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One Class Can Kill You - Reviewing the Texas 2019 Class


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Two of the three most productive players in the class were Roschon Johnson and Sweat. One was recruited as a QB and the other was the lowest-rated guy in the class. Whittington was a good player and a great culture guy. The rest of the class was straight ass, my dudes. 

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28 minutes ago, MuellerHorn said:

The lowest-ranked recruit is going to be the highest draft pick (assuming he goes before the 115th pick, which he will). Thats just wild. 

Remember when lots of folks, myself included, thought we only offered D'Onta Forman to secure a commitment from his brother Armanti?

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1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

-Multiple players, with whom early expectations were high, never contributed. Bru McCoy, the highest ranked player in the class, injured his pussy and never played a down. Degabriel Floyd, who Texas needed at LB early, never played a down due to medial issues. They needed Caleb Johnson to come in a make an impact, instead they ran him off during his first spring. Derian Brown had the head injury and his football career was over before it started. Peter Mpagi had the major heart problems that ended his career before it started. That's 5 guys out of 24 who never saw their first fall in a fucking uniform and pads. 21% of the class never existed except on paper. 

You should probably add Liebrock, Jake Smith and Isiah Hookfin to the list of guys who never contributed primarily because of injury. That's just an inordinate number. That class really was snakebit.

Edited by Mitch Cumsteen
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19 minutes ago, SimkinsMan said:

This thread ...

image.gif.281ed804228c97c8ee15f562f4b075c4.gif

There are a few tangents to this thread that I've pondered as well. 

1) Something similar to this thread regarding the 2022 Texas A&M class. 

2) Looking at the opposite premise - can a single class make you playoff compatible?

3) Rather than thinking through the 5 star and high 4 star impacts, going the opposite route and looking at a few teams and their classes over a 5 year period and seeing how many guys ranked outside of the top 250 nationally played key roles on their team, and how those teams performed. Maybe there are some interesting indicators there that would help thinking about intangibles like evaluation, development, luck and such differently. Maybe it's all noise. That's why it intrigues me.

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

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Off-ball LB recruiting was so damn bad for a 3-4 year stretch.

2017- No HS guys. Gary Johnson from the JUCO ranks was added late.

2018- Dele Adeoeye (IMG curse!). Maybe you can include Byron Vaughns and his overtweeting mom in this group but he seemed destined for edge once he filled out.

2019- Floyd and David Gbenda. Great character additions Caleb Johsnon and Juwan Mitchell from the JUCO ranks late.

2020- Didn't have one until the last minute when Jaylan Ford was added.

 

Would love to know the thought process throughout those classes. And 2021 wasn't much better (Terrance Cooks, who lasted 3 seconds under the new staff, and Mo Blackwell, who was a tweener)

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1 hour ago, MuellerHorn said:

The lowest-ranked recruit is going to be the highest draft pick (assuming he goes before the 115th pick, which he will). Thats just wild. 

Sweat wasn't the lowest-ranked.

Also, I seriously couldn't believe that Tyler Johnson didn't pan out.   I was OK with Shephard bombing -- didn't expect much out of him except providing aggy misery.

 

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1 minute ago, Beau Vine said:

Sweat wasn't the lowest-ranked.

Also, I seriously couldn't believe that Tyler Johnson didn't pan out.   I was OK with Shephard bombing -- didn't expect much out of him except providing aggy misery.

 

On3 was what I was using and Sweat was the lowest ranked by their tracking (they didn't have their own for that year, so they just incorporated the other 3):

https://www.on3.com/college/texas-longhorns/football/2019/industry-comparison-commits/

If someone else had it different, it's splitting hairs. He was at or near the bottom of the pile and wound up being the most important positive development in that class.

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15 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

There are a few tangents to this thread that I've pondered as well. 

1) Something similar to this thread regarding the 2022 Texas A&M class. 

2) Looking at the opposite premise - can a single class make you playoff compatible?

3) Rather than thinking through the 5 star and high 4 star impacts, going the opposite route and looking at a few teams and their classes over a 5 year period and seeing how many guys ranked outside of the top 250 nationally played key roles on their team, and how those teams performed. Maybe there are some interesting indicators there that would help thinking about intangibles like evaluation, development, luck and such differently. Maybe it's all noise. That's why it intrigues me.

