They are pulling off miracles almost daily. We sit 65th in the country in recruiting. It seems that of the 54 players we currently have, many of the transfers are (missing?) transfer rankings, so I imagine we’re actually ranked a bit higher than that. We are the number One G5 recruiters. Not only are we ahead of Boise and South Florida, we are ahead of teams like UCF, Duke, UVA, etc. More importantly though, we are number 1 in the sun belt, by a country mile. 23 point lead over 2nd place GA State.

I understand winning happens on the field, but if DLo and company get these guys coached up and disciplined, I believe in a playoff run. Let’s not forget this past year was his first year as a HC. Year 2 should be back to the APP STATE FOOTBALL we all know and love.

It’s an exciting time to be a Mountaineer!!!

I would rather have a good recruiting class than not but I want to see recruiting class rankings and next year success on the field for G5 schools. I am not convinced these rankings are all they are cracked up to be.

Let's see what we got on the field before we start getting crazy with the accolades. I hope with all my heart that you'll be right, but every year during the offseason we get all excited about how great our recruits and transfers are and then when we're not good, everyone forgets that we thought that. I'm not getting my hopes until I see the product on the field.

Let's see what happens on the field. Historically, we have won with the "diamonds in the rough", players that were overlooked, etc.
IU is showing that rankings do not matter.
Personally, I have never seen a team where several freshman contributed to be at an "all conference" level. Can they be contributors? Yes
In addition, I would like to see more OL and DL from the TP
We had and still have many holes to fill. So, getting back to an actual consistent winning record and in contention for conference championships is what I would like to see.
Not sure I see playoff run next year. Would be nice. However, we are another great HS recruiting cycle IMO to hopefully being at or near SBC championship on a consistent basis.
What I would like to see .is the team buy-in and playing hard for 60 minutes.
With that said, we seem to be doing well in recruiting.... But need more guys in the trenches that are good.. which can be the most difficult to get from the TP
Cautiously optimistic for sure .
P. S. DLo hire an OC

McLeansvilleAppFan wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 4:14 am

I would rather have a good recruiting class than not but I want to see recruiting class rankings and next year success on the field for G5 schools. I am not convinced these rankings are all they are cracked up to be.

I think our fanbase has been so accustomed to not recruiting at a high level on the rankings and striking out on all but one of our previously highly ranked players (Tucker, DBG, Spellman, Lindsay, Porter, Powers, Ellis, Alexander) that we discredit the rankings. It’s really a staggering list of how many “top ranked” players didn’t pan out in recent seasons. However, you look at the rankings and you’ll see that for the most part, it is an indication of how that program will perform. Alabama didn’t get to where they were under Saban by being 10th in the conference for recruiting.

I personally believe the difference is we are targeting players who are actually wanted by the P4 programs and other competitive G5s and not just who has their scholarship pulled by P4s (Grant Tucker for example)

I've been critical of DLo but there is certainly reason for optimism on his recruiting. I'm beginning to think it could be possible that what I think are favorable attributes in a football coach, could be different than what a 19-year-old might think. I mean, it's possible.

In this new era, recruiting is far more important than ever before. Talent evaluation is far more important than ever before. It’s clear as day, that the new staff is far better recruiters and can evaluate talent extremely well.

I mentioned this in the transfer thread, but keep an eye on the players who transfer out and end up at a P4. You’ll see that 80% or more will be recruited by the new staff and not the old.

The old staff prioritized players who could stay at App in this new era. Lesser talented so that P4s wouldn’t poach. The new staff is prioritizing talent, full stop.

This is step one of how to be successful as a G5 these days. Get kids who on paper are good talent.

Step two is to coach them and improve them. Hopefully we have more hits than misses in terms of what they can actually do on the field.

Step three is to win games, win conference titles. If we make a playoff game, that's gravy.

Step four is to send these kids they've improved off to the power schools for their payday, where hopefully they spread positive words about their time in Boone. That word starts to get around, and we become a destination for good players needing an opportunity.

Wash, rinse, repeat every year.

High school rankings rarely meant anything in the past. Every year the NFL is full of players who were “ranked” as 3 star prospects out of high school. We made quite a living off of the overlooked scrap heap. How on earth can anyone rank most of the portal players now? If more than half barely played what’s the ranking criteria? The big boy teams who can simply buy a roster can win with decent coaches but schools like App really must have coaches who know how to milk every ounce of talent from the guys they get.

