Recruiting

[scotto_25]

Last night's "bash" was a great event. It was held at a nice establishment, the food was very good, and the program itself was very entertaining! Now, after looking at www.scout.com I realize that we need to do more. Scout had the SunBelt listed as the last conference in recruiting with UL last in the conference. That makes us in the entire nation in division 1 recruiting!

Here's the proof.........
(114)-Louisiana-Lafayette 17 (players signed) Sun Belt (Conference)

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I know our coaches bust their azzes day in and day out trying to haul in those players, but we just don't have the funds to support their effort.

It needs to start with ticket prices. Ticket prices are probably the lowest around. I think it's like $8.00 for a student escort ticket. If you go to any other Division 1 football game, the tickets are at least $20.00! Also, students need to start paying for events!! I know it was free for me and free for the rest of you, but times are changing and we are falling faster and faster. We can't compete with 95% of the country when it comes to budgets and recruiting! The entry price for last nights event should have been somewhere in the range of $40.00. It didn't matter what the price was set at last night, the same people would have shown up regardless. I see the same supporters/fans at each event and the sad thing is, is that I can probably name the majority of them!!!!!!!!!!! That should say something right there. We may have had 100-150 people there last night? We need more support and we need it quick. I am so tired of hearing about how good our football team will be each year..............the fact of the matter is, is that we are only able to get a handfull of actual division 1 type athletes each year with the rest being low-end budget "space fillers"! I am in no way trying to be hateful or mean towards our recruits, it's just the nature of the beast.

UL is at the bottom of the hill right now in athletics. Baseball will be our only bright spot this year as far as major mens athletics goes! We penny pinch our coaches and have no official Athletic Director.......Where are we headed????

It hurts to know that we have all this potential sitting in front of us but we just can't grasp it! Our teams each year are made up of 1 and 2 star athletes with the seldom "diamond in the rough" occurance..............MONEY MONEY MONEY! It's just very confusing to see teams such as Florida Atlantic and Florida International go over the football recruiting budget by more than UL had actually allocated towards their entire fund......these teams are going over their budget by more money than we had to start!!!

Days are numbered not only for coaches, but also for this program. I continue seeing dismal crowds on Saturday nights, more losses in the near future, and eventually dropping down into division 1AA.

Hopefully things will turn around soon, because I love this football team and university way too much to continue sitting in the basement in everything that we do. We want to be big time and try to be big time, but it's the university's "pop warner"/"busch league" mentality which stems from Dr. A. that will ultimately hold us down for plenty more years to come.

I'm really pulling for this group of guys to prove me wrong. I know we have good athletes out there, but do we have enough of them to make a statement......? We were once eye-level with Southern Miss, now there's something to ponder

To end on a positive; the meat pies and chicken wings were an excellent combination with heavy doses of Miller Lites.

GEAUX #114 Cajuns

[J-Town Cajun]

That low ranking has alot to do with the fact that we only gave out 17 sholarships were most schools gave out 25 or so.

[J-Town Cajun]

A few years ago we gave out like 33 or so scholarships and were ranked like #58 in the country because of the number.

[CajunRed]

Just a couple of comments about this. RIVALS.com has our class ranked 114th... but did you notice what they based that on? In addition to using "quality of recruits" (i.e. "STAR ratings), they used "number of 3 Stars", "4 stars", "5 stars"... PLUS number of total players signed. Since we had only 18 scholarships to give, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be ranked as high as someone who had NO players ranked higher than ours, but simply had MORE scholarships to give.

I know this is only a guess, but I would bet our class would have been ranked around 75th or so had we signed the SAME quality of players, but signed 25 instead of 18!

Just my thoughts.

[Cajunsmike]

Just a couple of comments about this. RIVALS.com has our class ranked 114th... but did you notice what they based that on? In addition to using "quality of recruits" (i.e. "STAR ratings), they used "number of 3 Stars", "4 stars", "5 stars"... PLUS number of total players signed. Since we had only 18 scholarships to give, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be ranked as high as someone who had NO players ranked higher than ours, but simply had MORE scholarships to give.

I know this is only a guess, but I would bet our class would have been ranked around 75th or so had we signed the SAME quality of players, but signed 25 instead of 18!

Just my thoughts.

Someone told me last night that they had calculated our ranking based upon the average rating of our signees vs the sum of the ranking of all the players. When he did that, we were in the sixties vs the 114 quoted. That does not change the fact more funds are needed.

[RaginFan2]

Scout had the SunBelt listed as the last conference in recruiting with UL last in the conference. That makes us last in the entire nation in division 1 recruiting!

