Blacklock and Sewo we’re both 4 star talents coming out of HS with tons of high level offers. For 10+ years under Patterson, we were conditioned as fans to think every player he turned into something came from a 1A school in the backwoods of TX. Those days are long gone. For the last 4-5 years we’ve been recruiting and landing a handful of very highly rated recruits every year. We pretty consistently are recruiting in the top 30 which is far from exceptional but it’s still very good. That should naturally result in getting more kids drafted or at least on draft radars.
i do agree the frogs recruiting class rankings have gotten better and i do think the overall athletic ability on the roster is as good as it has been in some time
gladney is an example of a kid who was overlooked by the recruiting services and a number of other schools, he wasn't even rated in the top 100 recruits in the state of texas and you don't go in the first round of the nfl draft on grit and toughness alone.
i think the big issue when we start talking about recruits having nfl draft potential is whether or not they come to campus with the basic physical tools of their position and how things develop from there.
take niang for example. he wasn't even a top 500 national recruit, was the 50th best offensive tackle prospect in 2016 and when he showed up as a freshman you could see the massive frame and great feet.
you can be smart, you can be tough, you can have great technique, but if you are going to play tackle in the nfl you have to have those physical tools. aviante's collins, matt pryor, joey hunt, and jospeh noteboom are all examples of underrated recruits at their positions who had the physical tools for the nfl.
don't want to say they could have done nothing in ft worth and still would have made the nfl, but the reason why i don't see cordell making it is he doesn't have the massive size and/or the unique athletic ability
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