Wake Forest Football Recruiting

[Dekin]

Well this should be good for recruiting. 'Awarded each year to the FBS football coach that best embodies the three pillars of success: scholarship, leadership and integrity.'

Interesting that 4 out of 20 are ACC.

 

[PhDeac]

Not really. Almost all are P5 coaches so 4 out of 20 is what you’d expect.

 

[dcon69]

Jimbo Fisher! Haha. Good one, that.

 

[TimmyClutch]

There has been a lot of talk recently about Grant Godfrey going to Kentucky. Considering Brad White is his primary recruiter, he probably is in a good place to talk about the differences between the UK and Wake. Godfrey would be the absolute star of the class and fill a position of need.

Micah Mays, an athlete out of Florida, looks to be strongly leaning towards Wake.

 

[PhDeac]

According to Rivals, Wake has 17th best class in country right now. That is absolutely mind boggling to me.

https://247sports.com/Season/2023-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/

That's a little misleading because there are only 5 P5 schools ranked lower than Wake that have the same number or more commits than Wake. Plenty of those teams will catch up.

But this class should be better than our usual ranking in the low-60s. As someone pointed out above, we have 9 top 1000 recruits so far. Last year's small class had 5 top 1000 out of 13 (ranked #71). 2021 had 2 top 1000 out of 20 (ranked #68). 2020 had 3 top 100 out of 23 (ranked #63). 2019 had 5 top 100 out of 21 (ranked #60). So this class should end up somewhere in the 40s at least.

Wake got two more commits a few days after that post to get to 15. Other programs have caught up and Wake is 37th now. There are still 5 P5 schools that have 15+ commits. BC, Rutgers, and Colorado are #38-40. MD and Illinois are 45 and 46. I still think Wake will land somewhere in the 40s, 50s if it's a smaller class which would be an improvement.

 

[skinnydeac]

Wake got two more commits a few days after that post to get to 15. Other programs have caught up and Wake is 37th now. There are still 5 P5 schools that have 15+ commits. BC, Rutgers, and Colorado are #38-40. MD and Illinois are 45 and 46. I still think Wake will land somewhere in the 40s, 50s if it's a smaller class which would be an improvement.

I think the big deal is that the average is 86.24. There have been a lot of years where a recruit that is rated an 86 would be one of the higher rated guys in the class.

 

[Deaconblue]

I think the big deal is that the average is 86.24. There have been a lot of years where a recruit that is rated an 86 would be one of the higher rated guys in the class.

I agree. Getting the star average up is key for Wake. Never going to see huge classes. High average rating will keep Wake moving up. 17 guys that are mostly high three with say five 4 stars will be rated lower than teams that sign 25 3 star guys. (3×12=36, + 5×4=20 =56. 3×25=75). Keep the star average moving up!

 

[deacon14]

I think the big deal is that the average is 86.24. There have been a lot of years where a recruit that is rated an 86 would be one of the higher rated guys in the class.

To drive home this point, the highest rated guy in our 2021 class was Santino Marucci at 85.87.

The 2023 class (so far) has 7 guys rated higher than an 86.0. The 2022 class had 5, the 2021 class had 0, the 2020 class had 3, the 2019 class had 5, and the 2018 class had 4.

What's more interesting to me is that the bottom half of the 2023 and 2022 classes seems much stronger than previous years. 2023 and 2022 have essentially none of the 2 star/low 3 stars that made up nearly half of every class from 2018-2021. The lowest rated guy in 2022 (Jamare Glasker, 83.48) would have ranked higher than 8 out of 20 guys from 2021, 10/23 from 2020, and 6/21 from 2019. The lowest rated guy from 2023 is even better (Kyland Armstrong, 84.08) although there is certainly a chance we add some lower-rated late bloomer types.

 

[PhDeac]

Yeah. There's no question this class is better than previous Wake classes and will continue to be. It just wasn't realistic to expect to finish anywhere near #17.

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

yeah but generational inflation going on right now too

 

[Pilchard]

Just keep in mind that AT Perry was 83.71, KW III was 81.22 and Tyler Morin 82.09. It feels better to try to find something tangible out of something intangible like HS FB recruiting, but these are just numbers created by guys who can't evaluate HS football players at the same level as the WF staff. Would guess part of the reason for the rating rise of WF's recruits is because WF is considered a better program now. So, if WF offers, the player is considered better than now than three years ago. This is not some objective scale where an 86 in 2022 is materially better than 84 in 2019.

Clawson doesn't BS and he has repeatedly advised that HS football recruiting rankings, at least when it comes to evaluating WF football recruiting in general, are meaningless.

 

[OldGoldBeard]

Just keep in mind that AT Perry was 83.71, KW III was 81.22 and Tyler Morin 82.09. It feels better to try to find something tangible out of something intangible like HS FB recruiting, but these are just numbers created by guys who can't evaluate HS football players at the same level as the WF staff. Would guess part of the reason for the rating rise of WF's recruits is because WF is considered a better program now. So, if WF offers, the player is considered better than now than three years ago. This is not some objective scale where an 86 in 2022 is materially better than 84 in 2019.

