Maybe I’m crazy, but it seems like our recruiting strategy has shifted big time

[chinngiskhaan]

It seems like our 2023 class is filling out early relative to the classes of the previous few years… and it seems like the majority of our current 2023 commits have little to no P5 offers… or offers from P5s that are significantly worse than us in football.

Why is this happening? Is NIL forcing us out of the running for higher profile recruits, resulting in the staff focusing on diamonds in the rough (better overall recruits than when we used to have this strategy, but diamonds in the rough compared to the recruits we have been getting the last few years). 

Yes, these guys are three star recruits (some even high three stars)… but most of their offers are from no name programs. I mean, most of the offers for the most recent commit aren’t even D1.

I fully trust this staff to find the right guys… I just wonder why the apparent shift in strategy?

[2008 National Champ]

I feel like we need to wait one more season before recruiting gets back to “normal”. Many of the prospects for 2023 missed all or part of their sophomore/junior years. If/when we can get out from under the various covid restrictions across the country, then kids will get more exposure earlier which will increase their offers.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see 3 or 4 of the current commits get bumped up to 4 stars once the ratings services get more tape to evaluate from.

[chinngiskhaan]

So what you are saying is that these commits would have better offers and rankings if COVID hadn’t ruined everything? I can get behind that

[2008 National Champ]

I don’t know that I can quantify the effect but some combination of bloated rosters due the free covid year, kids having to sit out games/seasons, and I would assume it being tougher for recruiters/evaluators to see kids in person at games or camps is contributory.

I don’t remember Utah ever having this many offers out to kids who don’t have ratings yet so I guess we have to assume that the staff is doing their usual due diligence and it is the rankings services that aren’t keeping up.