ASUFan4863 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 8:46 am

In this new era, recruiting is far more important than ever before. Talent evaluation is far more important than ever before. It’s clear as day, that the new staff is far better recruiters and can evaluate talent extremely well.

I mentioned this in the transfer thread, but keep an eye on the players who transfer out and end up at a P4. You’ll see that 80% or more will be recruited by the new staff and not the old.

The old staff prioritized players who could stay at App in this new era. Lesser talented so that P4s wouldn’t poach. The new staff is prioritizing talent, full stop.

I will give you the recruiting part of that statement, but the jury is still way out on the talent evaluation part. I think year one of that was sub-par

Bigdaddyg1 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 9:19 am

High school rankings rarely meant anything in the past. Every year the NFL is full of players who were “ranked” as 3 star prospects out of high school. We made quite a living off of the overlooked scrap heap. How on earth can anyone rank most of the portal players now? If more than half barely played what’s the ranking criteria? The big boy teams who can simply buy a roster can win with decent coaches but schools like App really must have coaches who know how to milk every ounce of talent from the guys they get.

As far as nfl players it’s still true that 4 and 5 star players have a much higher hit rate then 3 and 2 star players, there’s just many more 2 and 3 stars then 4 stars.

Totally agree as far as our past of developing overlooked talent. However I do think DLo has the right strategy vis a vis the NIL era. There’s no longer 2-3 years to develop a player and then unleash him as a Rs sophomore with 2-3 years to ball out. These guys are going to transfer down to get playing time within a year or two. Also we’re only going to get 1-maybe 2 years of solid value before someone who can pay better comes along.

Talent is one thing you need, but being well trained will help you use that talent. Most sports can be carried by one or two stars; however, football is a sport that requires you to play as a team. lesser players that play as a team will win more times than a talented team that does not play as a team.

I really do think that the Indiana model or the JMU model or really the Curt Cignetti model will be followed by many schools in the future, we will see schools that have not been prominent become prominent and schools that are prominent fall by the wayside. The ones that refuse to adapt to the new era of college football will fall by the wayside. I am concerned that some of the bluebloods will change the rules to benefit themselves. Just like the college football playoffs. The NCAA has had a model for years of how to make the playoffs work but refuse to use this model. This video explains what the real problem is.



Simple take all the conference champions and the runner up from the autonomous conferences as well as the teams you know are good and put them in a playoff. End of story. Then you will really know who the number one team is...

Oh boy…another “stars don’t mean anything” thread!

ASUFan4863 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 8:44 am

McLeansvilleAppFan wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 4:14 am

I would rather have a good recruiting class than not but I want to see recruiting class rankings and next year success on the field for G5 schools. I am not convinced these rankings are all they are cracked up to be.

I think our fanbase has been so accustomed to not recruiting at a high level on the rankings and striking out on all but one of our previously highly ranked players (Tucker, DBG, Spellman, Lindsay, Porter, Powers, Ellis, Alexander) that we discredit the rankings. It’s really a staggering list of how many “top ranked” players didn’t pan out in recent seasons. However, you look at the rankings and you’ll see that for the most part, it is an indication of how that program will perform. Alabama didn’t get to where they were under Saban by being 10th in the conference for recruiting.

I personally believe the difference is we are targeting players who are actually wanted by the P4 programs and other competitive G5s and not just who has their scholarship pulled by P4s (Grant Tucker for example)

I've always felt there's a distinction in terms of how accurate the ratings are between P4's (where the services get the large majority of their audience, and therefore where they put the large majority of their resources) and everyone else.

We had enough years to know what to expect from Satt's staff and Clark's staff in terms of recruiting. Too early to say with Loggains.

As far as recruiting being "more important than ever," I'm afraid it's the opposite. Portal recruiting, yes. I'm just not sure how much HS recruiting matters at our level when most guys you sign will leave before they make a major impact, or at best will have one good year and then leave. Would love to be wrong about that, of course, but it's the case right now and I expect will continue to be unless/until there's a change in the transfer rules.

All that being said, of course, I'd rather sign a highly ranked class than a low-ranked one, all things being equal.