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

I'm just being a drive-by commenter. I truly appreciate the effort to start a meaningful thread, as painful as it may be for us to revisit. 

That 2019 class was all the more of a gut punch because Texas football was such a fucking mirage. The team had its biggest win in nearly a decade, over Georgia, just weeks before signing day. Then they signed what appeared to be a bomber class headlined by that awesome dude from Cali, Bru McCoy. It looked like Herman had picked up the pieces from Chuckles and baked the fucking cake. Then it all exploded like that turkey on Christmas Vacation. 

It's good to remember what happened five years ago because it makes the reality of what is happening now all the more sweeter.

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2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

-Chris Adimora started a bunch in 2020 and was rarely ever a factor outside of that season.

I completely forgot that he existed. When I first read that I wasn't sure who you were even talking about. 

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I remember one of the big dynamics for the 19 class was going out of state. Jimbo was able to capitalize on the first year coaching bump and some bags with in-state guys, so we ended up going out of state for replacements. Demarvin Leal, Kenyon Green, Demani Richardson, Dylan Wright, and Brian Williams were replaced by Tyler Owens, Myron Warren, Marcus Washington, Chris Adimora, Tyler Hookin, etc. I also remember the twitter slap fights about our WR class vs. OU's class of five stars (Jadon Haselwood, Theo Wease, Trejan Bridges). At least we weren't alone in misery there. 

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6 minutes ago, Bodacious Bevo said:

I remember one of the big dynamics for the 19 class was going out of state. Jimbo was able to capitalize on the first year coaching bump and some bags with in-state guys, so we ended up going out of state for replacements. Demarvin Leal, Kenyon Green, Demani Richardson, Dylan Wright, and Brian Williams were replaced by Tyler Owens, Myron Warren, Marcus Washington, Chris Adimora, Tyler Hookin, etc. I also remember the twitter slap fights about our WR class vs. OU's class of five stars (Jadon Haselwood, Theo Wease, Trejan Bridges). At least we weren't alone in misery there. 

Tyler Owens is from Plano.

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4 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Tyler Owens is from Plano.

Sorry, as I was compiling the list I forgot about the whole out of state thing and just listed the replacements. Hookfin was in-state too. But the original point about going OOS was a big theme with Bru, Floyd, Smith, etc. The spin was about going national after the sugar bowl win, but really we were just missing on guys. And without NIL and the SEC, we weren't even really making in-roads to southeast. 

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2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

3) Rather than thinking through the 5 star and high 4 star impacts, going the opposite route and looking at a few teams and their classes over a 5 year period and seeing how many guys ranked outside of the top 250 nationally played key roles on their team, and how those teams performed. Maybe there are some interesting indicators there that would help thinking about intangibles like evaluation, development, luck and such differently. Maybe it's all noise. That's why it intrigues me.

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

I think looking at the outlier playoff teams would be more interesting -- specifically TCU last year and Washington this year, and maybe Cincinnati in 2021. TCU had 8 guys drafted off their playoff team. Cincy had 9 drafted off the 2021 team. TCU had a new coach. UW coach was in year 2. They both won primarily with players recruited by somebody else.

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Did a quick search on where everyone ended up. Some we already know; some were "what happened to that guy?"

Bru McCoy - most know he went back to USC then to Tennessee. Was a starter before a season-ending injury. Coming back for a sixth year.

Jake Smith has transferred to USC then to Arizona State and hasn't played since 2020 at Texas. Coming back for a sixth year I think.

Myron Warren played as a backup DT for Texas State. 

Admiora was a backup LB for SMU last season. 

Tyler Johnson was the starting LG for UH last year and transferred to play his sixth year for Coach Prime. Maybe he can get that rap career going?

Kennedy Lewis transferred to UTSA and then (had to dig for this one) East Los Angeles College. On3 has an RPM for him to transfer to Charlotte. 

