21 FBS schools have new coaching staffs in place for 2017. Which coaches had the best recruiting success on National Signing Day at their new posts?
Recruiting is tough in the most settled of circumstances, when a veteran coaching staff is working well-established pipelines. Much tougher is that first season for a staff at a new program. Arriving late in the game, a new head coach is often fighting against poor performance records that got the last guy fired along with a limited amount of time.
Nearly one-sixth of all FBS programs have new coaching staffs as they head into the 2017 season. Considering the extra challenges that come with recruiting, we’ve taken a look at the 21 new groups to evaluate how they managed to shore things up on National Signing Day. Click forward to see the top five 2017 recruiting classes by new FBS coaching staffs.
Four days after losing the 2017 Cotton Bowl against Wisconsin, Western Michigan head coach P.J. Fleck took charge at the Badgers’ Big Ten rivals. With less than a month before National Signing Day, Fleck managed to shore up a recruiting class that ranked 58th nationally in the 247Sports composite rankings. The class averaged higher than Minnesota’s five-year recruiting average prior to Fleck’s arrival in the Twin Cities.
Fleck landed a diverse 2017 class that included both local and national talent. The new Golden Gophers coach landed Blaise Andries, the top-rated recruit in Minnesota, to play on the offensive line. He also grabbed three-star defensive backs from Alabama, Oregon, Texas, and Georgia. Three players had already enrolled for spring term, including pro-style quarterback Tanner Morgan and dual-threat junior college transfer Neil McLaurin.
Matt Rhule led Temple to an upset blowout of Navy in the AAC championship game on December 3. Three days later, he left Philadelphia to take over one of the most contentious programs in college football. Brought in to change the environment around the football program in Waco, Rhule wasted no time making sure that Baylor would have the talent to continue competing into the future with a recruiting class that included 26 three-star players.
Despite a lack of experience in the Lone Star State, Rhule and his staff managed to sign 20 local recruits. They also tapped into a New Jersey pipeline that yielded two of the Garden State’s top 15 players in Johnathan Lovett and Harrison Hand. More emphasis was placed on offense than on defense, but both sides of the ball should be stronger over the next few years thanks to the way Rhule and his crew pulled things together in less than two months.
Once Houston finished what turned out to be a disappointing regular season, it came as little surprise when Tom Herman was introduced as the head coach of the Texas Longhorns on November 27. In just two months, Herman pulled together a recruiting class that ranked just outside the top 25 in the 247Sports composite rankings. Among the 18 players brought in by the Longhorns were seven four-star recruits.
Sam Ehlinger, the fourth-ranked dual-threat quarterback in the country, is already on campus in Austin. The Longhorns also brought in several of the top junior college recruits in the country at their positions, including kicker Josh Rowland and inside linebacker Gary Johnson. Top-ten running back Tonell Carter is also on campus at this point, and he’ll have the chance to take over some of D’Onta Foreman’s reps next season.
After remarkable continuity within Oregon’s coaching staff over the past several decades, the termination of Mark Helfrich led to a wholesale house cleaning. In came Willie Taggart, who was signed from South Florida on December 7. After leading the Bulls to a 10-2 regular season, Taggart managed to reel in a strong class on his first National Signing Day in Eugene. The two dozen recruits put Oregon in the top 20 in recruiting for the third time in five years.
Included in that mix was dual-threat quarterback Braxton Burmeister, who Taggart’s staff managed to flip from Arizona in January. He was one of five different four-star recruits landed by the Ducks this year. One, top-ten cornerback Thomas Graham, is already enrolled on campus for winter term. In total Oregon landed a trio of four-star cornerbacks, bolstering a secondary that ranked outside the top 100 in passing efficiency defense in 2016.
Ed Orgeron had the advantage of serving out half of the 2016 season as LSU’s interim head coach, going 5-2 after replacing Les Miles in late September. The school removed the interim tag on November 26, providing some continuity for the Bayou Bengals heading into the offseason. By National Signing Day, a traditional SEC West powerhouse had brought in yet another top-ten recruiting class.
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Orgeron pulled in eight of the nation’s top 100 recruits according to the 247Sports player rankings. Five-star safety JaCoby Stevens, who was rated the best safety in the nation coming out of high school, was the top player in LSU’s recruiting class. He is already enrolled for spring term along with five other early high-school graduates. All but one of the Tigers’ recruits was ranked in the top 75 at his position, further marking the depth of talent pulled in by Orgeron and his staff.