WildcatReport - What we've learned from Northwestern's recent recruiting roll
The Wildcats just landed six 2024 commitments in nine days. What does it tell us about the program?
northwestern.rivals.com
What we've learned from NU's recent recruiting roll
- Thread starter lou v
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northwestern.rivals.com
Thanks Lou, for the progress report. Over many years, my experience is that all recruiting classes offer promise for the future. What can make a good recruiting class on paper a great one is what happens with these kids the next 4-5 years. So it is up to these kids to work hard and it’s up to the coaches to provide development and proper scheming. And it’s up to us fans to support them. Kudos to the recruits for making what I think is a great life decision and kudos to the coaches for putting together a class with great potential. Brighter days are ahead. Go ‘Cats.
I hope that all of these guys become All-Big Ten performers. However, we might put these recruits in recent context. Last year, even after significant de-commitments prior to signing day, our class averaged 86.9 on 247, good enough for 6th place in the Big Ten. Only one of this year's recruits is rated as highly as 87; all the rest are below last year's average. Six of last year's 19 commitments were ranked below 5.6 on Rivals. This year, four out of seven fail to reach a 5.6 score. ESPN had 9 of our 19 recruits in 2023 ranked at 78 or higher. Only one of this year's first seven ranks that highly. Of greater significance to me than rankings is the other offers this crop has earned. We are generally beating out Ivy League teams, some MAC teams, and schools from lower-tier divisions for these guys. Glover, the QB that we expect to pledge soon, is more lowly rated in all three services than Gray was last year. In recent years, NU has started strong in recruiting, garnering most of our highly-rated commitments early in the process, and filling in for need after that. I know that ratings are of very questionable significance to many - including our coaches and many on this board. Still...
WildcatReport - What we've learned from Northwestern's recent recruiting roll
The Wildcats just landed six 2024 commitments in nine days. What does it tell us about the program?
We've got to prove it on the field again to get the higher ranked recruits to come back.
With change in transfer rules, a strong recruiting class is still a required for a school like NU but holding onto and being able develop the recruits become more critical
Development has always been critical but holding onto recruiting class through development is now a new requirement. It’s unclear what NU and Fitz are doing about retaining underclassmen
Development has always been critical but holding onto recruiting class through development is now a new requirement. It’s unclear what NU and Fitz are doing about retaining underclassmen
I would rather have average rated recruits with the size and physical tools, and excellent coaching which has produced bowl teams at NU, than a few NFL draft picks plus poor coaching which produced a 1-11 record. Of course I’d rather have both, but that’s not possible until we rebuild some success.
As much as I dislike judging classes by star rankings, I think your observations are consistent with what these guys have shown on the field so far in their HS careers. While all the commitments show promising glimpses, there is definitely much more projection/development needed with this class so far than there was with last year's class, which might be the most talented overall that Fitz has recruited since the 2014 class. This is not suprising given the last two seasons we have had. We need to win on the field again to up tier the caliber of recruits back to where we were. The Johnson kid from JC is probably the exception. He has a chance to be a special player fairly early on if he can manage to balance football with wrestling. I also think we should all be very happy if we land Aidan Glover, the QB recruit from Memphis. He has the ideal skill set for our offense and I think he is significantly underrated by the online recruiting services.
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