AcademyWars.com

Sal posted a story recently on Black Knight Nation with details of this year's incoming Plebe football class. I was encouraged reading through the list by the number of other offers several of the players had, including several P5 offers (Missouri and Miami...like the U, not Miami of Ohio) a preferred P5 walk-on or two, as well as a lot of recruiting "wins" vs. AF and Navy who had also offered them.

I don't pay too close attention on the recruiting side of things, but it seems like a particularly good class to me based on those other offers. What do you all think...was this a good recruiting haul for Army, or par for the course?

Interesting to me to see such a potentially solid class coming in after some of the weirdness of 2023 with the offensive experiment and then return to the old offense...thought that might have spooked recruits who would lose confidence that the coaches know their identity, but it doesn't appear to be so.

Anyway, I'm fired up about the future of Army football...Monken and crew seem to continue to do a good job of recruiting and development.

I find recruiting difficult to judge, particularly for Army. Perhaps that’s because the rigors of WP “thin the herd” both before and after the recruits show up for R day. Or perhaps because we don’t get 4 and 5 star recruits, who get lots of analysis from the media.

At any rate, here is where 24/7 Sports has us ranked in 2024 and the previous 10 years:

2024: 153
2023: 119
2022: 141
2021: 111
2020: 114
2019: 105
2018: 115
2017: 120
2016: 117
2015: 120
2014: 121

The average for 2014-2023 is 118, so our 2024 class definitely ranks below that and below last year’s class as well. Frankly, I don’t know how much it matters, but there you go.

Here’s a link to the info:

https://247sports.com/college/army/seas ... l/commits/

One more note: the last 3 years have included our two lowest ranked recruiting classes. This may be due to NIL - tough to say.

As an Army grad and Oklahoma fan, I've followed recruiting pretty closely for over 30 years--focusing on the Sooners and largely ignoring Army since the Black Knights rarely move the needle nationally. I understand the newer services (On3, ESPN, 247) to the field and composite rankings but I start with Rivals because, in my experience, they're the most consistent/least political.

In that light, Rivals currently has Army at #61 with four three star recruits and ahead of Air Force and Navy. I've never seen us ranked that highly.

I also realize that at the end of the day, recruiting rankings are largely BS designed to sell clicks and newspapers (figuratively). I can name a number of teams that historically underachieve relative to their recruiting prowess and vice versa. In any event, here's the Rivals link I referenced. I didn't go back a decade but I'd bet that this is a high water mark for Army.

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2025 ... recruiting

Thanks, USMA76. The Rivals site is much easier to follow. It has Army at 61 for the 2025 class and at 86 for the 2024 class.

I did look back a few years and we have typically been in the mid-70s to mid-80s, with 74 as the best I saw and 91 the lowest. If those numbers are directionally right, our 2024 class is about average and the 25 class could be considerably better.

Interesting info from those 2 sites...and interesting how the rankings differ between the 2.

Agree that I'm not sure how much weight can be placed on these rankings and evaluations as I think the majority of the attention and focus goes to the 5 and 4 star athletes. The sheer number of 1-3 star athletes makes those rankings/evaluations suspect I think.

To me, it just seemed like we were getting more recruiting "wins" over AF and Navy with this class than normal, and the fact there were a few with legitimate P5 offers that chose Army was also a positive sign. Or maybe I've just not been paying close attention and getting recruits with P5 offers has been something Monken has been able to do more regularly than I realize?

Outside of the 4 and 5 stars it's a crap shoot. There are a little over 400 4 and 5 stars each year. And they wind up almost exclusively at the Elite P5 schools. There are roughly 130 some odd FBS schools competing for athletes. And they compete over mostly the 2 and 3 stars. 4 and 5 Star prospects typically stick out so far beyond their peers they are hard to miss. Everything beyond that is a guess in my opinion.

This is a great short read on how rare 4 and 5 star players are:

https://www.sbnation.com/college-footba ... l-football

What people usually don't discuss when it comes to recruiting is that getting a kid to commit is one thing. Developing a guy to play is a whole other process. College football for all intents and purposes is still a game of development. Very few of these guys coming out of HS are ready to compete at the FBS level. You have to build them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This means time in the weight room, at the training table, in the film room, with the team, with their coaches, with the system, at practice, at the games, and in the training room. Great teams are built not recruited. And elite teams are recruited and then built. That is Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State. They all have great talent but those programs are still developing that talent. It's just all relative at that level.

You all are correct. Rankings are built to sell clicks. Just like the USA Today HS Poll was built to sell papers! The game has changed but in the end you gotta find guys with enough talent and size and speed to play and then build them and train them to execute at the next level.

PD