Potential RB Commit

Chicken v Egg: was the recruiting lacking or the performances of the recruits lacking?

If we are being honest, Utah doesn’t have a great track record with RB recruits. John White, transfer. DeVontae Booker, transfer. Armand Shyne, transfer. Joe Williams, transfer. Tavion Thomas, transfer. JaQuinden, transfer. Over the same period here are the RB recruits:

2011: Jarrell Oliver. No Utah stats
2011: Harvey Langi. 13 carries as true freshman. Moved to LB and transferred to the parochial school.
2012: Kelvin York. 178 carries, 736 yards (4.1), 9 TD’s in 2012-2013.
2013: Troy McCormick. 79 carries, 432 yards (5.5), 3 TD’s, 36 catches, 292 yards (8.1), 2 TD’s in 2014-2017.
2013: Dre’Vian Young. Committed, not sure he ever enrolled.
2013: Jordan Howard. 13 carries, 67 yards (5.2) in 2017-2018.
2015: Marcel Brown. No Utah stats.
2016: Zack Moss. ‘nuf said.
2016: Devontae Henry-Cole. 43 carries, 194 yards (4.5), 2 TD’s in 2017-2018. Transferred to the parochial school and aggieland
2017: TJ Green. 59 carries, 258 yards (4.4), 1 TD in 2018-2019. Transferred to Liberty.
2018: Devin Brumfield. 96 carries, 390 yards (4.1) 3 TD’s. Transferred to Tulane.
2018: Branden Rankins. No Utah stats.
2019: Jordan Wilmore. 67 carries, 248 yards (3.6), 1 TD in 2019-2020. Transferred to Fresno, then aggieland.
2019: Micah Bernard. 2021 Rose Bowl should put him in Ute HOF. Otherwise, 208 carries, 1132 (5.4) 6 TD’s, 64 catches, 590 yards (5.2), 3 TD’s to date.
2020: Ty Jordan. What could have been.,,
2021: Ricky Parks. No Utah stats. Currently enjoying pina colada’s in the portal.
2022: Jaylon Glover. Good showing for a true freshman. Needs to step it up or get passed by the newbies.

I have high hopes for Randle, Stanley and Mitchell. However, I would give the staff 3 wins out of 17 recruits (Deuce, Deuce-deuce, and half credit each for Bernard and Glover). The odds are likelier that Utah will find it’s next great running back out of the portal than anyone they recruit.

I’m not sure his weight is an issue, but he doesn’t seem to be as fast/quick as you would hope a 4 star 180 lb guy would be. I’m not suggesting he would be a bad pickup. I trust our coaches, but my untrained eye just doesn’t see how he is a 4 star player based on the one highlight video I watched.

I don’t worry about this because the coaches do. I remember an interview with Peterson from TCU where they questioned his strategy to recruit a high number of HS QBs and RBs. It came up when he had a DE that became an AA but was a HS QB or RB. He explained in Texas most often the best 2 athletes on the team are the QB and RB regardless of their natural position. He would then allow them to move to their natural position with great success. Things have changed somewhat with HS coaches moving that forward more but we still see plenty of position changes moving into college. Next, we don’t know anything about an individual’s access to nutrition and what may be expected when they get access to a quality training table. Our coaches do a deep dive into the potential of our recruits. To fans, a great athlete like Chase Hansen may just look like an extra QB we didn’t need.