NSD primer for the Auburn '13 class

Well, here we are. Back to NSD. Last year was, for the most part, a let down for AU fans. We lost out on Eddie Goldman, Ronald Darby and Justin Shanks to FSU (the Goldman/Shanks deal was a crusher). Avery Young was probably the one recruit that stopped AU fans from complete meltdown on that day.

One year later we're actually, somehow, in a better spot than last year. This, following a 3-9 season where Auburn finished 0-8 in the SEC and had a complete staffing overhaul. Most AU fans will tell you that this is 100% for the better of Auburn and, on top of there being change needed, Auburn actually made substantial upgrades at nearly every coaching position across the board. And somehow upgraded the recruiting prowess by adding 6 assistants who were, at some point, recruiting coordinators at D1 programs.

All of this being said here is how I feel (on Tuesday, Jan. 29th, one week before NSD, and subject to change) that Auburn wraps up the signing class of 2013.

*using 247 composite rankings

QB- Jeremy Johnson 4*
QB- Nick Marshall 3* (JUCO)
RB- Cameron Artis-Payne 3* (JUCO)
RB- Tarean Folston 4*
RB- Johnathan Ford 4*
WR- Jason Smith 4*
WR- Earnest Robinson 4*
WR- Tony Stevens 4*
WR- Dominic Walker 3*
WR- Christian Cumberlander 3* (PREP)
OL- Devonte Danzey 3* (JUCO)

DE- Carl Lawson 5*
DE- Tashawn Bower 4*
DE- Elijah Daniel 4*
DT- Ben Bradley 4* (JUCO)
DT- Toby Johnson 4* ((JUCO)longshot here is Montravius Adams, who would replace Johnson)
LB- Reuben Foster 5*
LB- Cameron Toney 3*
LB- Kenny Flowers 3* (JUCO)
LB- Jonathan Walton 3*
Star- Brandon King 3* (JUCO)
S- Khari Harding 3*
CB- Kamryn Melton 3*
CB- Mackenzie Alexander 5*

ATH- Marcus Davis- 3*

K- Daniel Carlson 3*
P- Jimmy Hutchinson 3*


That would be 27 total commits, 3 of which can count back to the 2012 class with Danzey, Payne and Bradley enrolling early.

Here is the star breakdown:

5*- 3
4*-10
3*- 14

That, my AU friends, is an exceptional class and possibly a top 6-8 finish. Nothing short of amazing.  I stuck my neck out on a few of these and it's certainly possible we don't land Alexander, Daniels, Toby Johnson, Adams, or Folston, but I feel very confident on the rest.

War Damn Eagle!

Auburn '13 QB Target, Ryan Buchanan

The Skinny
Ryan Buchanan
Jackson Prep HS (Jackson, MS)
6'3, 205 lbs.
4.82 forty
1,600 yds passing for 16 TDs. (very run heavy offense)

YouTube Highlights video 1

YouTube Highlights video 2

Amateur Analysis
Really, really good feet with an absolutely ideal build. Has a great knack for fitting balls into tight windows. Particularly like how you can tell he knows that offense like the back of his hand. Every throw he makes tends to be in rhythm with his drops and this is directly attributed to his full knowledge of the playbook. Little bit of a 3/4 release but if he's 6'3 that won't be too big of an issue. Seems to be fairly accurate on the deep ball, but is very very accurate on the intermediate throws. With his 3/4 delivery it does tend to make the ball not necessarily sizzle out of his hand and it tends to come out wobbly when he has to rush the throws, and he doesn't step into his throws as much under duress. This should get better working with a good, college QB coach that can refine his mechanics.

Overall, I feel comfortable at this point in saying that Buchanan is the most underrated QB in the '13 class when looking at his rankings on the more popular recruiting sites out there. In, what I feel is, one of the best years for QBs I've seen in the 5 or so years I've really been following recruiting, I'd have no qualms about seeing Buchanan in the top 5-7 range for QBs. The level of competition Ryan faces is pretty sub-par, so this might be a kid who has to do some camping to truly prove to some that he's worthy or being called one of the top passers in the country.

Recruiting
Buchanan, relative to the fast paced recruitment we've all become used to, has remained under the radar for quite some time. Most of the top 10 or so QBs in this class have been well known players for the past year or 2 in recruiting circles. But, now that coaches have gotten a hold of his film, most of them seem to like what they see and what to get him on campus ASAP to evaluate in person. Recently colleges such as Auburn, Florida and Arkansas have all picked up interest, with Auburn offering on his visit this past weekend. I feel that if Auburn wants him, at this point, Auburn could get him. But, I don't feel Auburn is ready to settle on it's number one target for QB just yet, but it should happen soon. He plans a decision before his Sr. season and AU would like to have it's QB by then as well. Ole Miss will be tough to beat, as they always are in that area of Mississippi, and he has a sister that goes to Ole Miss. I've heard Loeffler is his favorite coach he's talked to, after his recent visit, but have also heard that Bobby Petrino was his favorite. Either way Loeffler wouldn't be too far behind if Auburn really wants him.