Marcus Tillman transferred to Navarro JC and then committed, then de-committed, then re-committed and signed with Memphis in December 2022. He wasn't on the roster last fall so who knows where he ended up.

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7 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Did a quick search on where everyone ended up. Some we already know; some were "what happened to that guy?"

Bru McCoy - most know he went back to USC then to Tennessee. Was a starter before a season-ending injury. Coming back for a sixth year.

Jake Smith has transferred to USC then to Arizona State and hasn't played since 2020 at Texas. Coming back for a sixth year I think.

Myron Warren played as a backup DT for Texas State. 

Admiora was a backup LB for SMU last season. 

Tyler Johnson was the starting LG for UH last year and transferred to play his sixth year for Coach Prime. Maybe he can get that rap career going?

Kennedy Lewis transferred to UTSA and then (had to dig for this one) East Los Angeles College. On3 has an RPM for him to transfer to Charlotte. 

Marcus Tillman transferred to Navarro JC and then committed, then de-committed, then re-committed and signed with Memphis in December 2022. He wasn't on the roster last fall so who knows where he ended up.

Kennedy Lewis and DGF to play for Biff Poggi.  That should inspire some prose from @closetojumpingnext year.

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11 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Did a quick search on where everyone ended up. Some we already know; some were "what happened to that guy?"

Bru McCoy - most know he went back to USC then to Tennessee. Was a starter before a season-ending injury. Coming back for a sixth year.

Jake Smith has transferred to USC then to Arizona State and hasn't played since 2020 at Texas. Coming back for a sixth year I think.

Myron Warren played as a backup DT for Texas State. 

Admiora was a backup LB for SMU last season. 

Tyler Johnson was the starting LG for UH last year and transferred to play his sixth year for Coach Prime. Maybe he can get that rap career going?

Kennedy Lewis transferred to UTSA and then (had to dig for this one) East Los Angeles College. On3 has an RPM for him to transfer to Charlotte. 

Marcus Tillman transferred to Navarro JC and then committed, then de-committed, then re-committed and signed with Memphis in December 2022. He wasn't on the roster last fall so who knows where he ended up.

So many of the names from this class have me reacting like:

Guardians Of The Galaxy GIF

Many of them look vaguely familiar, like I remember them being mentioned, and then just forgotten about.

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3 hours ago, closetojumping said:

 

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

What about a deep dive on Super Blue Chips?  And on how many calories four Arby's sandwiches have in them?.......sorry, just saw those are covered by someone elsewhere.

I wish there was some easy to understand metric that amounts to something like stars per win during their sophomore to senior years.  I only care about NFL future because that implies they were great players during college, in theory, and that should have led to wins. Super half baked since I know attrition and transfers and injuries mess up the class calcs.  I guess I'd one day like to see something that relates overall class stars to wins since one could define how well players played to the win-loss column and not to how many had brighter future post-Texas.

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4 hours ago, closetojumping said:

There are a few tangents to this thread that I've pondered as well. 

1) Something similar to this thread regarding the 2022 Texas A&M class. 

2) Looking at the opposite premise - can a single class make you playoff compatible?

3) Rather than thinking through the 5 star and high 4 star impacts, going the opposite route and looking at a few teams and their classes over a 5 year period and seeing how many guys ranked outside of the top 250 nationally played key roles on their team, and how those teams performed. Maybe there are some interesting indicators there that would help thinking about intangibles like evaluation, development, luck and such differently. Maybe it's all noise. That's why it intrigues me.

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

it's so bad, I just scroll to see if there is a new recruit/transfer that has their own post. God, I hate the offseason.

CHIEF

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7 hours ago, closetojumping said:

Degabriel Floyd, who Texas needed at LB early, never played a down due to medial issues.

Not sure if this was an intentional turn of phrase..if so, well played. Those cervical spine issues certainly made him mid as fuck. Was happy to see him persevere and eventually overcome those obstacles, though. I remember when Brown had his medical emergency. That was some scary shit. Talk about slings and fucking arrows...Floyd, Brown, and Mpagi are winners in my book.

