How bad is football in our great state this year?

[juandiego]

Dunno. Let me ask everybody real quick.

 

[UGLI baby]

trippy mayne.

 

[juandiego]

gucci mayne.

ficksed.

 

[green]

honest question about the state of UU football recruiting:

what recruiting advantage has your pac-12 membership brought you thus far? most of your best players this year were holdovers from the mwc era. as a top-tier mid-major, your school (i should be saying my school now) already competed against the low tier bcs conference teams for recruits. with consecutive losing seasons, you're still competing against the same schools for recruits. the increase in revenues will benefit the peripherals, but i feel like utah was more attractive as a dominant mid-major than a low tier bcs conference team.

not a snarky question. your thoughts?

Recruiting has been better, there is no doubt about it. Look at just one position so far, the QB position. We went from Wynn and nobody else to:

Wilson - rated 3-4 stars and Hansen - rated 3-4 stars in one season. The next season, we signed: Cox 3-4 stars, Manning 3 stars, Thomas 3 stars. The next season we are slated to sign Islom - 3 stars.

Our classes were ranked in the 50's (as were BYU's) in the MWC. In the PAC-12, we have been in the 30's (while BYU has stayed in the 50's).

The problem is this:

We are still freakishly young. Look at our starting DB's last year: Rowe, a MWC guy, McGill, a SR, but a JC guy, Orphey, a JC guy, and Thomas, a RS Freshman. Out of our 5 DB's, 4 were first or second year in the system, and the other was a MWC kid.

Also, having Hansen on a mission killed Utah as well. Imagine if Hansen wasn't mormon and didn't go on a mission. Instead, he spent the last two years learning the offense. Then, when Wilson goes down, instead of a terrible walk-on coming in, you have a 4 star kid in his second year coming in. HUGE difference. We probably beat WSU, ASU, and possibly Arizona. That right there takes you from a 5-7 team to a 7 or 8 win team.

So, your thoughts of Utah being more attractive are 100% wrong. We have more QB talent sign with Utah the last three years than they last 20 years before that.

The reason why you don't go undefeated in the PAC-12 is that there are way too many good QB's. If you don't have a QB, you don't have a chance. Once the QB position catches up with the rest of the team (and some more speed at the WR/DB position), we will all be back to loving Whitt.

 

[green]

i'm not saying UU hasn't gotten a recruiting advantage, i'm just asking what it is. is it access? are you just able to pitch your school to better players? or is it actually getting kids to come? are these recruits, despite recruiting grades, significantly better than previous recruits?

1- every single SR at Utah has graduated or will graduate this spring.
2 - Top facilities. Only Oregon is bigger.
3 - Path to the NFL. Utah is in the upper half of the PAC-12 putting people into the NFL. Star went top 15 last year and might be the best defensive rookie. Reilly is projected as an early first rounder. McGill is projected to get drafted with only one year playing. Murphy may be drafted as well if he decides to declare.
4 - Playing time.
5 - Playing in a BCS conference
6 - etc
7 - etc
8 - if you are LDS, you can go to school with a bunch of other LDS kids, but still play for a BCS team.