Prediction:
Ole Miss

Auburn QB Targets in my top 10....

For the next week or so, I'm going to go through the top 5 or so QB targets that Auburn is targeting and do a write up and what I think of them, as well as where we stand with them in their recruitment.......

I'll do the first one today starting with Ryan Buchanan (a personal favorite of mine).....

'13 Top 10 QBs:

Here are some of the 2013 QBs and how I feel they stack up against the rest of the country from watching the film out there on about 25-30 QBs so far this year. This is an incredible year for QB talent, so I'm happy that AU has a need and an incredible evaluator and teacher of QBs. I have no doubts that Scot Loeffler will land Auburn someone from the top 5-6 on this list.

Top 10
1. Ryan Burns
2. Kevin Olsen
3. Max Browne
4. Ryan Buchanan
5. Cooper Bateman
6. Hayden Rettig
7. Christian Hackenberg
8. Eddie Printz
9. Shane Morris
10. Brice Ramsey


Highest Ceiling
1. Ryan Burns
2. Max Browne
3. Tyrone Swoopes

Highest Floor
1. Ryan Burns
2. Kevin Olsen
3. Eddie Printz

Sleepers
1. Cord Sandberg
2. Jeremy Johnson
3. Austin Allen

Future #1 pick
1. Ryan Burns
2. Max Browne
3. Kevin Olsen

Way too Early '13 Mock Class

2013 AU Mock Class.....

Let's try our first one here in March:

QB- Hayden Rettig
QB- Jeremy Johnson
RB- Tyshon Dye
FB- Josh Anderson
WR- Earnest Robinson
WR- Isaiah Jones
TE- OJ Howard (I think we flip him, going out on a limb mostly here)
TE- Standish Dobard
OL- Austin Golson (another potential flip...visited several times, quietly, already)
OG- Tyrone Crowder

DL- Dee Liner
DE- Carl Lawson
DT- Jay Ellison or Rod Crayton (if we offer)
DE- Jordan Sherit
DL- one more "best available" guy....hopefully Montravius Adams or Kenny Bigelow
LB- Trey Johnson
LB- Cameron Toney
CB- Kamryn Melton
CB- Noel Ellis
S- Vonn Bell

K- Harrison Butker
LS- Trevor Morgan
P- Jimmy Hutchinson



This would be a class of 23. I'm sure we'll have some EEs to count towards the '12 class. I can't see us bringing in more than 20 in the spring/summer though with the small graduating class that we have coming in.

Post-NSD Grades for Auburn's '12 class

I feel that Auburn did a fantastic job of meeting needs. When you look at our avg star ranking we had a pretty good year reeling in talented guys that could help fill our depth chart with more talent, since we return about 37 guys on our 2-deep.

The OL was probably our biggest need coming in, and we've filled that and then some with as of now about the 5th ranked OL class, or so. Adding Jordan Diamond, hopefully, later tonight would certainly put us right there behind Stanford as the #2 OL class, or close to it.

Next was adding some playmakers at WR, and keeping JaQuay Williams and Ricardo Louis is more than enough for me. I have felt that Louis is vastly underrated as a playmaker, he's just raw. Really like how we met this need. Adding Diggs would be some REALLY good icing on the cake, but not counting on it.

Next was TE. After Lutz is gone we only have Brandon Fulse at TE, so getting some immediate help there was crucial just in case one of those guys goes down. Ricky Parks is a physical specimen and should be able to contribute right away. Darrion Hutcherson is a 6'7, 250 lb athlete that could stay at TE or move to the DL/OL, but either way he needs to develop a little more of a meanstreak. However the biggest pickup we got for our TEs was getting fullback Jay Prosch as a Transfer from Illinois. This will allow the TE to play TE exclusively. Lutz has been underutilized because he was probably our best blocker last year but is such a great receiving TE too. Prosch will help big time.

Lastly, our last need would be considered getting a few quality LBs. I feel that getting a MLB was more important than OLB, and Cassanova McKinzy is, physically, ready to help out right away if need be. He is another kid that needs to learn to play with more effort consistently and get a little meaner on the field but he certainly has the size and talent to help. Mitchell is a project, plain and simple, but has tons of athleticism at 6'2, 200 lbs and runs in the 4.4s. I think he could move to safety if VanGorder chooses to go back to having bigger LBs.

