Topic: OK I will be the 1st.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

Big Ol Hillbilly is correct on the recruiting front. We're getting hosed by schools like Miami (Oh), WMU, Tol, and many other mid majors. I belong to several recruiting services and we're ranked below MANY mid major programs. Lots of our commits (2016) have very little offers of note and some no offers at all. All of them can't be flying under the radar. 2 to 3 years back, Doc and staff were on top of their game. Not any more IMO.

As far as firing Doc,Legg etc. Get over it. Ain't gonna happen.

I honestly believe that doc was given way too much credit for those great recruiting classes of the past when, although he did play a roll in getting the kids here, more credit should have been given to Jujuan Seider for his work in Florida, Phil Ratliff for his work in Virginia/the Carolinas, and Todd Hartley for his work in Georgia. Losing all of those guys, especially Seider, has put a dent in our recruiting.

[BHFIOHIO]

you may have a point but ten yrs before those guys had a rep Doc was well known and liked all over S Fla. Its not his first rodeo. I am not worried about recruiting. Taking NQs aan advantage. But its hard not to doubt the Xs and Os of our coaching staff. Two games in a row where a doubtful Offense scored on us right out of the shute. Gotta get that fixed. Injuries are def worrisome.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

you may have a point but ten yrs before those guys had a rep Doc was well known and liked all over S Fla. Its not his first rodeo.

That is true, but it's also hard to argue the fact that prior to Jujuan Seider leaving his position here to go to a place that I can't stomach the name of, we were winning recruiting battles for some of the top talent in Florida against a lot of the big guys. That is fully qualified athletes as well, just not props. As soon as he departed, we started pulling mostly 2 star kids out of the sunshine state with little or no division I offers. Same goes for Hartley and state of Georgia. It's gonna be hard to hold on to those coaches with recruiting skills like that. For everyone to think that a recruiting legend like doc Holliday being our head coach was the main reason we got all of those top notch guys is totally false, and it started to show as soon as the coaches responsible for reeling in those recruits started moving on.

[muherd]

This is the stupidest thread I've ever seen on here PERIOD!

[BHFIOHIO]

Litton, Speedy Howard, both Tylers and the recent Louisville commit James Allen from Cira Fla. Two LBs Grimes and Couch also. We were rated #1 CUSA. Several no shows on first roster day but 5 are in class and we've added stud LB Durant, Allen and Griffin the UVA signee. Seider long gone, I just don't see it.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

Litton, Speedy Howard, both Tylers and the recent Louisville commit James Allen from Cira Fla. Two LBs Grimes and Couch also. We were rated #1 CUSA. Several no shows on first roster day but 5 are in class and we've added stud LB Durant, Allen and Griffin the UVA signee. Seider long gone, I just don't see it.

What's not to see? I'm referring to the kids that Seider got to sign and play for marshall who had scholarship offers from every major college in the country, no grade issues and no off the field issues. They signed and played here because they wanted to, not because it didn't work out elsewhere. He beat out major programs head to head for recruits the whole time he was here.

For example, the ones you named.

Chase Litton... Once committed to USF. Would have probably been at LSU had he not gotten into that trouble. His other offers besides us were FAU, FIU, USF, WKU, and western michigan.

The Howard kid has a good size offer list but with the exception of wvu, Miami, and pitt, most of his offers were bottom rung mid majors like Akron, FAU, Temple , and GA Southern.

The Tyler kids' COMBINED offer list includes App State, Bowling Green, Idaho, South Alabama, Coastal Carolina, Toledo, and UAB

The Grimes kid's list includes these powerhouses. Akron, Alcorn St, Appalachian State, FAU, FIU, Syracuse.

The others you listed are here because it didn't work out at their first choice, so I won't waste my time.

Now, before you say it, I know that AJ Leggett is no longer on our team, but I'm going to use him, because he is a prime example of what Seider did here time and time again that is no longer happening since he left.
 
Seider got AJ Leggett who was fully qualified and had no off the field issues to sign with Marshall university on signing day. Leggett was a 4 star recruit,  was the #9 ranked cornerback in the country, the #21 ranked player in the state of Florida, and a rivals top 150 recruit. There is no logical reason for him to choose mu, other than Seider being an ace recruiter. His scholarship list was as follows

Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Louisville, Miami, Minnesota, Ol Miss, Nebraska, UNC, Ohio State, South Carolina, Syracuse, UCF.