Don't let the so-called "recruit ratings experts" get you down. I think our overall class is good. We missed on getting a few of our 'A' list folks, but we still got others on our 'A' list. We look to have settled on a few from our 'B' list but not that many. And this sort of thing happens every year to basically all programs. It is rare for a program to sign ALL of the first tier prospects they are aiming for. Besides, how many times has a quality college player been overlooked coming out of HS (i.e., Brandon Stokley)? And how many times has a "can't-miss" prospect not lived up to expectations and hype? Too numerous to mention on both counts. We;ll just have to trust the coaches to get the players they feel will help move this program forward. If they miss on recruiting too much, they'll eventually find themselves looking for employment elsewhere. So you know they are motivated to sign the best players they can.

[campo118]

I would have loved to have gone, but some people have other responsibilities such as work and school. But its ok because I met your cousin last night, Scotto 25. He came eat where I work after the recruiting bash.

[scotto_25]

I would have loved to have gone, but some people have other responsibilities such as work and school. But its ok because I met your cousin last night, Scotto 25. He came eat where I work after the recruiting bash.

Who might that be?

[Kal]

It needs to start with ticket prices. Ticket prices are probably the lowest around. I think it's like $8.00 for a student escort ticket. If you go to any other Division 1 football game, the tickets are at least $20.00! Also, students need to start paying for events!! I know it was free for me and free for the rest of you, but times are changing and we are falling faster and faster. We can't compete with 95% of the country when it comes to budgets and recruiting! The entry price for last nights event should have been somewhere in the range of $40.00. It didn't matter what the price was set at last night, the same people would have shown up regardless. I see the same supporters/fans at each event and the sad thing is, is that I can probably name the majority of them!!!!!!!!!!! That should say something right there. We may have had 100-150 people there last night? We need more support and we need it quick. I am so tired of hearing about how good our football team will be each year..............the fact of the matter is, is that we are only able to get a handfull of actual division 1 type athletes each year with the rest being low-end budget "space fillers"! I am in no way trying to be hateful or mean towards our recruits, it's just the nature of the beast.

GEAUX #114 Cajuns

I like that idea!........... If we were 20+ years down the road with a consistent winning program that had at least 10 bowl appearances under our belt. I don't think we are ready to raise ticket prices that drastically yet. And until you consistently see the East Endzone packed to the gills with students, I don't think you can charge them. Especially not 20 dollars! Even LSU (as much as I hate them) only charges 8 dollars a game for students.

Its business 101 : Supply and Demand. Until the demand for tickets is greater than the capcity at the swamp, you can't charge that much. You have to charge what will get the most amount of people into the game. That's what this program needs right now. Bigger Crowds. Bigger crowds give us a better chance to win. It gives our team a boost and gives us that home field advantage. If we have to charge less than most other teams to achieve that advantage, then that's what we have to do. Once this program has a real winning tradition and gets over that magical threshold (we've been close the past 2 years), then we can really hike up the prices.

A program like ours in which we struggle to compete and have a very low budget has to make small (even miniscule) changes in policies and prices. Anything bigger could significantly hurt progress. It's all about "tweaking" the system until you are in a position to "overhaul" the system. In my opinion, we are still a very long way away from that point. But we are heading in that direction.

[Damon]

I agree with the recruiting encouragement given.

I also believe that there needs to be more revenue generated by and for the atheltic program(s).

[crazyraginmomma]

Just a couple of comments about this. RIVALS.com has our class ranked 114th... but did you notice what they based that on? In addition to using "quality of recruits" (i.e. "STAR ratings), they used "number of 3 Stars", "4 stars", "5 stars"... PLUS number of total players signed. Since we had only 18 scholarships to give, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be ranked as high as someone who had NO players ranked higher than ours, but simply had MORE scholarships to give.

I know this is only a guess, but I would bet our class would have been ranked around 75th or so had we signed the SAME quality of players, but signed 25 instead of 18!

Just my thoughts.

You cannot judge the quality of a recruit by the number of stars he receives. If you want to spend the money and send your information (stats, highlight tape, etc.) into Rivals or Scout, to review, sure if may benefit you in getting high marks. These websites have become money makers. So unless they have info on you, they give you a low ranking, not an accurate one.

Have no fear, this is a very talented group coming in.

[VObserver]

You cannot judge the quality of a recruit by the number of stars he receives. If you want to spend the money and send your information (stats, highlight tape, etc.) into Rivals or Scout, to review, sure if may benefit you in getting high marks. These websites have become money makers. So unless they have info on you, they give you a low ranking, not an accurate one.

Have no fear, this is a very talented group coming in.

Thanks for setting these guys straight, Momma.

This class has 6-8 BCS/upper tier players. There is not ONE player in this class who is 'filler'. Anyone who thinks there is doesn't know anything about judging talent.

Look at the other schools who offered these guys [not sent letters, offered scholarships]. A partial list includes Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue, Arizona, Ole Miss, Clemson, South Carolina, TCU, SMU, UAB, Memphis, UTEP. Not a McNeese or Northwestern State in the bunch.

You guys need to get a grip.

That being said, we always need more recruiting money, so pony up, guys!