90 percent of our success in recruiting involves getting kids to campus. We can’t do that right now, and they don’t really want many of the in state kids. Where as UNC will take literally any top 1000 player from North Carolina right now even if they don’t fit the system. They only have a top class because they have more commits than anyone else.
The good thing is, this is the same Issue the rest of the SEC is having right now. Alabama just had their 3rd commit today and as of yesterday was 55th in the nation, last in the SEC? Anyone here think that’s gonna stick? LSU and Auburn are 26th and 27th.. I can guarantee that’s not gonna be the case come February. Along with this, a lot of the top guys that SEC schools want are simply waiting to commit until later on because they can’t visit right now.
Florida is higher, but they’ll go through a ton of attrition and end up about where they’re usually at in that 8-12 range. We’ll go through something similar too I think. Of our 10 commits, I’m willing to bet only 6 of them at most end up in the class. Well probably end up in the 20s at some point before the February signing day. Chances are we finish around where we were at last cycle, and that’s good to keep a steady trend for now if these classes are enough to get us into that 9-10 win range and NY6 bowls. Get there, THEN we can worry about the next step. When we were in the gutter like we were, you can’t get it all at once.
Also, stop getting riled up over in state players. Where a player is from is NOT important. In the 90s when Fulmer had the program at its peak, almost all of the star players on those teams were out of state kids. HS football here has gotten better since then but it’s still not up to par with Georgia, Florida, NC, etc. if I was the head coach at UT, I wouldn’t even have tried to recruit an in state player my first 2-3 years. I would’ve spent all that time in Georgia, NC, SC, Florida, Virginia, Alabama, etc and won big with those recruits, and would have in state kids begging for scholarships down the line so I could take who I want. Now the current staff isn’t gonna do that because there’s typically is 5-6 studs to come out of the state each year. But just because a kid from Tennessee has 4 stars next to his name, that doesn’t mean he’s a take.
