep snapper for crying out loud (and the 6th rated deep snapper in the country, I might add) was the lowest in the 2016 class at 5.2. Last year's class had 5 players with a 5.3 rating.
So I'll let the board decide who was right.
Well, the task is impossible because there are far more recruits in this year's class than last year's. So to be fair, I decided to count ONLY the 21 lowest rated recruits in this year's class, according to their Rivals ranking, because last year's class had 21 members. This year, we had one recruit, Wirtel, who had a Rivals ranking of 5.2 and a handful more who had a 5.4 rating. The rest were filled out with some 5.5 recruits. I didn't count Iowa State's offer, only Power 5 offers by other schools.
Here are the results: last year's class had 44 P-5 offers, far more than I would have guessed, I admit. This years class, or the 21 I counted, had 49 P-5 offers. So while it appears on the surface that Taz was right, here's an interesting fact that proves, I think, why he was wrong:
Of the 44 Power 5 offers in 2015, two players, Joshua Thomas and Demond Tucker, had 19 of those, nearly half. Thomas checked in with a whopping 12 P-5 offers and Tucker had 7.
What is more, too many of the 2015 recruits had only one offer -- ours. Those included Akers, DeLira and Jordan Wallace. McMillen only had one other offer from a directional school. Our lowest ranked recruit in 2016, Wirtel, only had one other offer, but it was from a power 5 school, Illinois. He is the only recruit in the class who had as few as 2 offers, power 5 or otherwise.
Also, in the interest of full disclosure, one of the 5.5 recruits from this year's class that I picked for the comparison was JaQuan Bailey. He alone had 11 P-5 offers.
Also of interest, this year's class had no recruits with a 5.3 Rivals ranking. As I said, Wirtel, a deep snapper for crying out loud (and the 6th rated deep snapper in the country, I might add) was the lowest in the 2016 class at 5.2. Last year's class had 5 players with a 5.3 rating.
So I'll let the board decide who was right.