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5 hours ago, closetojumping said:

3) Rather than thinking through the 5 star and high 4 star impacts, going the opposite route and looking at a few teams and their classes over a 5 year period and seeing how many guys ranked outside of the top 250 nationally played key roles on their team, and how those teams performed. Maybe there are some interesting indicators there that would help thinking about intangibles like evaluation, development, luck and such differently. Maybe it's all noise. That's why it intrigues me.

I've got some time right now and many of the stupid tangents that all of the threads are taking have bored me, so I'm pondering topics that might be interesting to me and some of you non-idiots posting here. 

Michigan would make a great subject for this topic. Their last Top 5 class was 2017, but I feel like most of the top of that class flamed out, and the lower ranked guys formed the backbone of the last couple of years. Classes have been ranked between 10-20 since, but the results were significantly better than Harbaugh’s early tenure when he seemed to be star chasing.

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6 hours ago, irishtexan said:

Two of the three most productive players in the class were Roschon Johnson and Sweat. One was recruited as a QB and the other was the lowest-rated guy in the class. Whittington was a good player and a great culture guy. The rest of the class was straight ass, my dudes. 

If JWhitt had the heart of a bunch of less accomplished Texas recruits, he'd have added to the long list of busts. If a bunch of those guys had his heart, they'd now be much more favorably remembered. 

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With the way that we process, I don't think a single class can kill. You recruit 27 and bring in 6 transfers and keep 6 or 7 from a class like that and that is 40 guys to build a team from. That's fine if you did well in the year before the crappy class - If that earlier class had 26 guys and 6 transfers, that is basically a full 85 man roster after all the chaff has been rooted out.  The key is a healthy roster churn like Glasscock helped manage.

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It is remarkable- a #3 class busting so badly. It’s an indictment not just of Texas’ scouting/recruiting, but also how team class rankings are determined. 
 
It was a Herman special- there are five OL on the field, so about 22% of the positions playing. In a class of 26, Texas took four OL, about 15%. (None panned out) 

Typically, there are 3-5 WRs on the field. Texas took six. The rankings should punish teams for letting their roster get out of whack, but they don’t. 

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40 minutes ago, Bevo said:

With the way that we process, I don't think a single class can kill. You recruit 27 and bring in 6 transfers and keep 6 or 7 from a class like that and that is 40 guys to build a team from. That's fine if you did well in the year before the crappy class - If that earlier class had 26 guys and 6 transfers, that is basically a full 85 man roster after all the chaff has been rooted out.  The key is a healthy roster churn like Glasscock helped manage.

I don't think it can now in the portal era.  You can easily churn through 100+ players over 4 years without being an unethical pos.  Pre-portal, with normal attirbution, it was hard to overcome.

----

The last time someone did a deep dive on recruiting rankings, wins, and draft picks, the conclusion was that quantity absolutely destroys quality.  As an example, one of the worst places to go as a top 100 player if you wanted to be drafted was Alabama.  Their bust rate was in the 70% range, but they just had so many that they were sending a handful every draft and that drove perception.

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1 hour ago, JBJ said:

The last time someone did a deep dive on recruiting rankings, wins, and draft picks, the conclusion was that quantity absolutely destroys quality.  As an example, one of the worst places to go as a top 100 player if you wanted to be drafted was Alabama.  Their bust rate was in the 70% range, but they just had so many that they were sending a handful every draft and that drove perception.

 

That's what I would guess - and that was the biggest problem with many of our previous classes (in addition to unbalanced recruiting) - we held on to guys who had no place on a D1 roster. If we would have had much larger classes and gotten rid of guys quicker, we would have been much deeper and had better teams.

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16 minutes ago, statsman said:

How about the 2021 class? Ranked #15, but with several guys to be drafted after three years- Worthy, Sanders, Murphy, Brooks, with others still playing and contributing, with a chance at the NFL in the future. 

I was looking at that as a topic. Check out the 2006 and 2021 classes that were light and lightly regarded for varying reasons, and then what each of those classes ended up doing in the program. Pretty fun stuff. I didn't really see anything was transferable in thinking about either class, but maybe there's something there. I don't know. Got a few of these topics that are swirling around in my head if I feel like doing another one.

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