SI's Stewart Mandel Tweet

[LoveAU 0]

I am a female.  Not sure about other levels.

[TigerPaw1 0]

I don't think anyone is being disloyal but we have to be honest with our evaluation of this recruiting year.  I'm sure the coaches are disappointed that we missed on so many of our targets.  We all know that our football program had some bad hits this year and there have been several posts on that.  Some poeple on the site immediately attack anyone that is not breaking into a cheer.  Let's be honest; this is not a strong recruiting class and targeted recruits chose to move away from AU.  Being in the SEC, we all know the level of competition.  We can talk about what we already have and toot our talent horn but the fact is that while of course we have talent, the other teams in the conference are also stocked for the most part.  But they reload each year making their talent level even stronger.  One bad year won't kill us but it weakens us.  ANd knowing how hard our coaches worked to rebuild our program, it is very disappointing.  

Many of us worried about recruiting when the coordiantors took so long to hire.  While I think we hired very good coordinators that will make our program better, the delay, along with the overall perception that things were fallen apart, had an obvious effect.  But so many just posted that things would be fine, the coaches had a plan, and we were in line to get a stellar class.  It didn't happen.  I hope that if there is a lessen to be learned is that the world does not love AU the way we do.  We need to look at things from a more realistic perspective and then look for how to do things better.  

Next season we will be competing in the best conference once again.  I hope we can show marked improvement and earn the respect of the next wave of recruits.  AL, UGA, and LSU continue to bring in top classes.  It doesn't take too many of these low years to bring down a program.                    

this is exactly how I feel. I don't understand why you can't be disappointed in what has happened today and be happy with whose coming

[vandyvoot 8]

I am a female.  Not sure about other levels.

Sorry, I just found it amusing. Didn't mean anything more than that.

[dpwspringer 0]

How often do freshman contribute significantly without going through spring practice, summer workouts, and fall camp?  If we don't sign a full class now, we have a chance of making up ground by signing players in January that we didn't sign now.  There is more than one way of getting there.

[JMDurron 0]

I don't think anyone is being disloyal but we have to be honest with our evaluation of this recruiting year.  I'm sure the coaches are disappointed that we missed on so many of our targets.  We all know that our football program had some bad hits this year and there have been several posts on that.  Some poeple on the site immediately attack anyone that is not breaking into a cheer.  Let's be honest; this is not a strong recruiting class and targeted recruits chose to move away from AU.  Being in the SEC, we all know the level of competition.  We can talk about what we already have and toot our talent horn but the fact is that while of course we have talent, the other teams in the conference are also stocked for the most part.  But they reload each year making their talent level even stronger.  One bad year won't kill us but it weakens us.  ANd knowing how hard our coaches worked to rebuild our program, it is very disappointing.  

Many of us worried about recruiting when the coordiantors took so long to hire.  While I think we hired very good coordinators that will make our program better, the delay, along with the overall perception that things were fallen apart, had an obvious effect.  But so many just posted that things would be fine, the coaches had a plan, and we were in line to get a stellar class.  It didn't happen.  I hope that if there is a lessen to be learned is that the world does not love AU the way we do.  We need to look at things from a more realistic perspective and then look for how to do things better.  

Next season we will be competing in the best conference once again.  I hope we can show marked improvement and earn the respect of the next wave of recruits.  AL, UGA, and LSU continue to bring in top classes.  It doesn't take too many of these low years to bring down a program.                    

This is very well said, and captures my feelings exactly.  I worried about the timeline, not the quality, of the coordinator hires hurting us in recruiting, and it appears that it may have done so.  There was apparently no bump from winning the National Championship a year ago, which means that our rivals were able to effectively negate our recruiting advantage with their media advantage.  These two things are extremely frustrating to someone who wholeheartedly roots for Auburn, but has concerns about our ability to keep up with the top rivals in our division, who just happen to be the top teams in all of NCAA football. 

In 2010, we talked about going from good to great.  That is a prerequisite for success in the SEC West.  This appears to be, by all accounts, a good recruiting class in terms of talent.  We need great recruiting classes on a regular, not occasional basis in order to maintain elite program status.  The problem is that high school football recruits are much like MLB Draft picks - there is a very high attrition rate, so large numbers of these "lottery tickets" are needed in order to get the required impact on the field.  This class looks good, but after what happened two years ago, it should have/could have been great, and it's a tad disappointing that it appears not to be, and that is absolutely NOT a slam on any of the young men who have committed to Auburn today.  It just means that I'm afraid we need more of them than we have right now. 

Given the apparent quality of the OC/DC hires, we have every reason to expect a great, full recruiting class next season.  The problem is, we had similarly good reasons to expect a great, full recruiting class this year, and it appears that we are coming up a bit (not a lot, just a bit) short of that, and now our margin for error with these recruits is much smaller than the margin for error that our closest rivals have. 

Here's to you, Coach Grimes, it's on you to make this class kick some tail and take some names. 

Mandel is trolling, but you can troll without necessarily being factually incorrect. 

[TXaubie 570]

On Mandel's tweet.  Didn't we have the #1 ranked class last year.  Where was this so called bump supposed to take us.   

[bikeriderga 135]

This is a good class of athletes, not great (according to overall rankings) but good. That is the price you pay though, trying to hold out for the elites. I would rather take athletes who want to play at AU, rather than hold out for some prima- donnas who have a tendency to string you along like a beautiful women in a room full of nerds.

