All American Boys vs. Mercenaries

[JohnStOnge]

Ok I did the title to hopefully get attention but I do think it's interesting.

There is no question that McNeese State over time has been the best program in the Southland Conference. But something interesting has happened lately. McNeese State is kind of a "traditional" program in that they build their teams primarily through recruiting high school players...with the overwhelming majority of them coming from within a 200 mile radius of the school...and developing them. Recently Southeastern Louisiana has done very well by taking the route of relying very heavily on FBS transfers and JC signees.

Like I just looked at the depth charts for the two teams for this Saturday's game. 4 of 22 McNeese players listed #1 on the depth chart are FBS transfers. There are no JC signee starters. Some of the FBS transfers are key to be sure. Like the quarterback is a Kansas State transfer and they have a 335 defensive tackle that started 6 games for the Texas A&M as a freshman. So they definitely have an impact. But 18 of the 22 starters are high school signees.

In contrast only 6 of the 24 players listed #1 on the Southeastern Louisiana depth chart are high school signees. There are 9 FBS transfers and 9 JC signees.

If you look at the total depth charts 38 of 45 McNeese players (84%) are high school signees. 18 of 50 (36%) players on Southeastern Louisiana's depth chart are. McNeese's depth chart has 6 FBS transfers and 1 JC signee. Southeastern's depth chart has 12 FBS transfers and 20 JC signees.

There's a clear difference in philosophy. And some impatient McNeese fans want the school to go with Southeastern Louisiana's approach. I do not. I think that when you look at the I-AA/FCS programs that have historically achieved sustained dominance the best ones have been programs that win rosters and depth charts overwhelmingly populated with players signed out of high school and developed as necessary. North Dakota State is the most prominent current example. Like right now there are only two JC signees and one FBS transfer on the Bison roster. Their 2013 national title team had no JC signees or FBS transfers at all. At least that's my recollection and if I"m off it's not by much. They clearly rely mostly on high school recruits.

But McNeese needs to start winning games like this to take the pressure to sell out off.

[kalm]

While we've had a few notable transfers over the years EWU has seemed to stick with in-state kids roughly 2/3's of the time. I can think of only two transfers on the roster right now and neither are starting. By contrast, Jordan West was a walk-on. Agree that it's preferable to go the developmental route for sustained success.

[slulionsfan]

Ok I did the title to hopefully get attention but I do think it's interesting.

There is no question that McNeese State over time has been the best program in the Southland Conference. But something interesting has happened lately. McNeese State is kind of a "traditional" program in that they build their teams primarily through recruiting high school players...with the overwhelming majority of them coming from within a 200 mile radius of the school...and developing them. Recently Southeastern Louisiana has done very well by taking the route of relying very heavily on FBS transfers and JC signees.

Like I just looked at the depth charts for the two teams for this Saturday's game. 4 of 22 McNeese players listed #1 on the depth chart are FBS transfers. There are no JC signee starters. Some of the FBS transfers are key to be sure. Like the quarterback is a Kansas State transfer and they have a 335 defensive tackle that started 6 games for the Texas A&M as a freshman. So they definitely have an impact. But 18 of the 22 starters are high school signees.

In contrast only 6 of the 24 players listed #1 on the Southeastern Louisiana depth chart are high school signees. There are 9 FBS transfers and 9 JC signees.

If you look at the total depth charts 38 of 45 McNeese players (84%) are high school signees. 18 of 50 (36%) players on Southeastern Louisiana's depth chart are. McNeese's depth chart has 6 FBS transfers and 1 JC signee. Southeastern's depth chart has 12 FBS transfers and 20 JC signees.

There's a clear difference in philosophy. And some impatient McNeese fans want the school to go with Southeastern Louisiana's approach. I do not. I think that when you look at the I-AA/FCS programs that have historically achieved sustained dominance the best ones have been programs that win rosters and depth charts overwhelmingly populated with players signed out of high school and developed as necessary. North Dakota State is the most prominent current example. Like right now there are only two JC signees and one FBS transfer on the Bison roster. Their 2013 national title team had no JC signees or FBS transfers at all. At least that's my recollection and if I"m off it's not by much. They clearly rely mostly on high school recruits.

But McNeese needs to start winning games like this to take the pressure to sell out off.

How many times are you gonna beat a dead horse? JESUS John, give it a break already. That's all you all talk about. McNeese can do what they wanna do however they wanna do it and we'll do what we do. Stop whining about it.

[Grizalltheway]

Ok I did the title to hopefully get attention but I do think it's interesting.

There is no question that McNeese State over time has been the best program in the Southland Conference. But something interesting has happened lately. McNeese State is kind of a "traditional" program in that they build their teams primarily through recruiting high school players...with the overwhelming majority of them coming from within a 200 mile radius of the school...and developing them. Recently Southeastern Louisiana has done very well by taking the route of relying very heavily on FBS transfers and JC signees.

