Class is headlined with ten four stars.....

[JIHawg]

And fourteen three stars (some who are close to fours).

There is speed, speed, speed everywhere you look.  Big needs addressed at receiver and in the defensive backfield.

In three years, we will know, but it's fun to dream about all of these guys filling holes for the next three years, some starting next year.

It's a good day to be a Hog.  Oh, and we didn't compete with Baylor for any of these guys.

[The Hawg Marshal]

http://www.wholehogsports.com/17fbcommitments/

[bhogs05]

I think it's a good class and I'm very excited about the secondary guys we got..has potential to be a great DB class. 

[AugustaHog]

There's definitely some good talent there.  A ton of the talent seems to be concentrated at WR/DB.  We have a definite need at both spots so that's a good thing.  LB looks promising too.  The OL/DL classes worry me some though.  The players there look to have potential but there are no absolute lock blue chip prospects either.  The offensive skill guys look really good.  I like Williams and Hayden at RB.  Martin and Patton are plug and play guys.  Koilan Jackson looks great too.  Several other WRs have some promise as well.  Hard to say on Hyatt, but he looks to have ability and if Enos can clean his mechanics up some, he might be a serious player.  The success of this class may hinge on how much of an impact the JUCO guys can have early.  If they can come in and learn the system before game 1, this class can have serious early impact with all 4.

[Timfromlittlerockhog]

Ok I think it was a very good class. Especially because of the way we addressed our secondary needs. The last couple of classes have done a good job of getting our LBer and Dline needs addressed. Now we have a class that is loaded with skill position guys. Calloway and Brown are you kidding ? Now when we leave our guys on an island (like we tend to do regardless of who our defensive coordinator is. We will still have a shot at making a play. Speed.. Finally !!!

I am curious about where we finished in the overall standings though.

[OutlawHawg]

Don't forget all the linemen with big frames.

[DeltaBoy]

Woo Pig!

[HamSammich]

Don't forget all the linemen with big frames.

Exactly ... one of the best all time classes for arkansas

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Exactly ... one of the best all time classes for arkansas

I think he was being sarcastic.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

What service has us with 10 4 stars?

[JIHawg]

ESPN has 9 other services have a 10th. Nice try though.

[GoHogzzGo]

What service has us with 10 4 stars?

[SemperFi]

I can't argue against this being an outstanding class. I cannot remember the last time that we had a Secondary class with this much excitement attached to it.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

ESPN has 9 other services have a 10th. Nice try though.

Whatever.  You say 10, I believe you.  Just wanting to know the sources.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

I can't argue against this being an outstanding class. I cannot remember the last time that we had a Secondary class with this much excitement attached to it.

Yes, the strength is offense skill players (fairly typical for us) and DB's galore.

[Youngsta71701]

ESPN has 9 other services have a 10th. Nice try though.

These are the 4-stars I have listed from at least one of the major recruiting services.

1. Jeremy Patton- Rivals, 247, ESPN
2. Brandon Martin- Rivals, 247, ESPN
3. Chevin Calloway- Rivals, 247, ESPN
4. Montaric Brown- Rivals, 247, ESPN
5. Chase Hayden- Rivals
6. Daulton Hyatt- ESPN
7. Maleek Williams- ESPN
8. Kolian Jackson- ESPN
9. Devion Warren- ESPN
10. Dalton Wagner- 247Sports

[RazorPiggie]

24/7 composite has 4. So maybe collectively we have 10?

[Hogwild]

solid class but atleast put it in perspective

As of 2pm EST
Percentage of SEC Classes that are 4 or 5 stars

1. Alabama (81.5%)
2. Georgia (80.0%)
3. LSU (66.7%)*
4. Auburn (47.8%)
5. Florida (47.6%)
6. Texas A&M (33.3%)
7. South Carolina (24.0%)
8. Tennessee (17.9%)
9. Arkansas (16.7%)  Kentucky (16.7%)  Mississippi St (16.7%)*
12. Ole Miss (9.5%)
13. Missouri (0.0%) Vanderbilt (0.0%)

* still has a 4/5 star decision pending

[Bubba's Bruisers]

24/7 composite has 4. So maybe collectively we have 10?

Ah, see that's different.  I thought the OP was claiming that a service had us at 10.  I was like, seriously?

[Bubba's Bruisers]

solid class but least but it in perspective

What the crap happened with TN this year?  I guess most are figuring out Butch ain't all that.

