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(12-11-2020 09:03 PM)ladeda Wrote:  Great get. The 2022 recruiting class is off to the best start ever. (We seem to say that every year now under CLF.)

That said, I don't get butthurt on what some nerds rate players as prospects. UC has countless 2 stars who have made the NFL. Deguara was a 2 star guy who had a .79 rating. Ponder was the 2nd lowest rated recruit in the 2016 class-- he will be drafted.

Other awesome 2 star guys-- Conner Barwin, Mickens, Gilyard, Nakamura and of course-- NFL All Pros-- the Kelce brothers who were rated, you guessed it, 2 stars. Hell, Sauce Gardner was the 163rd best CB coming out of HS.

So while it is nice to talk about the rankings-- and I like to do it as well bc the better your classes, the better perception people have of your program and the momentum it can generate.

In the end, the rankings mean jack squat once you get onto campus. That said, I'd much prefer UC pull 4 star recruits vs 2 star recruits, bc the 4 stars obviously have a higher success rate. 4 recruits in the 2020 class are in the top 400 nationally. Crazy.

If this staff developed players like Deguara into an NFL TE, imagine what this staff can do when they are starting with a higher level recruit.

This is how "The U" built their program.

They recruited their own area hard and used the guys they got to get other guys.

Fickell's got it going on here. He may in fact end up leaving some time in the future, but I dare say that he'd be hard pressed to do this again anywhere else.

PS- I dont read recruiting services. I don't care what they say. They're as political as anything else, which means they're subject to BS as much as anything else.

Give Fickell, Freeman and entire staff a lot of credit. They saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They knew the area as well and put themselves in a position to succeed. Often times the difference in success in anything is finding a niche, and Fick used his considerable local experience to his advantage. I'm sure he got feelers over the years for HC jobs elsewhere, but translating it into getting guys to come to the school in numbers was not likely probable. I've said it over the years a heck of a lot, but i believe you can leverage your campus being in a non college town to your advantage if you know how to sell it. If I was a college kid, i'd much rather not be in a small college town. A lot more to do here year round. Hopefully Gino is learning from Fick as well as given his back round he is getting lessons from the right teacher. We may not have the best facilities, but we are very competitive now and with the right driver the bus is running very well. It's great to see. A holiday gift i've longed for now for a long time. Local kids staying put and top notch football.

Marcus Freeman is listed as the primary for 3 of the guys in the '22 class...I don't know why, but part of me think he isn't as close to leaving here as some think yet.

You want a picture of how crazy this '22 class is so far? We have as many Top 500 recruits (4) out of the 5 current commits in '22 as we did from 2011-2016 COMBINED. This board sued to melt down if we got ONE kid like this in a class...and we have 4 out of the 1st 5, with another two who seem to be very close to committing (Eian Pugh and Ryan Baer). We won conference titles in the Big East with 2 Top 500 guys on the entire ROSTER...yes, I realize the talent development piece is huge too, but this is a gravitational shift in Cincinnati football occurring in front of us right now.

(12-12-2020 09:57 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Marcus Freeman is listed as the primary for 3 of the guys in the '22 class...I don't know why, but part of me think he isn't as close to leaving here as some think yet.

It seems that Fickell and Freeman are very close, and it might be possible that Freeman sees the value waiting for the right opportunity. If their families happiness is as important as people say it is, maybe he will have a hard time uprooting his for a dead end job.

I mean a truckload of money could change everything, and Freeman will be a head coach one day, but is it worth uprooting everything for a chance to be a punching bag at Illinois, Pitt, Kentucky etc?

(12-12-2020 12:04 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  You want a picture of how crazy this '22 class is so far? We have as many Top 500 recruits (4) out of the 5 current commits in '22 as we did from 2011-2016 COMBINED. This board sued to melt down if we got ONE kid like this in a class...and we have 4 out of the 1st 5, with another two who seem to be very close to committing (Eian Pugh and Ryan Baer). We won conference titles in the Big East with 2 Top 500 guys on the entire ROSTER...yes, I realize the talent development piece is huge too, but this is a gravitational shift in Cincinnati football occurring in front of us right now.

Exactly! Even the past 2 seasons look at what we accomplished and look at most of what those players were rated at as recruits. We are only going to get better and we are going to have a lot of great seasons ahead of us.

We are seeing a shift and are going to knock down this glass ceiling that G5 programs are held back by. A lot of the media is already buying in and are respecting us more and more. Every time we put a player in the NFL or get a 4* recruit or win a bowl game we will get a little more respect.

Cant wait to see us continue taking the next step along the way!