Like I just looked at the depth charts for the two teams for this Saturday's game. 4 of 22 McNeese players listed #1 on the depth chart are FBS transfers. There are no JC signee starters. Some of the FBS transfers are key to be sure. Like the quarterback is a Kansas State transfer and they have a 335 defensive tackle that started 6 games for the Texas A&M as a freshman. So they definitely have an impact. But 18 of the 22 starters are high school signees.

In contrast only 6 of the 24 players listed #1 on the Southeastern Louisiana depth chart are high school signees. There are 9 FBS transfers and 9 JC signees.

If you look at the total depth charts 38 of 45 McNeese players (84%) are high school signees. 18 of 50 (36%) players on Southeastern Louisiana's depth chart are. McNeese's depth chart has 6 FBS transfers and 1 JC signee. Southeastern's depth chart has 12 FBS transfers and 20 JC signees.

There's a clear difference in philosophy. And some impatient McNeese fans want the school to go with Southeastern Louisiana's approach. I do not. I think that when you look at the I-AA/FCS programs that have historically achieved sustained dominance the best ones have been programs that win rosters and depth charts overwhelmingly populated with players signed out of high school and developed as necessary. North Dakota State is the most prominent current example. Like right now there are only two JC signees and one FBS transfer on the Bison roster. Their 2013 national title team had no JC signees or FBS transfers at all. At least that's my recollection and if I"m off it's not by much. They clearly rely mostly on high school recruits.

But McNeese needs to start winning games like this to take the pressure to sell out off.

How many times are you gonna beat a dead horse

You must not be familiar with his posting on other subjects.

[slulionsfan]

How many times are you gonna beat a dead horse

You must not be familiar with his posting on other subjects.

Unfortunately, I'm very familiar. The glue factory called, wanting their horses back.

[Rob Iola]

How many times are you gonna beat a dead horse

You must not be familiar with his posting on other subjects.

God help us all if Spanos ever teaches him how to post videos...

[Gil Dobie]

Thread title is misleading. All Merican Boys, should be All Louisiana Boys.

[JohnStOnge]

Thread title is misleading. All Merican Boys, should be All Louisiana Boys.

McNeese has a lot of Texans as the school is only about 30 miles from the Texas border.

But really guys, the situation with Southeastern Louisiana is pretty well summed up in this post from Zem2 (a current high school coach in Texas who has experience as a former college coach who was in the recruiting game) on the geauxcowboys.org site:

Many schools use the "catch and release" programs. SLU is one of those, as are some SEC schools and others. They oversign knowing they just want to have competition to find out who are the best players. If you cannot move into the two-deep, you get your scholarship cut. Of course , it is bad business unless you are at LSU or Bama where high school kids could care less what happened to the players before them. It is a huge advantage if you can have a player for a year or two and then get that scholarship back if he is a bust. McNeese generally does not release players with good attitudes and hard workers.

And the recruiting record since Roberts has been at Southeastern Louisiana is consistent with that. Like the most recent three years:

2013 37 signees including 21 JC or FBS
2014 31 signees including 13 JC or FBS
2015 36 signees including 17 JC or FBS

That's 104 signees in three years including 51 JC or FBS over three years when you're only allowed 63 scholarships in FCS. And yes I know that you can split scholarships but the pattern is very consistent with Zem's description of the situation.

Like Zem mentioned LSU as being catch and release but look at LSU's signing numbers:

2013 28 signees
2014 26 signees
2015 25 signees

So 85 scholarships but 25 fewer signees over the three years.

[JohnStOnge]

One last thing before the game starts just so you know who the good guys and bad guys are:

I looked at the 2013 and 2014 lists "signing classes" of the two schools. Looked at how many players announced as signed out of high school at each school are on the current roster.

Now, we all know it's not going to be 100 percent. Some players aren't going to get eligible, for instance. Others might not make the grades once they get to school. So that's a factor.

But only 41% of the high school players Southeastern Louisiana had on their signing lists for 2013 and 2014 combined are on the roster right now. Only 8 of 18 high school players from their 2014 signing class are still there and only 5 of 14 from their 2013 signing class are.

For McNeese it's 77%. 16 of 20 from the 2013 class and 14 of 19 from the 2014 class.

One school has integrity with respect to handling high school recruits and tries to honor its commitments to players it signs. One does not and will dump a high school signee it wooed the year before in a heartbeat to make room for a JC signee or FBS transfer. Can you guess which is which?

Let's hope the good guys win tonight. It'll be tough but let's hope so that the kind of sleazy approach the bad guys use doesn't gain popularity. The thing that worries me most is that there are now people who are important McNeese boosters suggesting McNeese move towards the same unscrupulous approach. I sure as heck don't want to see that.

[93henfan]

You must not be familiar with his posting on other subjects.

God help us all if Spanos ever teaches him how to post videos...

Shut your whore mouth!

[Screamin_Eagle174]

God help us all if Spanos ever teaches him how to post videos...

Shut your whore mouth!

[JohnStOnge]

Shut your whore mouth!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8RJ9XdzC8c[/youtube]