If Peters was a top 10 player or even one of the top 3-4 LBs in the state of LA we would have offered him and many other major programs would have done the same. Not sure what rankings you are going by but I don't follow those closely. Just trying to keep it in perspective. We missed out on 3 of the top guys in this class and it is not going to be the norm by any means. We are going to be very slective next year and work to keep the top guys here like always and continue to replace the guys we lose or don't have in state with oos prospects. One thing is for sure though, a lot of teams are going to be getting great players from LA this year. We have depth and can only take what we can.
Seems like it was kind of a down year for prep talent across the country. Don't seem to be a ton of skill players near the top of the rankings. Dorial Green-Beckham looks like a superfreak (BTW, congrats to SEC newcomer Missouri) but seems well ahead of the pack. Maybe I am completely wrong about that. Anyway, it's disappointing to not see LSU near the top of the rankings after the season they had, compounded by the way it ended. But, I don't think one disappointing class is anything to worry about. College football isn't dominated by seniors anymore (hasn't been for a while), so they can easily make up for it next year. Regardless, losing Collins to Alabama still stings.
JD well put, bottom line is things were disappointing but it is over and we can not change the past all we can do is learn from our mistakes so they do not happen again. :LSU231::LSU231:
Herb - don't buy it sorry!!! Real simple LSU has prided itself on putting a strangle hold on the top talent in Louisiana over the past 10 years and if you look at the recruiting classes you will see other than 2005 we have done that. All the services all the posters scream and yell that we don't let our top talent leave the state. This year we did not do that, we let at least 3 of the top 5 and depending on what service you look at 6 of the top 10 leave the state that is a crappy job when you compare it to recent performance which is all you can do compare it to prior "recent" performance. As I stated does that make it a trend where people should be worried, no one year does not make it a trend but it should be something that people should look at and figure out what happened so it does not become a trend, because that we can not afford considering our success of over the past 10 years has been directly correlated to keeping our talent in state. I am not bashing you but your theory doesn't correlate. If we have a down year in talent than it should be that much easier to keep the TOP talent in state because less attention needs to be paid to the other recruits in state and more attention can be devoted to the "fewer" Top targets we truly want. That also should mean with less talent in state this past year that also should correlate to less time spent by other recruiters from other programs recruiting in our state because it is a down year and less talent to worry about, which again should give our recruiters more of an advantage. It is not secret that LSU "for the most part" keeps in state talent, so with less talent in state last year it would naturally mean a tougher job for OOS recruiters. And the biggest proof that the performance we did this year in recruiting "besides the fact that Miles said yesterday - We didn't get everybody we went after, but we got what we needed." That from the biggest rah rah guy on the planet. But the biggest proof is that we only signed 22 recruits and we tried to sign the full limit of 25. You don't need to look any further than that fact that we didn't sign a complete class and we did everything we could to sign a complete class. Again I am not trying to be the guy who says negative things just to say negative things, that is not who I am. But I am not a guy who turns away from the truth either. I will not make excuses for poor performance I tend to be a realist. Our performance this year in recruiting "compared to previous years" was sub par and you don't have to look any further than 22 commitments signed to figure that out, not even looking at rankings or stars or anything like that. when you finished the year at 13-1, make it to the BCSNC and at the end of the polls finished 2nd coupled with our body of work the year before and what is projected for next year I think most people think we should have done a better job recruiting. As of Jan 1st we were doing a bang up job after Collins announcement and the BCSNC game loss things started to spiral downward for us and we ended the recruiting process with some disappointment. Like I have said does that mean the sky is falling, absolutely not. Does that mean we did not fill needs in the class, again absolutely not. Does that show a trend, no not yet. But it does mean we could have and should have done a better job. If your opinion differs so be it we will agree to disagree. But even when your own coach states "in so many words" we could have done a better job what is there more to argue about?
Bhelm - I hear you on Peters if you look at Rivals "i truly hate that site and the gumps running that site" he is ranked 4th in the state, Dandy Don has him 17th so he probably falls some where in between, but in between probably lands him at 10th or 11th. My whole point is that we did a poor performance in state this year keeping our top guys in state and we did a sub par performance in recruiting - if you listen to what Miles said yesterday he in his round about way admitted to as much with this "We didn't get everybody we went after, but we got what we needed." All I am saying is we need to figure out what we did not do well and correct it so it does not happen again, that is all. You even stated "it is not going to be the norm by any means" which obviously means we did not get the job done "this year" and this year alone. Everyone fails from time to time we just have to analyze our failures to see what we did wrong, what we could do better and what we did that was successful so that we succeed going forward. I truly don't get what the big deal is by saying we could have done better, hiding from the truth just doesn't make sense to me. It is not like we can change anything at this point we can't but we can keep pushing forward and not try and not make the same mistakes again, that is all we can do.
LSU Recruiting 2012: Signing Class Is Better Than Most Believe | Bleacher Report Kwon Alexander to LSU over 'Bama & Auburn | Bleacher Report Alabama commitment Landon Collins' mother accuses Nick Saban of violation: link | NOLA.com Click on link in box. Not sure why it won't just load. [ame="http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7532961&categoryid=2378529"]http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7532961&categoryid=2378529[/ame]
Not a big deal at all. Just wanted to point out that Otha shouldn't be anywhere close to that area and his recruitment showed that. However, I think he is a great player and will have a very good college career and maybe even more. Top schools will lose top guys. So many different elements come into play. We can find examples of top targets missed almost every year since 2000 and more than one of two in many of those years. So it is not way out of the norm either. On the other spectrum we can find even more examples of top guys that we have landed that have not come close to living up to the hype. Just how recruiting is...
