How do big national recruiting sites rate our signing class?

Great point.

Down at our level, I start to salivate when I look at the Hudl tapes of some of our unranked guys. Chris Lide is a very good route runner and the moves of some of those D linemen are amazing. The athleticism of the ranked guys is obvious. The unranked guys are gonna hold their own though. I look for great things from the Wildcats in the next few years.

I know it doesn't really matter what that the recruiting services say about classes and their rankings, but I would sure like to see some love throw out our way for this group of new players. By love I mean at least list our class and recognize what this small private west texas school was able to haul in, establish our profile a little more on Scout and on 247, etc.

On ESPN, SMU is listed as the 75th best recruiting class in FBS and I would have no problem lining up our players against their class and see who can out play who.

That's kind of what I was trying to say Oscar. I was hoping some of the recruiting services would see the official signing list and think 'holy cow look at who ACU brought it' and then establish our profile a little more on their site.

I guess flying under the radar isn't always bad a thing, but in this case, I want some props for our players and our program.

First of all, congrats on ACU's first true class as an SLC member ... must be exciting times for you guys! With that said, I would caution using the recruiting services to determine how well you did or didn't do compared to other FCS and lower level FBS programs. The services are pretty decent at sorting out the top 25 to 30 FBS classes, but after that, not so much. It's nice signing 3-star players and all, but over the years, I've found that the best FCS players, who signed out of high school, are usually kids who were overlooked and/or unrated. There's a reason why 3-star high school players fall to FCS schools on signing day. No doubt, there are exceptions, but not many.

First of all, thanks for joining the chat royallion05.

I think we are all on the same page for the most part. I think the biggest excitement we get out of the 3-star guys is that it helps bring a little more attention to the program. The fact that ACU doesn't have much of an established profile on some of the recruiting services is what makes it nice to grab some of those guys. I understand with us being a new FCS program that they haven't paid much attention to our recruiting, but hopefully this will help garner more attention.

I think it's safe to say from rolling through some of the other threads that some of the forum favorites were players that were not rated. Then we had guys like Dylan Douglass who is a 3-star....based on his film alone you could tell me he's a four-star player and I MIGHT believe you or you could say he's not ranked and I would be shocked, either way I'm still excited about what his film shows.

With all that being said, do you have much you can share regarding Southeastern's recruiting classes over the years? (If you have no interest in responding then no biggie) I realize this past season was the most successful y'all have seen in a while. I also noticed that you had quite a few transfers from LSU as well as a couple others from Tulane and Southern Miss. Is that something new to y'all? Is there another school in the Southland in Louisiana that receives more transfers from another? Etc.

I certainly understand the excitement, especially coming from D-II where it's tougher to sign a higher profile player directly out of high school, plus you have more scholarships to work with.

We've recruited well over the years, but since Hurricane Katrina, it's becoming more and more difficult to find enough eligible kids. This a great area for high school talent, but between all the FBS schools running around looking for guys, and academic issues, it's a lot more difficult than it was 10 years ago. We still hold our own, and have signed some great high school players, but to compete for a national championship, we have to explore all options. Our staff is well-connected nationally and have a history of thinking outside the box at Delta State. We've taken transfers here in the past, but not at the level we are now. That said, the goal is to sign the best high school kids we can, within a 100 mile radius, then go out from there.

As for our recruiting class this year, we return the bulk of our team but needed to replace three safeties, a couple of corners, and a left tackle. We weren't necessarily looking for FBS transfers but the three LSU kids and Batiste from Tulane fell in our lap, and we added a tackle from Southern Miss with starting experience. We also added a WR from Southern Miss and a QB from UL-Lafayette, both of whom we recruited in high school. We added six JC kids who I really like, and were able to land a few high value high school targets, as well as a couple of preferred walk-ons who likely would have been scholarship kids in most years. We were fortunate to get Anthony Milton (Utah commit) and Peyton Winbush from New Orleans, and I think we found some hidden gems in Sean Clavelle, Jahmal Macklin, Joe Pack and Aaron Craig, and Jeremy Smith and Shaquille McClain, from our backyard. We'll see how it plays out.

As for the rest of conference, just about everybody takes transfers, some more than others. McNeese has traditionally been high school based, and will supplement with an occasional FBS transfer ... this year, they took a couple of FBS running backs and a JC LB/DE. When Clint Conque was at UCA, they took their fair share of JC kids and FBS transfers ... Sam Houston had 14 or 15 FBS transfers on their roster last year, and will probably take more with K.C. Keeler as head coach.