National Signing Day Winners and Losers in the AAC

With National Signing Day over, and fans already setting sights on the 2016 recruiting cycle, time to take a look at which programs in The American came out as winners, or losers, on NSD 2015.

Note: “Winning” or “losing” in recruiting is 100 percent relative to the expectations of the particular program. For perspective, if Alabama finished with the country’s 10th-best recruiting class and lost several top commitments to rival schools, pundits would place Bama in the “Losers” category, considering the Tide have finished in the Top 5 in recruiting every year since 2007 — Saban’s first in Tuscaloosa. On the flip side, Arizona State’s 20th-ranked class this year puts them as a “Winner” based on the Sun Devils unfamiliarity with finishing in the Top 25 class rankings.

Recruiting rankings for this post are based on 247Sports.com’s 2015 composite rankings.

Winners

South Florida — Nationally, the Bulls 2015 recruiting class never moved the needle, landing at No.67 in 247Sports national rankings. But, I’m judging USF and the rest of the Signing Day winners and losers on how their classes stack up against their AAC rivals.

The Bulls’ I-4 rival UCF may have won back-to-back AAC titles on the field, but off the field, USF is the two-time defending AAC recruiting champ, nailing the conference’s top class for the second straight year — even after finishing 4-8 in 2014. Eighteen of the Bulls’ 20-man class garnered three-star ratings, and several should add instant depth — most notably, Junior College Tackle Glen Bethal (6-5, 296 Lbs), ranked as 247Sports’ ninth-best JUCO OT.

USF also signed six players from the Miami-Dade County hotbed, despite losing Ace south Florida recruiter Telly Lockette to Oregon State. The Bulls aren’t placed in the NSD winners’ bracket just because it finished No.1 in the AAC. When you come off back-to-back losing seasons and still earn your conferences’ top class, you must be a winner…at least on paper.

Memphis — Cincinnati tempted me to place it in this spot based on its No.2 class in the AAC, but the Bearcats’ head coach Tommy Tuberville is one of the country’s best recruiters, and Cincy has been recruiting well in the old Big East/AAC ever since Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly took over the program in 2007, so its class didn’t inspire me in the same way Memphis’ fourth-ranked group did.

The Tigers jumped up three spots from last year’s seventh-ranked recruiting class in the AAC with a massive class sprinkled with talent and heavy on depth. The 32-man haul includes 17 three-star players and one four-star JUCO grab, running back Jae’lon Oglesby. Oglesby might contribute immediately with ’14 starting running back Brandon Hayes (951 yards, five TDs) graduating. Oglesby, along with five other signees, are already enrolled in classes, so they will participate in spring practice.

Memphis rode its surprising 10-3 AAC championship season to lock-down its best class under head coach Justin Fuente, and arguably its best class in school history. Many people still think the Tigers will fall back to mediocrity next season; that 10-3 was an aberration. For Memphis to prove the naysayers wrong, it needed to haul in one of the AAC’s top classes before hitting the field in 2015 to defend its conference title. Part one complete.

SMU — The Mustangs make this list for two reasons: Chad Morris is a master recruiter, and their entire class hails from Texas.

SMU gained only three more three-star rated players compared to last year’s recruiting class, but that’s not where this group earns its medal. Morris, a Texas native and former high school head coach in the state, was hired as the Mustangs HC on December 1, about a week before his new team would finish a horrendous 1-11 season with a win at UConn. In two short months, Morris utilized to the fullest his Texas roots to bring in a class low on depth, but high on potential. Under June Jones, SMU deviated a bit from its Texas roots and became more of a national recruiter. Why would you swim at a public pool if you have a perfectly good pool in your back yard? Morris proved in only his first class that he wants to utilize the recruiting pool in his Dallas-Fort Worth backyard.

Morris understands something Jones didn’t get: To win at SMU, you must win with players from the Lone Star State.

Losers

UConn — Oh UConn. You finished with 10 losses in 2014, and followed a poor season with the 10th-ranked recruiting class in the AAC. Actually, I would’ve left the Huskies off this list if not for one major black eye (I’ll address that in a sec).

UConn went from five three-star signees in ’14 to 11 in this year’s class. They also signed 23 players, compared to 15 last year. The increase in talent is attributed to head coach Bob Diaco’s emphasis on recruiting the New England area, where the Huskies must draw talent from to be successful. Diaco’s second class contained seven commits from New Jersey — considered by many as the last true hotbed in the Northeast. UConn isn’t a name brand in football like it is in basketball, so the Huskies must narrow their recruiting scope and try to land guys with potential to develop, which Diaco comprehends.

So why so harsh on the Huskies? Well, even with improvement in this year’s recruiting effort, the Huskies have still finished with the worst or next-to-worst class for consecutive seasons. Also, there’s the class’ black eye I mentioned: 6-4, 235 pound Florida defensive end Kirk Livingstone’s late flip from UConn to AAC rival South Florida, dropped this class from average — by UConn standards — to the losing side. UConn does need to focus on mining the New England, but if a hotbed recruit bites, it must reel them in. Losing Livingstone illustrates just how difficult a rebuilding job Bob Diaco faces in Storrs, Connecticut.

Tulane — Green Wave head coach Curtis Johnson needs a nice year on the field in 2015 to keep leading his hometown college. But to win more games you have to have better players. Johnson’s last two recruiting efforts (ranked 10th and ninth in the AAC, respectively) doesn’t elicit confidence that Tulane is building the depth needed to compete in the AAC.

The fifth-year head coach did a great job mining Louisiana for prospects, as 16 of the 19-man class are from the Pelican State. Johnson also grabbed a big offensive guard from Florida in Leeward Brown (6-3, 338 pounds) who was also offered scholarships from Louisville, Cincinnati, and East Carolina. Despite the positives, Tulane is a Signing Day loser because it finished behind fellow Louisiana programs UL-Lafayette and Louisiana Tech in 247Sports composite rankings.

Beating out LSU for recruits is beyond unrealistic, but Tulane should finish with the second-best recruiting class in its home state every season if you acknowledge the strength of the AAC compared to the other two G5 conferences represented in Louisiana (Conference USA and the Sun Belt), and the pockets of talent that exist in and around New Orleans. Louisiana also produces the most football players per capita. Tulane is full of potential that Johnson still hasn’t learned to tap.