With a list like that, why would he choose MU? He's not the only one. Craig Wilkins, Brian Robinson, Andre Scott, etc etc etc.... The list was crazy. Those kinds of recruits in the sunshine state are not coming our way any longer other than the ones who use us as a fall back when their number one choice doesn't pan out and they prop here. We've gone from beating out the floridas and Florida states in recruiting battles to barely nudging past Bethune Cookman for recruits in a matter of a couple of years.

[Johnnyherd]

I know Doc is big on keeping players around after they graduate as GA's or putting them on the strength staff....Doc should work on building the next Jujaun Seider, someone that's from that area....

Doc says recruiting is about hard work, not about flash and glitz, he says that recruiting takes a team effort....

[HerdFanJ]

Do we really have a thread on a Herd message board, after a win, turn in to a thread praising the guy that bailed on his mentor that gave him his only non-grad assistant job and went north?  Hartley/Ratliff were behind the new recruiting areas where we have branched out, Doc still owns the FL areas he "gave" to Seider while he was here - ask any current players.  

Oh, we won in case nobody noticed....

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

Do we really have a thread on a Herd message board, after a win, turn in to a thread praising the guy that bailed on his mentor that gave him his only non-grad assistant job and went north?  Hartley/Ratliff were behind the new recruiting areas where we have branched out, Doc still owns the FL areas he "gave" to Seider while he was here - ask any current players.  

Oh, we won in case nobody noticed....

"Owns" them? Why are we not as effective in recruiting the areas he "gave" Seider since Seider's departure if Doc "owns" them? Proofs in the pudding. Also, I'm not praising Seider, just giving credit where credit is due. Like I said before, go look at ratings, offer lists, star ratings and number of Florida commits/targets from 2010-2013 and compare them to 2014-2016. There is no comparison. Not just Florida. The 2016 list looks worse than any of those Mark Snyder recruiting classes as far as star ratings go, and before you say it, I know star ratings aren't everything, but I doubt a whole recruiting class is a bunch of diamonds in the rough flying under the radar.

And also, yes I noticed... We won. We got took to double overtime by a bottom rung MAC school in front of 500 fans in a stadium that looks like Laidley field. Sorry I'm not floating around on a little cloud singing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah about it.

[BHFIOHIO]

still current recruiting champs of CUSA till 2016 says diff but whatever...and the two bigs new to the DL 6'3 300 J Smith  and M Thomson 6'6 250 ..yep ..Fla...Frankie Hernandez etc etc etc etc etc the pipeline still open

[breckjimison]

still current recruiting champs of CUSA till 2016 says diff but whatever...and the two bigs new to the DL 6'3 300 J Smith  and M Thomson 6'6 250 ..yep ..Fla...Frankie Hernandez etc etc etc etc etc the pipeline still open

Whoot Whoot!!!

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

still current recruiting champs of CUSA till 2016 says diff but whatever...and the two bigs new to the DL 6'3 300 J Smith  and M Thomson 6'6 250 ..yep ..Fla...Frankie Hernandez etc etc etc etc etc the pipeline still open

Being recruiting champs in the new conference USA is like being the smartest kid in the special ed class.

[iherdya]

welcome to marshall where 22-3 in your last 25 games, 1 conference title, 2 division titles, 2 bowl wins, isn't good enough.

[herdman]

welcome to marshall where 22-3 in your last 25 games, 1 conference title, 2 division titles, 2 bowl wins, isn't good enough.

With our schedule we really don't know how good we are. We should win 8 or 9 games on our schedule in our sleep.
 
Right now I think we are a mediocre football team at best. Just my opinion. Yes, I think CUSA is that bad.

[herdman]

Being recruiting champs in the new conference USA is like being the smartest kid in the special ed class.

Eventually it catches up with you. Better players want to play against better teams. Our athletic dept wants to rack up automatic wins and say look at us we are 10-2 headed to another bowl!

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

still current recruiting champs of CUSA till 2016 says diff but whatever...and the two bigs new to the DL 6'3 300 J Smith  and M Thomson 6'6 250 ..yep ..Fla...Frankie Hernandez etc etc etc etc etc the pipeline still open

And also you're missing the whole point of this debate. If you read my earlier post, you'd see that I'm not saying we don't still recruit Florida. Yes, you are correct, we still recruit and receive commitments from football players in the state of Florida. I'm not denying that. My whole argument is the caliber of players we are recruiting and signing from Florida now compared to the ones that Seider bagged for us is not even close to the same. Most of the ones we are getting now are either not rated high or we are their only chance due to academic or other issues. When Seider was the lead recruiter, we were snagging fully qualified commits away from the likes of Miami. Read my other post, i never once said we didn't still get football players from Florida, I'm just saying we get the level of players from Florida now that resemble the ones that Snyder's staff use to get, not Doc's early staff.

