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Thoughts on the 2018 Class So Far

What grade would you give the class so far (take into account that it is only the summer)

  • A

    Votes: 5 4.8%
  • A-

    Votes: 6 5.7%
  • B+

    Votes: 11 10.5%
  • B

    Votes: 26 24.8%
  • B-

    Votes: 34 32.4%
  • C

    Votes: 22 21.0%
  • D

    Votes: 1 1.0%
  • F

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    105
From my uneducated spot on the sidelines, it appears to me we have a lot of guys in this class that won't be expected to contribute for at least three years. Lots of raw talent and speed, but guys who may need a bit of experience and coaching before being ready to play at this level.
 
Yeah, but who cares, when our DL coach is really good at developing and coaching?

Just fwiw - a friend of mine that played DLine at CU in 00's likes Jeffcoat and thinks he's a good coach. When I've brought up my personal gripe about his lack of recruiting, he countered that in his opinion, a staff should be able to overcome an assistant being a terrible recruiter so long as that coach can develop his guys. Of course, his opinion isn't some law we all should agree with; however, his statements about Jeffcoat definitely did lessen my dislike of Jeffcoat. I wouldn't mind an upgrade at Jeffcoat's and Benardi's positions, but Jeffcoat at least has developed some guys (I get you're acknowledging that...just throwing this out there as a response)
 
I would agree more about overcoming a terrible recruiter if CU was in a different situation. Taggart, for example, said recruiting to Oregon is easy because all he has to show is the swoosh and the O on his shirt and there are tons of guys who tell him it's their dream school. CU is years away from that. The program does not sell itself. Once someone sees what CU has, learns about CU's status in college football, sees the facilities/campus/city, sees the academic ranks, learns that it's sunny over 300 days a year and not some arctic tundra... there is an incredibly compelling package of reasons to choose CU over just about anywhere else. But someone has to identify recruits, connect with recruits, and effectively convey this information. If you're a recruit, you damn well want to have that connection with your future position coach.

P.S. Recruits do like Jeffcoat, no one can argue with his knowledge of the position, he's been a very good position coach at CU, and his 3 starters from last year were all on NFL rosters this summer. There's every reason for a DL recruit to want to come to CU and be coached by Jeffcoat.
 
I believe what I've heard is that Stenstrom did not just play mop up (which implies he was not in the game when starters were playing and while the game was in doubt), but instead played something like the 3rd series of every game. While that doesn't add up to a ton of film/experience, it does give you 12 or so series that are very valid for evaluation. Mop up often means scrubs, and guys going less than full speed. I'd call the above game snaps his A-snaps, and the mop-up duty his B-snaps. There's no way to know which are which from the Stats.

I heard early on from some knowledgeable folks that there was a real competition every day in practice and that there was really no discernible difference between the Team under Stenstrom and their #1 QB, Dylan McCaffrey, other than Dylan was older and had more experience. Not to say they were identical players, just that the offense performed about the same. This type of anecdotal praise I find to be less than reliable, but sometimes it's highly accurate.

With that said, there's not enough reps in just those games (especially the A-type) to really base an opinion. But if you consider that our two OC's were in on this kid early (Chev's kid being a WR on the team and all), they would have had the benefit of seeing some practice competitions and a lot of practice reps to help form their opinions.
Then they were able to validate what their opinions were in those limited A-snaps above. They'd be evaluating how he handles live bullets, pocket pressure, blitzes, speed-of-the-game, and mental aspects as well. If you've formed an opinion in practice, all you're really looking for is "does it hold up in game action".

Other programs just did not invest that sort of time in some kid who barely played (as would be expected).

I really have zero concern about his rating or his lack of PT, for the reasons above. We've had the benefit of almost private sessions with the kid. As with Montez, I think this kid is a 4-star talent with 2-star exposure. Unlike Montez, Stenstrom's abilities will be on display this fall. We will get a chance to see if our OC's were smart or not. And as Nik said, i doubt the offers come rolling in either way.

