Huntley has put us on the map, under Ludwig’s tutelage. Rising came. The Powell kid came. Have we gone from being kind of a wallflower girl at the dance to being one of the more desirable dance partners?
Only if the band stays intact.
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As good as the Utes have been, I don’t believe Utah will ever be a destination school. We will butter our bread with hard working 3* and a couple of 4* guys. Nothing wrong with this.
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Does Utah want to be? They don’t thrive off of entitled kids, they thrive off of overlooked kids.
How many Tuttles do we need or want?
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I’d be curious to see if that changed at all with Whittingham’s successor (not that we’re headed toward being a powerhouse or a top 10 recruiter).
Points well taken. I don’t think we ever will be, or want to be, a magnet for 5* QBs. It does seem to my optimistic eye that we have a chance to get to a place where good QBs with lots of potential are willing to consider us seriously. During our musical chair years at the OC job, I often wondered just how attractive we were to recruits like that. The same could be said for wide receivers, and I think that part of our profile is getting better too.
Oh, we definitely want to be.
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But Kyle often expresses skepticism about the rating systems, and he likes blue-collar recruits, not guys with huge egos.
i will bet $0.50 that Powell never plays qb, (or at the very most is Jason Shelley). Ohio State recruited him as a db, most other schools as an athlete, and he wasn’t going to make it as a qb at Baylor. He could be Chase Hansen (but not an lb.) .
Okay, but if the #1 rated QB recruit wants to play for Utah, Kyle won’t wait more than 1 second before saying yes.
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Five seconds! 
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Don’t put too much stock in HS recruiting. Too many factors go into it. Jacob Eason was a 5* QB going to Georgia. Got beat out and now plays average football at Washington.
Side note, 2013 HS rankings had a #4 Cooper Bateman (Alabama) and a #6 Troy Williams (Washington) both 4* out of HS and ended up at Utah.
I won’t put too much into any individual ranking, but there is a strong correlation between team recruiting rankings and performance. It absolutely matters.
What I’m really asking is this: Will our success with our offense and having a quarterback like Huntley make it easier for us to recruit better quarterbacks? I think it will. I don’t care what their ranking is coming out of high school.
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I beg to differ. The only correlation is an early season ranking, which can propel or hinder a teams success all year. I do believe that having some absolute studs on your team doesn’t hurt but there are many, many reasons to ignore the recruiting.
I have a hard time with the recruiting stars because they’re just so subjective.
- Some kids get a bump just because Alabama or Ohio State are recruiting them.
- Some kids play in lower level leagues and inferior opponents, inflated stats.
- Some kids are just bigger and faster at 17 but don’t grow from there.
- Some kids are spoonfed they will be NFL stars as kids and fizzzle out when the pressure is on.
- Some kids might have all the talent in the world but are complete headcases or can’t stay in school.
- Some kids have never been challenged and when they face top talent, they fold.
What truly sucks about college sports is anybody can put out a recruiting ranking to fluff the stature of a team. Alabama has a great team and puts a lot of players in the NFL but when a recruit gets a bump simply because Alabama recruited them, then Alabama gets a bump simply because they had a top 5 recruiting class…that smells fishy to me.
Take a look at one of the biggest busts college sports recently.
Florida State signed Malik Henry (you might know him from Last Chance U and now at Nevada even though he’s not participating with the team). All the hype going into 2017 had Florida State at #3 in the preseason rankings with their new can’t miss QB. They finished 7-6 and Henry never saw the field. Florida State was nowhere deserving of their #3 ranking week 1 and Henry was a bust. Henry played HS at Westlake Oaks in CA Division 1/2 and the team rode their defense all season. Florida State was desperate for their QB of the future, Henry shot from a 2* to a 4* over his senior year and the #4 QB prospect, just behind KJ Costello mind you and ahead of Feleipe Franks. Way down the list at #13…Jalen Hurts. If you keep going down to #32 you’ll find Matt Fink (the guy who beat Utah this year) and way down there at #38 is Tyler Huntley. Ahem, Justin Herbert was #43.
I ask you, hidsight being 20/20, would you rather have Malik Henry or Tyler Huntley playing today?
This is just one scenario where a 4* or 5* kid didn’t work out. Yes, I understand for every Malik Henry there is a Josh Rosen or a Christian Hackenberg 5* can’t miss talent, but there are a handful of 5* kids you’ve never heard of. Gunner Kiel? Mitch Mustain?
Something that you might not be aware of too, on average there are only one to two, occasionally three 5* kids on the board. Unless the kid is a sure-fire winner and solid Utah all the way, I doubt Utah goes after any of them. Utah has done a good job in recruiting by not burning bridges. We all know the story of Zach Wilson, Utah had their guy in Tuttle and he bailed. When Utah goes all in with a kid they make a commitment to them as well. It’s about honor and respect.
Again, I’m not saying that Utah should turn down 5* kids but we as fans shouldn’t put a lot of stock in recruiting rankings. I know Whittingham couldn’t care less about them…he has his own recruiting rankings.
I hate to break it to you, but there has been a strong correlation between team recruiting rankings and end-of-season rankings for a solid decade. There have been 100 articles written about it, with 1000 charts. The correlation is clear and indisputable.
I understand what you are saying. Ranking recruits is a very flawed science, and it’s easy to find exceptions on both ends (5* busts and 2* studs). But, on average, they are a better predictor of success than any other measure we have.
Obviously a highly touted prospect is going to bring some talent with him and that certainly will translate to success. And it’s easy to look at successful programs and say “well it’s because they have five star kids on their team.” But when it’s equally as easy to say “how come that team was terrible, they have five star kids on their team?” It’s just nobody does that.
I wish we could just get rid of the whole idea of five star recruits and just let results speak for themselves. Whittingham doesn’t care for them, neither should you or I.