Grades:

QB- B (Pike has huge boom or bust potential, but with Loeffler's QB coaching ability I think Pike should be thrilled)
RB- B+
TE- A+ (I think Parks and the TE from USC are the 2 best in the class)
WR- A
OL- A+

DL- C (wasn't a need, but missing on Goldman, Ward, Jenkins and Williams hurt....still like Nero and President's upside though)
LB- B
CB- B+
S- n/a

Overall I'd say Auburn had a B+ class. The meat of the class is on par with what we've had the past two classes, we just didn't have the two or three 5* guys that we've gotten recently to really anchor the top.

Statistical Analysis of Auburn's '12 Class by Max Mitchell

My long time buddy Max Mitchell ( @YaBoyMaxWeezy on twitter) emailed me this statistical analysis (because that's what this crazy dude does on our Recruiting class and threw in some work of his own on there and thought it'd be awesome to share with the AU fans out there:

The rating of individual players is subjective, so they obviously differ from site to site. Then, those player ratings are stuffed into a point calculation system that is unique to each site. Starting with different player ratings and then feeding those numbers into different calculation systems obviously produces different results on the different sites...sometimes drastically different.

Personally, I trust the guys at 247 to give the best recruit analysis. I'm not sure how their point system works, but since I trust the evaluations, I trust the outcome of the team rankings...even if it doesn't work out the best for Auburn this year.

However, there is something to how each site does it, so I thought I'd average them all out.

Since everyone uses different ranking/point systems, I took the number 1 team from each site and gave them a 1.00 point total. The #2 team was then a percentage of the #1 team. In other words, if the #1 team had 1000 points and the #5 team had 876 points, then the #1 team gets 1.00 and the #5 team gets .876. At 247, Alabama was #1 with a point total of 781. FSU was #2 with a point total of 773. 773 points is .989% of 781. So Alabama gets a 1.00 and FSU gets a .989.

I did that for all four sites, giving the top 25 teams on each site a % of the point total of the #1 team. The exception was ESPN, who doesn't show points. So I just subtracted .025 from each team counting down from #1. In other words, #1 was 1.00, #2 was .975, #3 was .950, #4 was .925, #5 was .900, and so on.

And here is the way they stacked up....

1. .985 - Alabama

2. .969 - Texas

3. .913 - Ohio State

4. .905 - Florida

5. .872 - Michigan

6. .854 - Florida State

7. .824 - Stanford

8. .815 - Miami

9. .796 - Georgia

10 .789 - Oklahoma

11 .772 - USC

12 .739 - Clemson

12 .739 - LSU

14 .715 - Auburn

15 .710 - UCLA

16 .703 - South Carolina

16 .703 - Texas A&M

18 .696 - Oregon

19 .636 - Tennessee

20 .615 - Washington

NOTES:

It was interesting to see certain teams all over the place in the rankings on each site. Here are some that had a wide range:

LSU -

#7 high on Scout

#17 low on Rivals

Georgia -

#5 high on ESPN

#13 low on Scout

Clemson -

#9 high on ESPN

#22 low on 247 Sports

South Carolina -

#12 high in Scout

#19 low on Rivals

USC -

#7 high in Rivals

#20 low on Scout

FSU -

#2 high on 247 Sports and ESPN

#10 low on Scout

Notre Dame -

#10 high on ESPN

#22 low on Rivals

Auburn's high and low was #12 on Rivals and #17 on 247 Sports and ESPN. And before anyone says "of course ESPN has us low", remember that they had us #3 and #4 the last two years...the highest two year average of any of the sites.

The truth is, recruiting rankings matter. They are an indication of the overall talent and depth you acquire each year. But the subjective nature of evaluating the players that make up the classes that make up the rankings means that the rankings should, as the very least, be viewed in groups. Is #7 really that much better than #12 on any given site? Especially since those two teams might be ranked #10 and #14 on another site?

In my opinion, I would group the top 20 teams by percentages related to the top team. Maybe the .900 teams, the .800 teams, the .700 teams, etc, as teams ranked that closely over the range of four different sites are essentially a subjective toss-up.

So for this year:

Group 1 consists of Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, and .Florida Group 2 consists of Michigan, Florida St, Stanford, and Miami.

Group 3 consists of Georgia, Oklahoma, USC, Clemson, LSU, Auburn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas A&M.

Group 4 consists of Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

In this case, I would only say there are eight classes that are CLEARLY ahead of Auburn's class. And that Auburn's class is on par, or in the same general ball park, as that of Georgia, Clemson, A&M, LSU, etc. After all, two sites had Auburn at #12 and #13, while two sites also had Georgia at #11 and #13. So even though Georgia averages out on the four sites at #9 and AU averages at #14, who's to say which ranking for each team are actually right. If you look at the two examples I just gave for each team, you'd think they were dead even.