Edit: Agree with your last point - I think a lot of people got overly excited about the "high-ranked" recruits we got in the past who were guys that had "offers" from high-major programs in 10th grade before falling off later in their HS careers.

AppWyo wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 9:54 am

Talent is one thing you need, but being well trained will help you use that talent. Most sports can be carried by one or two stars; however, football is a sport that requires you to play as a team. lesser players that play as a team will win more times than a talented team that does not play as a team.

I really do think that the Indiana model or the JMU model or really the Curt Cignetti model will be followed by many schools in the future, we will see schools that have not been prominent become prominent and schools that are prominent fall by the wayside. The ones that refuse to adapt to the new era of college football will fall by the wayside. I am concerned that some of the bluebloods will change the rules to benefit themselves. Just like the college football playoffs. The NCAA has had a model for years of how to make the playoffs work but refuse to use this model. This video explains what the real problem is.

Simple take all the conference champions and the runner up from the autonomous conferences as well as the teams you know are good and put them in a playoff. End of story. Then you will really know who the number one team is...

The Cignetti Model right now is to play a team of men versus a team of boys. The average age of IU is 23. The Packers average age is 25. This is a really smart way to do it in this era. Let others go through the ups and downs of the teenage years, and you cherry pick the ones that have good talent and great amounts of experience.

What I wonder is how he will adapt or adjust now that he has become one of the top coaches kids want to play for. Does he go after those top level HS players or freshman transfers? Or stick with what has gotten him to this spot.

I will agree that the HS and Portal recruiting has much been better (on paper) than we have seen before. I am tempering my optimism until I see it produce on the field. Sadly, I do not have much confidence in the staff after watching this past year. Hope it was just first year jitters and next year we see improvement, something that we did not see this year.

Yes, as I've mentioned we had high hopes based on transfers last season, so I've learned to lower my hopes.
But on paper it is very good.

Stars matter at the 5 and upper 4 levels. More players from there go on to college and NFL success than anyone below them. After that it's more about buy in, the right fits and honestly some luck.

I do like Dowell's philosophies on recruiting. Multi-sport athletes, team captains and fighting for the right players. Some assistants who I feel are below-average coaches are above-average recruiters.

EastTNMountaineer wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 2:54 am

They are pulling off miracles almost daily. We sit 65th in the country in recruiting. It seems that of the 54 players we currently have, many of the transfers are (missing?) transfer rankings, so I imagine we’re actually ranked a bit higher than that. We are the number One G5 recruiters. Not only are we ahead of Boise and South Florida, we are ahead of teams like UCF, Duke, UVA, etc. More importantly though, we are number 1 in the sun belt, by a country mile. 23 point lead over 2nd place GA State.

I understand winning happens on the field, but if DLo and company get these guys coached up and disciplined, I believe in a playoff run. Let’s not forget this past year was his first year as a HC. Year 2 should be back to the APP STATE FOOTBALL we all know and love.

It’s an exciting time to be a Mountaineer!!!

He is doing a great job of closing deals and I hope that we see a huge improvement but we won't know if they are closing the right caliber players until we see them on the field. We were 5-8 and there should not be any talk of a possible playoff run, or even Sun Belt Championship, until we see that caliber of results on the field though.

T-Dog wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 12, 2026 12:00 pm

Stars matter at the 5 and upper 4 levels. More players from there go on to college and NFL success than anyone below them. After that it's more about buy in, the right fits and honestly some luck.

I do like Dowell's philosophies on recruiting. Multi-sport athletes, team captains and fighting for the right players. Some assistants who I feel are below-average coaches are above-average recruiters.

The only reason there is a facade that stars matter is because they give high stars to the usual power programs that are in the playoffs every year based on size, offers, and stats. Indiana has proven so far that those 4-5 stars don't even matter if you got the right fits for your system, good coaching, and your players play smart.

I agree on Dowell's recruiting strategy but hope he is considering change of direction and toughness like Cignetti is as well. Folks need to listen to Cignetti because he is beating the breaks off a lot of really smart coaches. I do hope that our coaches instill discipline in our guys and we see a lot less mistakes. You can't beat teams of equal or better talent if you play dumb. We have to cut down on our major mistakes to improve on our 5-8 record.