(10-04-2013 02:49 PM)I45owl Wrote:  But how much of that depth is a consequence of recruiting. With Shahin, that depth would look better, and without looking, it seems like we're missing at least one more DL (Michael Sam) that is for reasons other than recruiting.

An as-yet unmentioned issue is graduation rate. That is unquestionably related to recruiting, and it appears that Bailiff and his staff have done well on that count.

Great point on graduation rates. If wins stay the same but graduation rates go up, that counts as better recruiting.

Michael Sam was lost to injury. Those happen and deplete rosters. But Michael Sam is a very high quality kid who will graduate from Rice.

I'll confess I had forgotten about him when I started this thread. My son played HS football with him, and he was the first commit in the 2011 class. I'm pretty sure he had an offer from Baylor, and TAMU put some late feelers in.

His family was exceptionally high on Coach Bailiff's character.
In fact, getting Michael Sam to start that class is--for me--prima facie evidence that DB is a solid, perhaps outstanding, recruiter.

(10-04-2013 02:49 PM)I45owl Wrote:  But how much of that depth is a consequence of recruiting. With Shahin, that depth would look better, and without looking, it seems like we're missing at least one more DL (Michael Sam) that is for reasons other than recruiting.

I would assume that M.Sam's injury factored into this year's signing class. We signed 4 DL though only 2 are on the current roster.

But, I was not comparing how the '08 roster was recruited to how the current roster was recruited. I was making the much simpler observation that '08 was a better team than '13 looks so far.

I think I should back out of this topic because it just isn't that interesting to me any more. Recruiting success is difficult to measure and is only relevant via its purported effect on on-field performance, which is relatively easy to measure. So I don't know why I should care that we got a bunch of recruits that were supposed to help us beat team X if we don't actually beat team X.