[Hogwild]

What the crap happened with TN this year?  I guess most are figuring out Butch ain't all that.

The state had three 5 stars (LSU & Clemson each grabbed one)

The state had six 4 stars (LSU, Clemson, Memphis and Maryland each grabbed one)

TN only got 3 of 9 in their home state.

Then we grabbed the top 3 star from their state, Oregon grabbed the next highest rated 3 star player.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

The state had three 5 stars (LSU & Clemson each grabbed one)

The state had six 4 stars (LSU, Clemson, Memphis and Maryland each grabbed one)

TN only got 3 of 9 in their home state.

Then we grabbed the top 3 star from their state, Oregon grabbed the next highest rated 3 star player.

Yes, but why did TN have such a miss rate in state?

[Hogwild]

The other UT did way worse

The Longhorns lost out on two big instate players today, meaning they only got 1 of the top 20 players in the state.  He was ranked #20. Zero players in the top 100 nationally

[Hog N Bama]

Yes, but why did TN have such a miss rate in state?

Maybe cause Sargent Carter is all bark and no bite?

[Jackrabbit Hog]

Yes, but why did TN have such a miss rate in state?

It's still a top 20 class.  As usual, Butch signed over the limit. 

[RazorPiggie]

Ah, see that's different.  I thought the OP was claiming that a service had us at 10.  I was like, seriously?

Everyone will use ESPN this year because it puts us up there inside the top 25 with 9 4* guys. I like the composite better personally. Gives you a better idea where everyone has them ranked.

[Jim Harris]

It's still a top 20 class.  As usual, Butch signed over the limit. 

when does their numbers ever reach a point that they can no longer blue shirt signees? At some point, signing the max allowable per year of 25 should be required, no?

[Hogwild]

Yes, but why did TN have such a miss rate in state?

It seems like couple of factors were in play-


Butch offered 20 scholarship to a high school in Florida (IMG), over the summer before offering scholarships to some of the in state players.  That didn't sit well with TN high school coaches.
One of the top in state players 5 star safety wanted to play for "DBU" so he enrolled at LSU early. 
Weaker than normal in-state classes in South Carolina and Louisiana, cause both set of Tigers to go out of state for talent. Clemson then wins the national title.
Year 5 of the Butch era, and really has nothing to show for it.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/sports/college/story/2017/feb/01/in-state-misses-hurt-vols-2017-recruiting-cla/410537/

[woodhog14]

The state had three 5 stars (LSU & Clemson each grabbed one)

The state had six 4 stars (LSU, Clemson, Memphis and Maryland each grabbed one)

TN only got 3 of 9 in their home state.

Then we grabbed the top 3 star from their state, Oregon grabbed the next highest rated 3 star player.

nm

[Youngsta71701]

24/7 composite has 4. So maybe collectively we have 10?

You are correct sir. 247Sports has Dalton Wagner rated as a 4-star recruit. I will update my list. If you look as this class collectively looks like we signed a pretty good class.

[LRHawg]

Many were complaining last spring and summer about us taking what they called questionable commits, but look at several of them now. I haven't gone back to compare but I know at least 2-3 picked up an extra star after the season last fall. Congrats to the coaching staff on recognizing them and getting on them early.

[bennyl08]

Everyone will use ESPN this year because it puts us up there inside the top 25 with 9 4* guys. I like the composite better personally. Gives you a better idea where everyone has them ranked.

I prefer to do a super score for recruits.

Judging HS recruits is an iffy endeavor to begin with. One of the biggest issues is that there are so many to evaluate, it's hard to invest too much time in any of them. So, whenever there is disagreement on the two, I feel it is reasonable to assume that the lower score was due to a lack of seeing what made the person a higher star rather than the service actively something to make them say this player is only x-1 stars.

Sure, it has the added benefit of always making recruits look better as well. However, the reasoning isn't based on just wanting to feel warm and fuzzy inside, but actually has at least some logic behind it.

[Pig in the Pokey]

And I see nothing wrong with calling a kid a 4 * if one or 2 services rate him a 4 * regardless of his average. Why? Because we ALL know that our guys are under rated , if anything, so it is fair for us to call it this way.

[factchecker]

Everyone will use ESPN this year because it puts us up there inside the top 25 with 9 4* guys. I like the composite better personally. Gives you a better idea where everyone has them ranked.