Still think we should have gone after some solid high profile Jr College transfers, like Patterson. Jr College transfers have worked out well for AU and should help boost our on the field profile.

Regardless, we have had two great years of recruits and while this class does not approach the ones we have had for the past two years, it is a solid class and will help round out some missing holes. If these recruits have the raw talent I feel our coaching staff can coach them up. Not too long ago, a 3 star won every defensive award there is and was a 1st round draft choice.. Just because they did not have the stars in HS does not mean that they will not have the ***** when they finish the collegiate careers.

All we need to get back to the top of the recruiting wars, is on the field wins. If we complete for the top of the SEC, recruiting will come more easily. This has been a bad year for AU all the way around; negative press, mediocre performances, and coaching caurusels. Next year should be far better; both in terms of recruiting and in terms of wins.

Win 10 next year and we will be back in the thick of things. Win more than 10, and we will be able to garner the attention we need to recruit and remove the stigmas.

[Josh99045 0]

I don't think anyone is being disloyal but we have to be honest with our evaluation of this recruiting year.  I'm sure the coaches are disappointed that we missed on so many of our targets.  We all know that our football program had some bad hits this year and there have been several posts on that.  Some poeple on the site immediately attack anyone that is not breaking into a cheer.  Let's be honest; this is not a strong recruiting class and targeted recruits chose to move away from AU.  Being in the SEC, we all know the level of competition.  We can talk about what we already have and toot our talent horn but the fact is that while of course we have talent, the other teams in the conference are also stocked for the most part.  But they reload each year making their talent level even stronger.  One bad year won't kill us but it weakens us.  ANd knowing how hard our coaches worked to rebuild our program, it is very disappointing.  

Many of us worried about recruiting when the coordiantors took so long to hire.  While I think we hired very good coordinators that will make our program better, the delay, along with the overall perception that things were fallen apart, had an obvious effect.  But so many just posted that things would be fine, the coaches had a plan, and we were in line to get a stellar class.  It didn't happen.  I hope that if there is a lessen to be learned is that the world does not love AU the way we do.  We need to look at things from a more realistic perspective and then look for how to do things better.  

Next season we will be competing in the best conference once again.  I hope we can show marked improvement and earn the respect of the next wave of recruits.  AL, UGA, and LSU continue to bring in top classes.  It doesn't take too many of these low years to bring down a program.                    

The nail was hit directly on the head.

[TigerVII 108]

I don't think anyone is being disloyal but we have to be honest with our evaluation of this recruiting year.  I'm sure the coaches are disappointed that we missed on so many of our targets.  We all know that our football program had some bad hits this year and there have been several posts on that.  Some poeple on the site immediately attack anyone that is not breaking into a cheer.  Let's be honest; this is not a strong recruiting class and targeted recruits chose to move away from AU.  Being in the SEC, we all know the level of competition.  We can talk about what we already have and toot our talent horn but the fact is that while of course we have talent, the other teams in the conference are also stocked for the most part.  But they reload each year making their talent level even stronger.  One bad year won't kill us but it weakens us.[/b]  ANd knowing how hard our coaches worked to rebuild our program, it is very disappointing.  

Many of us worried about recruiting when the coordiantors took so long to hire.  While I think we hired very good coordinators that will make our program better, the delay, along with the overall perception that things were fallen apart, had an obvious effect.  But so many just posted that things would be fine, the coaches had a plan, and we were in line to get a stellar class.  It didn't happen.  I hope that if there is a lessen to be learned is that the world does not love AU the way we do.  We need to look at things from a more realistic perspective and then look for how to do things better.  

Next season we will be competing in the best conference once again.  I hope we can show marked improvement and earn the respect of the next wave of recruits.  AL, UGA, and LSU continue to bring in top classes. It doesn't take too many of these low years to bring down a program.                    

First, this is not a "bad" or "weak" recruiting class.  Our average player ranking is between 3.5 and 3.75, and is higher than probably any recruiting classes we've had since 2002 (other than possibly 2010 and 2011, and 2010 was considered a "great" recruiting class because we signed 32 - not 20 - players, and quantity combined with quality to elevate our team ranking.  This is a good recruiting class, and could be a very good recruiting class with the addition of another 4* or 5* or both.  For the definition of an "average" recruiting class, look at our 2009 class.  For the definition of a "bad" recruiting class, look at the 2004 class (after JetGate) and the 2008 class (the last time we replaced both coordinators prior to signing day).

Second, to your point that it doesn't take too many low years to bring down a program, let's be thankful that this was not a "low year" and that our coaches give 4-year scholarships instead of 1-year scholarships.  If you are measuring our class against the one across the state, then you will be disappointed most years, because they out-recruited us during every year that Shula was there except his first class, and they will always out-recruit us year-in and year-out unless they are facing major NCAA sanctions during a particular year (which contributed to our outstanding classes in 2002 and 2003).  We, however, hold the advantage in head-to-head matchups over the past 30 years because of good coaching and good character of the athletes in the program.  How on earth could we have had the disastrous recruiting class in 2008 followed up by the mediocre class in 2009 and still win the BCS in 2010?  Cam was and is great, but he didn't do it by himself.  He had some outstanding linemen and skill players complementing his talents.