Let's not drag this up again. And let's be clear, there was no "QB controversy" last year between McCaffrey and Stenstrom. Stenstrom got the reps he did because Valor is a MACHINE and some of the teams on their schedule are flat out bad. If there had been more consistent competition, e.g. "tight games", Stenstrom would not have seen the field. Stenstrom may not see a 4th star simply because it's looking more and more like he's going to share reps with the next McCaffrey. That's okay. Continue to grow and get better with "real" reps, don't get hurt and we'll see you next fall.

GO BUFFS!
 
I would agree more about overcoming a terrible recruiter if CU was in a different situation. Taggart, for example, said recruiting to Oregon is easy because all he has to show is the swoosh and the O on his shirt and there are tons of guys who tell him it's their dream school. CU is years away from that. The program does not sell itself. Once someone sees what CU has, learns about CU's status in college football, sees the facilities/campus/city, sees the academic ranks, learns that it's sunny over 300 days a year and not some arctic tundra... there is an incredibly compelling package of reasons to choose CU over just about anywhere else. But someone has to identify recruits, connect with recruits, and effectively convey this information. If you're a recruit, you damn well want to have that connection with your future position coach.

P.S. Recruits do like Jeffcoat, no one can argue with his knowledge of the position, he's been a very good position coach at CU, and his 3 starters from last year were all on NFL rosters this summer. There's every reason for a DL recruit to want to come to CU and be coached by Jeffcoat.
Doesn't Jeffcoat have a Super Bowl ring that he can showcase during recruiting visits?
 
Doesn't Jeffcoat have a Super Bowl ring that he can showcase during recruiting visits?
For sure. Pretty much every HS coach and parent wants to meet Jeffcoat. No doubt that gets him in the door and respect. But he's not a self-promoter or a salesman, so it's not like it's leveraged the way it would be if a guy like Kliff Kingsbury had that bling.
 
Dropped by a few more 4 stars. I know it's taboo to say anything other than pumping sunshine but this is very disappointing. Getting passed up by UW, SC, even Oregon money is one thing. Losing out to Utah? SLC is one of the ugliest places I go for business. A real **** hole.

The lack of ⭐⭐⭐⭐️ In this class is baffling.
 
Mac2 does not appear to be an inspiring closer...plain and simple. He is a good coach...but his personality is...well...dull...and a bit eccentric. Even ASU has a couple of 4 stars...after a **** show year.
 
Dropped by a few more 4 stars. I know it's taboo to say anything other than pumping sunshine but this is very disappointing. Getting passed up by UW, SC, even Oregon money is one thing. Losing out to Utah? SLC is one of the ugliest places I go for business. A real **** hole.

The lack of ⭐⭐⭐⭐️ In this class is baffling.
Well, Utah has had success more recently more often than CU. We have had one, 1!, good season for ten years! Plus coaches have laid groundwork with 4-5 stars long before last year so we are coming from further behind to get caught up. It takes more than one good season to constantly pull in higher star recruits. Sustainability and consistency is what recruits need to see!
 
Dropped by a few more 4 stars. I know it's taboo to say anything other than pumping sunshine but this is very disappointing. Getting passed up by UW, SC, even Oregon money is one thing. Losing out to Utah? SLC is one of the ugliest places I go for business. A real **** hole.

The lack of ⭐⭐⭐⭐️ In this class is baffling.
Can't imagine what business you're doing if you think SLC is a ****hole. And why would a recruit care how pretty a place is?
 
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The reality is that on paper this class is in the bottom quarter amongst power conference teams. (do people realize this?) And we don't seem to be getting serious consideration from many higher rated prospects so it seems unlikely to expect that the class will noticeably improve by signing day.

Obviously this is disappointing in general but particularly coming off of such a great season and with the enormously expansive new facilities now fully completed. This class is also a noticeable step-down from last years class; what happened to all the momentum?

How people should feel about recruiting really should have to do with their expectations for the program.

