BYU ranked No. 100 in recruiting, and that is okay

Rivlals.com has BYU ranked as the No.100 ranked team according to this year’s signing class. Granted we would like to see that number higher, but Cougar fans should not be worried. 

There are currently 129 FBS teams in the nation. 65 of those (66 if you count BYU) are considered a Power Five School. All  65 of those teams plus an additional 34 Group of Five teams finished ranked higher than BYU for their recruiting class according to Rivals.com

Time to panic?

Not yet.

Yes, we were hoping that BYU would be ranked higher than they are, and some of it can be blamed on the 4-9 finish in 2017. Most recruits who commit to schools were already committed or well on their way before Zach Wilson and BYU turned the corner in the second half the 2018 season.

But according to Coach Grimes and other coaches on the staff, the overall tone around the program is “bringing in guys who want to play for BYU and developing them into better athletes.”

One could argue that taking this approach is something that all coaches finishing ranked No. 100 would say, but let’s take a moment and really think about it. If you were an employer, would you want to take the potential employee who works with you because it was the best job he could find, or a potential employee, perhaps a bit less qualified, who seeks you out and wants to make your company better?

That seems to be the strategy of the BYU coaches. Sure BYU could have sent out 400 scholarship opportunities like some other schools and hoped to be the best choice for 20-25 of them, but instead they were very careful with who they talked to and recruited.

Teams are allotted just over 50 “official visit” opportunities a year. Many coaches will spend many of those on kids who are probably going to sign with a better a team anyway. BYU used some of those on PWO (preferred walk-ons), knowing that BYU was already their best option. But this showed the recruits that BYU wanted them, and that they weren’t just an after thought.

The Cougars historically are known for making walk-ons or players who aren’t highly recruited, into successful players. Some of the familiar names include the El Bakri brothers, Zac Dawe, Dennis Pitta, Andrew Rich, Chad Lewis, Ziggy Ansah and even Steve Young.

Again, would we like to see these 4 and 5 star recruits? Yes of course. But should we be worried about the No. 100 ranking? No, no we should not.