Recruiting

[WrekDivr]

One of the benefits of our new Offense is supposed to be better recruiting. Just following the news, it seemed to be paying off, so I checked some stats. According to 24/7 Sports:

In 2022, Army was ranked #146 in recruiting (several FCS teams had better scores) with a score of 30.41 and 2 3-star recruits. Navy was ranked #140 with a score of 41.48 and 2 3-star recruits

In 2023, Army is ranked #118 (ahead of some FBS schools, including UTEP, Western Kentucky, and UConn) with a score of 110.02 and 10 3-stars. Navy is ranked #131 with a score of 67.03 and 6 3-stars.

While I expect our rank and score will drop as we lose recruits to the acceptance process, our progress seems encouraging. Navy has added about 36 points to their score and Army has added about 70.

I did not include the civilian academy as they don’t really compete on the same footing as Army and Navy do.

[FSUBulldog0]

I always found this to be a bit dubious. We heard recruiting would be better when Berry changed the offense as well.

Personally I don’t think the offensive changes will be all that large. Blocking will be different (zone scheme now). Angles will be different for the line and the QB. We will likely go from a 85-15 pass run ratio to more of a 75-25 run/pass ratio. Probably something like Coastal Carolina ran the past couple years but with more running. It will look different since it’s from the shotgun but will have a lot of similarities to what we’ve done on the past as well.

Our recruiting rankings were higher pre-COVID, but it seems like that may be due to more high school players getting rated than anything else. Army had about 15 3-star players in the 24/7 database one season. Now we are around 5. One thing coach Drinkall mentioned on a recent podcast is that the transfer portal is causing fewer high school kids to get recruited by some of our competitors, leaving a better player to us. That was interesting.

[FSUBulldog0]

As I go back and look at 2023, I think some of those guys bumped up after signing day. I don’t remember seeing that many 3-stars in last year’s class.

[WrekDivr]

I always found this to be a bit dubious. We heard recruiting would be better when Berry changed the offense as well.

Personally I don’t think the offensive changes will be all that large. Blocking will be different (zone scheme now). Angles will be different for the line and the QB. We will likely go from a 85-15 pass run ratio to more of a 75-25 run/pass ratio. Probably something like Coastal Carolina ran the past couple years but with more running. It will look different since it’s from the shotgun but will have a lot of similarities to what we’ve done on the past as well.

Our recruiting rankings were higher pre-COVID, but it seems like that may be due to more high school players getting rated than anything else. Army had about 15 3-star players in the 24/7 database one season. Now we are around 5. One thing coach Drinkall mentioned on a recent podcast is that the transfer portal is causing fewer high school kids to get recruited by some of our competitors, leaving a better player to us. That was interesting.

Don’t necessarily disagree, particularly about the dubiousness of the stats. Couple of points, though:

1. Coastal Carolina’s run/pass ratio for the 2022 season was 79%/21%. I point this out not to not pick the exact number, but when I watched CC, it seemed like they passed more than that. Then when I checked the numbers, I was surprised that the were much closer to what Army was doing (our ratio in 2022 was 86%/14% and in 2021 it was 87%/13%). The difference is not insignificant, but I would not be surprised to see a 80/20 ratio from Army this year.

2. I think the bigger change is at QB. In one of Daily’s interviews he mentioned how much easier it is to make a read from the shotgun. Given the number of high schools that seem to run the shotgun, more QBs may be interested now than with the flexbone. So far this year we have 3 QBs committed and last year we landed 2. In 2021 we landed 1. Sal would have better data, but his info is not organized that way.