Clawson doesn't BS and he has repeatedly advised that HS football recruiting rankings, at least when it comes to evaluating WF football recruiting in general, are meaningless.

He's also repeatedly said that we're getting and holding onto kids that we wouldn't have before, so he clearly wants and has wanted higher-rated recruits with bigger offer sheets

 

[deacon14]

Just keep in mind that AT Perry was 83.71, KW III was 81.22 and Tyler Morin 82.09. It feels better to try to find something tangible out of something intangible like HS FB recruiting, but these are just numbers created by guys who can't evaluate HS football players at the same level as the WF staff. Would guess part of the reason for the rating rise of WF's recruits is because WF is considered a better program now. So, if WF offers, the player is considered better than now than three years ago. This is not some objective scale where an 86 in 2022 is materially better than 84 in 2019.

Clawson doesn't BS and he has repeatedly advised that HS football recruiting rankings, at least when it comes to evaluating WF football recruiting in general, are meaningless.

Of course there are guys that are low-rated and turn out to be good (or even great) football players. Particularly in a program that focuses on development over instant-impact freshmen, that is going to happen. And it's very reasonable to say that recruiting services overlook some guys, especially when their only P5 offer is a small school like Wake.

However, the average high 3 star football recruit is going to have a better football career than the average 2 star/low 3 star. And I sincerely doubt that the rise in recruiting rankings the last few years is due to a Wake Forest offer related bump in rankings. All of these guys have way more P5 offers than the guys at the bottom of our recruiting classes had previously. In recruiting classes before the last two years, the bottom half of the class would have at most 1-2 other P5 offers. The 3rd lowest rated guy in the 2023 class (Sam Williams) has 6 P5 offers from Wake, Colorado, GT, Indiana, Stanford, and West Virginia.

If more P5 schools are offering AND the recruiting services rate the players higher, it seems way more reasonable to say that the incoming recruits are just better than previous classes. Clawson obviously saw something worth offering in guys like Walker and Perry, but who knows where they ranked on Wake's internal rankings of potential recruits. Just because they came to Wake doesn't mean they were Clawson's first choices to fill those scholarships. However, based on the recruiting rankings and additional P5 offers of incoming recruits, it seems as though Clawson is now more competitive for more of his top choices, which is exciting.

 

[wakelaw13]

Also keep in mind that AT Perry was...not very good at the beginning of his career. He seems like a guy we took based on size and athletic potential, who put in the work with our excellent coaching staff and became an elite college WR and leader on the team.

 

[PhDeac]

Right now we have four 6-3+ WR who were lowly ranked.

 

[skinnydeac]

I know that ratings are flawed past the top couple hundred guys but my hope is that this raised floor will lead to less developmental time for the players. A lot of Wake's players take 3 years in the program to become playable. If a raised recruiting floor can turn 3 years into 2 years, then that can only improve depth. We have all seen first hand what the lack of depth looks like. (2019 receivers and every year an entire defensive position group)

 

[80deacon]

Also keep in mind that AT Perry was...not very good at the beginning of his career. He seems like a guy we took based on size and athletic potential, who put in the work with our excellent coaching staff and became an elite college WR and leader on the team.

Very similar to Scotty Washington.

 

[PhDeac]

Very similar to Scotty Washington.

Yep. He was the first tall project WR to pan out which let to Perry which will hopefully lead to Jahmal Banks, Horatio Fields, and AK Kelly having similar success.

Smart move to bring in one of those guys a year and develop them.

 

[JKW385]

I know that ratings are flawed past the top couple hundred guys but my hope is that this raised floor will lead to less developmental time for the players. A lot of Wake's players take 3 years in the program to become playable. If a raised recruiting floor can turn 3 years into 2 years, then that can only improve depth. We have all seen first hand what the lack of depth looks like. (2019 receivers and every year an entire defensive position group)

The other side of this is as we get better players - they need to play early or they will transfer somewhere else. And yes that means true freshman playing over 4th year junior diamond in the rough guys. This is especially true on defense where you can’t out scheme. OL and Interior DL- yeah I would rather have a 5th year Senior out there 90% of the time. Grimes, Claiborne, and Hall need to see some solid reps this year even if that means taking reps from guys like Banks, Ellison, and Smenda.

 

[skinnydeac]

The other side of this is as we get better players - they need to play early or they will transfer somewhere else. And yes that means true freshman playing over 4th year junior diamond in the rough guys. This is especially true on defense where you can’t out scheme. OL and Interior DL- yeah I would rather have a 5th year Senior out there 90% of the time. Grimes, Claiborne, and Hall need to see some solid reps this year even if that means taking reps from guys like Banks, Ellison, and Smenda.

Put the best players on the field. Have honest conversations with the rest. Some will leave but most will stay.