Here..... you can pick whichever one you like:

247 composite:

Arkansas 28

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/CompositeTeamRankings

247 (non-composite):

Arkansas - 24

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/TeamRankings

ESPN:

Arkansas - 26

http://m.espn.com/ncf/recruiting/classRankings?wjb

Rivals:

Arkansas - 24

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2017

Scout:

Arkansas - 27

https://www.scout.com/college/football/recruiting/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=14&yr=2017


AVERAGE RANKING via USA TODAY:

Arkansas = 26.25

http://usatodayhss.com/2017/latest-2017-college-football-recruiting-composite-team-rankings

[Pork Twain]

A lot to do about nothing.  The OP said we had ten 4* players in this class.  He never said we had ten 4* as rated by one service.

[1highhog]

Here..... you can pick whichever one you like:

247 composite:

Arkansas 28

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/CompositeTeamRankings

247 (non-composite):

Arkansas - 24

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/TeamRankings

ESPN:

Arkansas - 26

http://m.espn.com/ncf/recruiting/classRankings?wjb

Rivals:

Arkansas - 24

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2017

Scout:

Arkansas - 27

https://www.scout.com/college/football/recruiting/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=14&yr=2017


AVERAGE RANKING via USA TODAY:

Arkansas = 26.25

http://usatodayhss.com/2017/latest-2017-college-football-recruiting-composite-team-rankings

Man, this star rating is all over the place.  If Bama had of offered every guy we recruited and hauled in they would have all jumped up one star in ranking, I speak the truth.

[onebadrubi]

Man, this star rating is all over the place.  If Bama had of offered every guy we recruited and hauled in they would have all jumped up one star in ranking, I speak the truth.

Looks like if OU offers then they get even a bigger jump

[Pig in the Pokey]

Looks like if OU offers then they get even a bigger jump

paying Subs. If we as a fanbase paid to get past their crappy insider's pay wall, our class would be about #20 with all the bumps that brings. That's the REAL reason we'll never have higher than a #15-20 class. Ever.

[bennyl08]

I think the star gazers tend to be more of the casual recruiting fan crowd, and very naive. It's a good system to start a basis with, but really it's just something that has blown up because of the media coverage. If you have the time, go through a prospects offer list, know the competition they face and actually watch film on them. Most of the people that get so irate over the rankings don't know basic football and seem to not understand that some guys are rated higher because of exposure and the area they play in. We had several guys this year with great intangibles and potential that the coaches see as a great fit within the program and at a certain spot. However, a lot of these guys played quarterback or another position in HS, and that's going to diminish the ranking more times than not. Obviously, ratings are not the end all be all, and it is A LOT more enjoyable if you temper your expectations and understand that Arkansas is not Bama, Florida, Georgia or LSU.

Disagree, well, apart from the obvious trolls. The troll will yes complain about somebody like Curtis or Skipper or players like that who if you look at who else recruited them or if you watch the tape, you can see that they are not your ordinary 3*. However, they will complain if a class is full of 4*'s that there aren't enough 5*'s and that if it is full of 5*'s that we'll struggle with depth since half the players will leave early and the other half will transfer to get more PT.

If we don't include such trolls into the equation, the 'star gazers' are typically the ones who do go out and watch the highlight tapes of the recruits to get an idea of them and are frequently the ones who do post the scholly offers of current recruits.

OTOH, many anti-stars are the ones who seem to only be casual fans and not understand the intricacies. They will see that there were 4 2*'s/NR players in the first round of a draft and proclaim that stars don't matter, ignoring that 25% of anybody ranked a 5* becomes a first round draft pick and only a fraction of a percentage of 2*/NR players do the same.

The stars matter crowd (ignoring the trolls) are often the first to say that there's a lot more to the story than just stars, but that they are a pretty good cliff-notes indicator and there are fully decades of material proving mathematically that stars do in fact matter. They don't guarantee anything, but there doesn't exist a better single predictive measure. The stars don't matter crowd will argue that there is absolutely zero value in star rankings, though without ever explaining why then the HS stars are still so incredibly good at predicting things like all-pro lists for players 10+ years removed from being HS recruits.

By your own post you just made, you are including yourself in the star gazers crowd by admitting it is a good system to start a basis with.

