We really need to look at what LSU, USC, UF do, as far as recruiting. Their definition of down years are completely different than ours. Not hosting is a bad year for them, and that's what we want. We need to look at what their strategy is get players to campus, and there's much more to it than lottery funding. I don't know if over-signing and processing is the name of the game, but we have to do it. If players have options (MLB or college), then the school should too. If we are going to spend years recruiting a guy and still lose him to the draft, we can't trade all that time and resources for a JUCO project a month before classes start. Sure, we might see a story of Facebook about how MSU pulled little Jimmy's offer, but that may be the price of success. The business side of the draft filters down to the colleges, and it has to be approached that way.

I agree, though, we need to know the signability of our players. Yeah, it looks cool signing the Greg Picketts, but it was obvious that guy was never going to make it to campus.

I'm sure we nobody wants to hear this, but we need to look at what UM does (assuming they aren't networking), more than anyone. They have to play by the same scholarship rules as us, but have managed to have more consistent success than us. They have had a couple of down years in the last 5 seasons, but still manged to finish above .500.

The way things are playing out, I'm starting to feel like maybe Cohen wasn't the coldhearted intense bastard that Polk made him out to be, when it comes to over-signing/processing players. When you consistently end up with JUCO filler, then you aren't being cutthroat like the top tier teams. I'm hoping that A.C. will be a better recruiter, be more appealing to guys with MLB options, and not be afraid to take on that risk of having too many talented guys to start the fall..