[GreenDaddy]

And also you're missing the whole point of this debate. If you read my earlier post, you'd see that I'm not saying we don't still recruit Florida. Yes, you are correct, we still recruit and receive commitments from football players in the state of Florida. I'm not denying that. My whole argument is the caliber of players we are recruiting and signing from Florida now compared to the ones that Seider bagged for us is not even close to the same. Most of the ones we are getting now are either not rated high or we are their only chance due to academic or other issues. When Seider was the lead recruiter, we were snagging fully qualified commits away from the likes of Miami. Read my other post, i never once said we didn't still get football players from Florida, I'm just saying we get the level of players from Florida now that resemble the ones that Snyder's staff use to get, not Doc's early staff.

I completely agree with this point. I think Doc is a great coach and I couldn't be more than happy with what he has accomplished over the past 3 years, but I don't think there is anything wrong with recognizing that our recruiting "on paper" hasn't been as good as it was during his first 3 years.

[herdfifteen]

Big Ol. As one who follows recruiting closely I applaud your knowledge in this area. You are correct about the recruits we have signed who will be coming next year, beating out Bethune, Fl A&M and the likes will not get it done. Too, you are correct about diamonds in the rough, you don't get fifteen of them, and collectively it appears to be our least impressive class in several years. Seider and Hartley were huge losses and it does appear Docs highly touted recruits are primarily ones not qualifying. Schools such as Western Mi, BG etc. are out recruiting us in Florida for kids. Of course, I love the fall back position of those who remind us Chad was not highly recruited, but we are not presently winning recruiting battles needed to keep this program on top and it may be showing.

[ShawHerd]

No one here is saying we are a P-5 conference but we are at the top of the G-5s. We are fighting an uphill battle when the P-5s are making all the rules especially when an Alabama board is able to dismantle an entire program in their own state, irreparable damage was done to that program.

In spite of how bad our recruiting is we have been ranked in the top 25 more than once, and just last year we were ranked at the end of the year anywhere from 14th to 23rd by various polls.(http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/1/13/7536455/college-football-rankings-top-25-final-2014-2015) Does it matter? Sure it does. You can pick individual players that support your arguments but this is team ball and Marshall has done extremely well in spite of the budgets we have and the P-5 calling the shots. It doesn't help with Marshall fans forgetting, all of this, in an effort to boost their own egos and supposed knowledge of how things work. I hate to tell you but Seider works at WVU, not Marshall, you need to go to their message boards to blow smoke. There was more coaches than just Seider recruiting for Marshall during his tenure here at Marshall and Doc recruited Seider.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

In spite of how bad our recruiting is we have been ranked in the top 25 more than once, and just last year we were ranked at the end of the year anywhere from 14th to 23rd by various polls.(http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/1/13/7536455/college-football-rankings-top-25-final-2014-2015) Does it matter? Sure it does.

We were ranked due to being undefeated most of the season because we played probably the worst schedule in division 1.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

Maybe I'm totally wrong and Seider, Hartley, and Ratliff's departures were not what's to blame for our decline in recruiting. Maybe it's the fact that kids don't want to play the worst team in the Big 10,  1 FBS school and the Mac east for their out of conference schedule, then play against the newer, crappier CUSA in conference.

[iherdya]

in the 90s did our fans go on and on about how we're only good because our schedule was so bad?

[ShawHerd]

Strength of schedule is factored in rankings. Are you saying that that there is a glitch in the polls? lol!

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

in the 90s did our fans go on and on about how we're only good because our schedule was so bad?

In the 90's, we didnt have a chicken athletic staff watering down schedules to pad stats. Our whole football department carried that "anybody, anytime, anywhere" attitude. We went into Clemson, South Carolina, WvU with that swagger. it didnt matter. we scheduled them and we thought we would win every one of them.

Also there was growth. There were Signs of life other than buildings being built. They went from 1AA to 1A in that decade. They wanted to grow, not just settle in and be snug and hope they get ranked because they beat up on the little sisters of the poor yearly. Lots of rumors swirled about Hamrick and the American Conference. We'll leave that one alone though.

[Big Ol' Hillbilly]

Strength of schedule is factored in rankings. Are you saying that that there is a glitch in the polls? lol!

You can LOL all you want, but take yourself back in time 1 year and remember what happened once the ap was no longer the factor and the ol' committee took over. LOL that.