[bennyl08]

We're just totally on different pages for what types of people come to mind for each then, and that's okay. Everyone has different experiences with different types of people. I guess the so-called trolls are the majority that I'm thinking about that are real big fans of the Hogs, but wouldn't know 5 of the incoming class. Also, I think you're not understanding what I mean by a good basis to start with. It's a good basis to get to know some of the prospects to start following. Unless you have a connection to every coach at every high school, how are you going to know which kids to even be on the lookout for or evaluate to your own accord? I get what you're trying to say as far as accusing me as a star-gazer, but again, you misunderstood.

For fans and journalists, it's a good place to start with. For most coaches, I'd imagine few could say how many stars a certain player has. They are going to get videos from HS coaches, see all state lists, scout various camps, host their own, etc... They probably do look at something like 247 just for fun, but I doubt that it is a major piece of the puzzle for p5 coaches.

Fair enough of misunderstanding, but stars make an incredibly accurate prediction of future success. I guess I projected my own understanding of stats and stars into your post. To my knowledge, there does not exist a singular metric with more predictive power. Is one metric going to give you as complete a story as say 3 different metrics? Probably not. However, how many here have the time to watch the highlights of every recruit for every other SEC team? That's ~350 recruits every single year. Average of say 5 min per video, that's 30 hours of tape (not to mention the time to find the recruits and find the tapes and think about what you are seeing. Maybe another 6 hours to write down all the offers from each player, and presumably introduce some subjective weighting as to which scholarships are a bigger deal and such. I do all of that for hog players, but for other teams, I'm just going to look at the stars and nothing else and still be ~70% as accurate in about 1% of the time.

[hawgwash]

Here..... you can pick whichever one you like:

247 composite:

Arkansas 28

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/CompositeTeamRankings

247 (non-composite):

Arkansas - 24

http://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/TeamRankings

ESPN:

Arkansas - 26

http://m.espn.com/ncf/recruiting/classRankings?wjb

Rivals:

Arkansas - 24

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2017

Scout:

Arkansas - 27

https://www.scout.com/college/football/recruiting/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=14&yr=2017


AVERAGE RANKING via USA TODAY:

Arkansas = 26.25

http://usatodayhss.com/2017/latest-2017-college-football-recruiting-composite-team-rankings

Can anyone explain the logic of a composite ranking of 28 when all the individual components of the composite are between 24 and 27?

[bennyl08]

Can anyone explain the logic of a composite ranking of 28 when all the individual components of the composite are between 24 and 27?

The composite is of the stars/rankings of the player. Not a composite of the team ranking. Seems weird, but it is possible.

In any given one of the places, we may rank 26. However, when you pull the places together, our players may composite slightly lower and so we become 28th in ranking.

[Oklahawg]

Three comments:

1. How many of these players have you seen play live, and how many other players ranked above them have you seen play live?
2. How many of these players have you seen on film, and how many other players ranked above them have you seen on film?

Affirmative responses will generally align with the posters who like this class. They SEE for themselves that the talent is an upgrade in so many ways.

3. No recruiting cycle has exposed the star/ranking system like 2017. We saw it, in spades, with Arkansas HS kids. Thompson "blows up" because of a supposed commitable offer to FSU. Byers downgrades only after Bama pulls their offer. Norgood gets an extra star and everyone panics without realizing our coaches compared him to a collection of commits (now signees) and found him superior (ask those who saw him live and also saw Curl and Curtis live and they'll say we got the best two of the three).

The longer I follow recruiting the more I realize that we will always be down the list in February, but out-perform that in the season.

Bama and LSU are still the top dogs around these parts. For a lot of reasons (another thread, another time), they are the gold standard in SEC recruiting...but also because of player development. Outside of an inexplicable failure at developing at QB under Miles, both Bama and LSU attract top talent AND develop top talent. Those two things go hand in hand.

When we beat Bama and LSU for recruits more than they beat us we improve. Need to do it more, but I think we are turning a corner (we'll see in 2017, 18 or 19).

[Oklahawg]

I asked the first two questions because I had the opportunity to see Curl twice and Curtis twice (live, and another time saw Curtis on TV). They are better than any DBs I've seen UA recruit in a long time (by watching tape). Calloway is better than they are. Hard to say on Brown given the competition level.

[Hogs-n-Roses]

Some other numbers of interest.24/7,espn,scout we are 10th in the SEC. Rivals 9th.