23rd out of 50 ... 27th out of 50 ... 25th out of 50 ...
These are a sampling of the state rankings Missourians have grown accustomed to. Whether the topic is literacy rates, or state GDP, or most craft breweries per capita, the Show-Me-State always seems to land somewhere in the middle. When it comes to football, we appear to be no different.
Rivals.com ranked 99 schools based on their recruiting class for 2017. Missouri's class came in at #48. This falls in on the low end of the typical Mizzou class, but in the last five years, the Tigers have never ranked higher than #27. At this mid-range ranking, one or two extra four-star recruits can jump you by ten spots. By any measure, Mizzou is a middle-brow recruiting program. Is this because we aren't doing our due diligence on the recruiting trail? Is it because Missouri isn't a desirable program? Is it because we can't lock down our state borders? Let's take a look.
These are a sampling of the state rankings Missourians have grown accustomed to. Whether the topic is literacy rates, or state GDP, or most craft breweries per capita, the Show-Me-State always seems to land somewhere in the middle. When it comes to football, we appear to be no different.
Rivals.com ranked 99 schools based on their recruiting class for 2017. Missouri's class came in at #48. This falls in on the low end of the typical Mizzou class, but in the last five years, the Tigers have never ranked higher than #27. At this mid-range ranking, one or two extra four-star recruits can jump you by ten spots. By any measure, Mizzou is a middle-brow recruiting program. Is this because we aren't doing our due diligence on the recruiting trail? Is it because Missouri isn't a desirable program? Is it because we can't lock down our state borders? Let's take a look.
Missouri has not been a talent hot bed
Missouri has taken an additional amount of heat from the media this year because there is only one in-state recruit (Daron Davis, Kansas City) who signed with the program this year. Yes, one in-state recruit is low, but as many have pointed out, 2017 was not a banner year for high school football talent in Missouri. What's more, Missouri quite frankly ranks quite average in producing talent on any given year. This leads to the question, is focusing on "locking down the borders" even that important for Missouri. No one wants to see the Ezekiel Elliots of the world slip away, but let's put our energy where the recruits are. This year, Rivals ranked 30 Missouri football players according to their star system. Perennial football player factory, Texas had 532 players rated. Several Southern states with populations lower than Missouri's produced far more talent as well.
Alabama - 138
Louisiana - 144
Mississippi - 160
South Carolina - 66
Missouri is doing an okay job of securing in-state talent, but the real story is how Missouri just does not have the vibrant high school football culture that produces droves of college-ready talent. There is good news in all of this though. The map below tells the tale. Most of the players that do come from Missouri originate from the states two large metro areas. Mizzou recruiters can spend most of their attention to St. Louis and Kansas City and be near the majority of the talent. This should leave them plenty of time to dive into Texas, Florida, and Georgia, where there are far more players than there are universities.
Alabama - 138
Louisiana - 144
Mississippi - 160
South Carolina - 66
Missouri is doing an okay job of securing in-state talent, but the real story is how Missouri just does not have the vibrant high school football culture that produces droves of college-ready talent. There is good news in all of this though. The map below tells the tale. Most of the players that do come from Missouri originate from the states two large metro areas. Mizzou recruiters can spend most of their attention to St. Louis and Kansas City and be near the majority of the talent. This should leave them plenty of time to dive into Texas, Florida, and Georgia, where there are far more players than there are universities.
Hometown of Missouri Division One Players in 2016 and 2017.
Another glass-half-full aspect of Missouri's mediocre recruiting base is that Mizzou is the only FBS school in the state. When you are banking on state pride for a recruit, it's nice not to have competition. SB Nation recently did a study listing Missouri as one of the top states when comparing number of three-star or higher recruits to the number of FBS schools in that state.
There is going to be a much better crop of blue chip recruits from Missouri in 2018, and if Odom and company are doing their legwork, the Tigers should land a few of them. They won't get them all though and that leads to the next point.
There is going to be a much better crop of blue chip recruits from Missouri in 2018, and if Odom and company are doing their legwork, the Tigers should land a few of them. They won't get them all though and that leads to the next point.
Recruiting is inherently unfair ... Too bad
Alabama or LSU or Ohio State are going to come in here every year and steal away top talent. That is not going to change in 2018, nor will it likely ever change. College football is not the NFL. The worst teams don't get to take the first shot at the best players. The rich get richer in college football. That's not changing, so there's no use bitching about it. This ugly little fact means that for the foreseeable future Mizzou will likely always hover in the mid-range of recruiting classes, and will have to focus on maximizing themselves within that reality, rather than shooting for top-five classes.
Consistent winning is the only cure ... that or wildly exotic cheating (like Kansas is obviously doing now). Both have proven themselves effective over the years. All this really means though is that while the Tigers won't be filling their roster with 4* and 5* players, they should expect to land three to five of those types annually. Mizzou has done it in the past and nothing other than a mediocre talent pool should stand in the way of doing it in the future.
Consistent winning is the only cure ... that or wildly exotic cheating (like Kansas is obviously doing now). Both have proven themselves effective over the years. All this really means though is that while the Tigers won't be filling their roster with 4* and 5* players, they should expect to land three to five of those types annually. Mizzou has done it in the past and nothing other than a mediocre talent pool should stand in the way of doing it in the future.
Shop the Nation
So Missouri is a ho-hum place to find recruits. No big deal. Places like Florida and Texas have players to spare. Barry Odom has already put a priority on Texas, as well he should. If you're going to build a program at Missouri, you'll need to do some poaching outside your borders. And given the uneven talent coming from your own backyard, one could argue that establishing a base in a place like Texas is more important that in-state recruiting. Too many prognosticators ignore this reality. The fact is, Missouri will always be a middling place to draw talent, but that doesn't mean we have to have a middling program. Plenty of good players will see Mizzou as a gateway to the SEC, and the Tigers have always shown that 3* players are often just overlooked superstars waiting for their chance.
Fuck Rivals.
Fuck Rivals.