If you feel that, based on what this program and CU in general can offer, our recruiting should be amongst the bottom tier of power conference schools than you should be happy with this type of class. I'd love to think that Macintyre has some magic powers that allow him to find and coach up prospects better then all other coaches, and perhaps that is true to a certain extent, but the fact remains that there is strong correlation between recruiting rankings a and team's success. The season we had last year was a statistical outlier in that regard.

If you hope/think that the program can be something more and would like to see the completely realistic feat of at least recruiting in the 20-35 range nationally then this class is disappointing. Please note i'm not suggesting that we need to be recruiting with the elite programs, just that we should be able to have higher quality recruiting then we are currently getting and then we had for most years in the past. While it would be nice to do better, last years class is generally a good realistic bar to set.

Interesting to see that nearly half the people who voted in the poll rate this class as a B or higher....
 
The difference between the 3 stars we are getting and a lot of the 4 stars is minimal. Maybe an inch, 10 pounds or a split second in the 40. Some people put way to much stock into the star system.
 
I won't getting in a pissing match with anybody about things I'm not 100% schooled in. But CU was bad, like insanely bad as recently as 2015. According to 247 (I'm lazy and I'm solely going off the first site I saw after google.) Last year we pulled in a class ranked 35 on 247 sports. This year we're 45 and 5th in the PAC. Everyone here is acting like we're pulling in the last ranked class in our conference. In fact, we have zero 2 stars, they're all 3 stars outside of the 2 C.C. Kids. They're both 65ish in the nation out of how man CC kids? I'm fine with that.

3 years ago most of our class was 2 stars, they're all solid 3 stars now at the BEGINNING of senior year. These rankings change a lot based on senior year and their all (most likely) going to go up. 90 is a 4 star and we have 1 at 86 and 1 at 87. I'll be shocked if stenstrom doesn't sky rocket to a 4 star. We will (again) have 1-3 4 star athletes and we'll be just fine and even if we don't, it's okay. This class is light years ahead of where we were and by no means a class to be ashamed of. I know we all want to see the flashy stars and the publicity some of these guys get. They all want to go to Ohio state and Alabama, let em. We're not them and they can be a nobody on a 3 deep roster for 2-3 years. We're building our brand back up to a destination, it takes time. We can compete in the top 25 with these guys.
 
To add 6 of them are in the top 1000 in America. Think about how many high schools there are in America. They're among the best in the country.
 
SIX Top 1000 players is incredible.

The star system is not gospel, but should not automatically be dismissed either. There are highly rated guys in this class the coaches have missed on who would be instant upgrades.

As far as the excuse that players need to see more than one year of winning, how many years of winning does it take for that recruiting uptick? 4-5? 7-8?
 
The difference between the 3 stars we are getting and a lot of the 4 stars is minimal. Maybe an inch, 10 pounds or a split second in the 40. Some people put way to much stock into the star system.

The star debate has been had over and over, no reason to re-litigate it. I'll just say though the the data on it's correlation to performance is pretty significant.

I agree people get to hung up on blue chip players. There aren't that many "true" blue chippers and they're very hard to get (although getting two or so a year is not unrealistic). I wouldn't mind if our classes were primarily made up of three stars so long as those players are mid-upper tier three stars with a handful of power conf offers (Deion Smith or Dmitri Stanley for example). The problem primarily in years past but also to a certain extent this year is that most of the three star quys we are getting are lower level three stars who have one offer and its from Oregon State.
 
The star debate has been had over and over, no reason to re-litigate it. I'll just say though the the data on it's correlation to performance is pretty significant.

I agree people get to hung up on blue chip players. There aren't that many "true" blue chippers and they're very hard to get (although getting two or so a year is not unrealistic). I wouldn't mind if our classes were primarily made up of three stars so long as those players are mid-upper tier three stars with a handful of power conf offers (Deion Smith or Dmitri Stanley for example). The problem primarily in years past but also to a certain extent this year is that most of the three star quys we are getting are lower level three stars who have one offer and its from Oregon State.

Not true. 12 are 83 or higher and 80 is a 3 star. 7 of them are 84 or up and 3 are 85 or higher. They aren't barely 3 star kids.
 
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